As he took another step forward a terrified shout came from the cottage. At the sound he halted again. He was standing within two feet of a clapboard wall that formed the far side of the living room and could well imagine what must now be happening in there.
Setting his mouth grimly, he advanced towards the nearer motor-cycle,, thinking as he did so that it might just as easily have been himself who was being beaten up. Had it been, Malacou, with his dread of physical violence, would certainly not have attempted to rescue him. No; it was bad enough that his contact with the occultist had led to his becoming stranded and penniless many hundreds of miles from any escape route to a neutral country. He would need all the resource and stamina he possessed to keep clear of trouble himself.
When he was within six feet of the machine, a piercing scream rang out. Again he halted in his tracks. That hideous sound could mean only one thing. Those swinish Germans were not merely beating up the unfortunate Jew; they had started in to wring a confession from him. Gregory's stomach seemed to turn over. Yet, horrible as was the mental picture of Malacou being tortured, he steeled himself to ignore it.
Another scream echoed through the silent night. A cold sweat broke out on Gregory's forehead. He was seized by a fit of nausea and closed his eyes. A moment later he told himself that the ghastly treatment now being meted out to Malacou could be no worse than that inflicted on hundreds of other people in the countries over which the beast named Hitler ruled. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and had got hold of himself again. With renewed resolution he advanced to the motor-cycle and knelt down beside it with the intention of removing the sparking plug. As he reached out for the leather toolbag behind the saddle he realized that his hands were slimy with sweat and trembling so much that he could not undo its buckle…
Scream after scream came from the cottage. Gregory was shaken by a shudder. In a hoarse voice he let out an unprintable Italian oath that he used only at times of extreme distress. Then he began to curse Malacou. The occultist had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance met with in the course of a secret mission. He was a practitioner of bestial rites, had forced his daughter to commit incest with him and had driven her to suicide. He had robbed the von Alterns and by his evil machinations brought about Herman Hauff's death. He had held Gregory at Sassen against his will and to protect himself had even been prepared to murder him rather than let him fall alive into the hands of the Nazis. Lastly, that very night it had been his attempt to get away from Poland that had landed Gregory in this wretched situation. Few people could have less claim to Gregory's pity, let alone by his misfortune saddle him with the moral responsibility of attempting his rescue at the peril of his own life.
Frantic to get away and be done with this nightmare episode, Gregory continued to fumble with the tool satchel. He got the buckle undone but his sweaty fingers could not find the spanner needed to unscrew the sparking plug. Yet to ride off on one machine and leave the other still capable of functioning would, he knew, immensely reduce his chances of evading capture.
As he knelt there Malacou's whimpering cries continued to come clearly to him. Punctuated by brief intervals during which even his choking gasps for breath could be faintly heard, he gave tongue to imprecations, long-drawn-out groans and gabbled pleading. Gregory's hands dropped to his sides and he stood up. However evil and worthless the man who was being tortured, he could stand it no longer.
Yet his sudden decision to intervene, whatever the cost to himself, did not prevent him from exercising his habitual caution. Planting each foot carefully, so that its crunch was barely audible, he walked round the house. When he reached the front door he got out and cocked his automatic. Stepping softly into the hall, he peered through the inch-wide crack between the door jamb and the living-room door. The sight that he glimpsed through it did not surprise him. It served only to harden his cold rage against those thousands of Germans whom Hitler had turned into beasts more ferocious and pitiless than any to be met with in the wildest jungle.
Although to him it had seemed an age, probably less than two minutes had elapsed since he had heard Malacou's first screams; so the wretched man had not yet fainted from the agony to which he was being subjected. One square-faced blond young brute was holding the Jew's arms pinioned behind his back, while the other, who had his back to Gregory, was holding a cigarette lighter under Malacou's chin.
With his left hand Gregory thrust the door wide open. Lifting his right, he shot the nearer Nazi through the back of the head. In a second the tableau dissolved into a mass of whirling arms and legs. The head of the shot, man jerked forward and spurted blood. Then he crashed to the floor. The other thug released Malacou and grabbed for his gun. Malacou, maddened by pain, his eyes starting from his head, heaved himself forward, tripped on the fallen Nazi then cannoned into Gregory. At the moment they collided Gregory fired his second shot. The man who had been holding Malacou had his pistol out but had not had time to take aim. To escape Gregory's shot he flung himself sideways, crashed heavily into a dresser at that side of the room, failed to recover his balance and fell sprawling on top of his dead comrade.
For a moment Gregory had been in complete command of the situation… But only for a moment. Malacou's blind charge to get through the door and escape had thrown him, too, off balance. Just as he fired, Malacou, with arms flung wide, had come hurtling at him. His pistol hand was knocked up and sideways. With a sickening thud it hit the door jamb, breaking the skin of his knuckles. He gave a gasp of pain and the pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers.
Malacou, bellowing with fear and pain, ducked beneath his outstretched arm, brushed past him and, still howling, dashed through the front door out into the darkness. Even as Gregory cursed the Jew his eyes remained fixed on the surviving Nazi. He had scrambled to his knees and still held his gun. Before he could lift it Gregory leapt forward and kicked him in the face.
With a yelp he went over backwards. His pistol- exploded and the bullet brought some of the china crashing down from the dresser. Losing not a second Gregory stepped over the body of the man he had shot and, as the other Nazi came up on his knees, kicked him in the crotch. From his bleeding mouth there issued an agonized wail, his eyes seemed about to start from his head, he dropped his gun, clutched at his testicles and bent right forward. Berserk with hatred for these blond beasts that Hitler had let loose upon the world, Gregory kicked the man's head with his heavy shoe then, after he had slid to the floor, kicked it again and again until it was a mass of blood with the temple stove in and he was undoubtedly dead.
When Gregory at last ceased kicking a sudden silence descended on the cottage. Breathing hard from his exertions he stood there surveying the shambles about him. Gradually, as he sucked the bleeding knuckles of his right hand, his frenzy subsided. He felt no compunction for what he had done; only a sense of relief that he had emerged victorious and without serious injury from such a violent and uneven conflict. Walking to the door he shouted for Malacou, but there came no reply. Evidently the pain-crazed Jew had made off in the darkness and was hiding somewhere in the marshes. In view of what had taken place in the cottage it now seemed unlikely that he would again risk returning to it.
As Gregory stood there in the open doorway he suddenly recalled the foreknowledge about which the occultist had been so greatly concerned when at Sassen. His stars had foretold that at about this time in 1944 he would be in grave danger of death, but would be saved by Gregory. At the thought Gregory grinned wryly. The prophecy had come true. All against his better judgement he had found himself compelled to rescue Malacou. But whether, now that he was again, on the run, he would succeed in evading capture was quite another matter. Whether he did or not meant nothing to Gregory. Brushing the Jew from his mind, he turned back into the cottage to deal with matters there.