sighting him.
'Holy God!' said Winston. 'It's a dead end!'
Butler turned. They had travelled no more than two or three yards down a passage almost as narrow as the alleyway they'd left behind. But now directly in front of them was a pair of heavy wooden doors.
Audley sprang out of the jeep and ran to the doors. For a second he rattled the iron handle on one of them, then he hammered desperately on them with his fists.
'Open up, open up! Ouvrez, for God's sake—
Butler ran back up the passage, fumbling in his ammunition pouch for a fresh magazine. There was no time to take a preliminary look out, he could already hear the hammering of iron-shod boots.
One thing at least, he thought as he snapped the magazine home: a left-facing corner gave better cover than a right-facing one—he could fire round it without showing the whole of his body.
The jeep's engine roared again, and an instant later there was a loud crash from behind him.
He stepped half into the open, swinging the Sten into the firing position.
The enemy—
They were there in plain sight, thirty yards down the alley, but even before he could fire they seemed to vanish into convenient doorways—he marvelled that human beings could move so quickly as he opened fire on the emptiness.
Another crash behind him.
'It's no good,' shouted Audley. 'They're too strong!'
Something sailed through the air from down the alley to bounce off the wall of a house two yards below him. He shrank back round his corner, pressing himself flat against the wall behind him. The house shook with a sudden deafening concussion.
He sprang out into the alley again and emptied the Sten into a cloud of dust.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'Come on, Butler,' Audley shouted at him. 'We're making a run for it—'
The jeep was jammed up close to the wooden doors. Sergeant Winston was nowhere to be seen—Butler looked around stupidly.
There was a strong smell of petrol—
'Over the gates—on the jeep and over the gates,' Audley urged him.
Butler leapt onto the bonnet of the jeep and threw himself over the top of the wooden doors. As he did so he had a vision of a great white angel with high folded wings stretching out its arms to welcome him.
Then he landed with a bone-jarring thud beside Sergeant Winston, who was crouched beside the gates slopping petrol out of a jerrycan.
Audley dropped beside them.
Another grenade exploded behind them somewhere.
Sergeant Winston clicked his cigarette lighter in the puddle of petrol, which ignited with an explosive
'Let's get the hell out of here,' said Winston.
The wooden doors shook and a great tongue of orange flame rose above them.
'Holy God! Come on, Corporal!' said Winston, dragging at Butler's arm.
'Steady on.' Audley took Butler's other arm. 'That first grenade almost got him, I think—come on, Butler . . . it's time to be moving, old lad.'
Butler had been staring at the beautiful white angel, whose arms were still raised in welcome. He felt himself being lifted and swivelled —now there was a great white cross in front of him.
Something stung his cheek.
He was in a monumental mason's yard, just like the one in Inkerman Street, which he'd passed a thousand times on his way to school.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'Sorry.' He shook his head. 'I'm all right, sir.'
'Well, you won't be for long,' said Winston. 'If we don't get out of here soon we're gonna have to find a real good excuse for disturbing the peace—'
They were running.
White blocks of marble ... a door in a wall—Sergeant Winston kicked it open ... a vegetable garden—
rows of French beans—Butler giggled at the sight of them, because if there was anywhere in the world where there ought to be rows of French beans it was in a French vegetable patch . . . and beetroot, with red-veined leaves, and fine big savoys, better even than in the general's garden.
The garden ended in a trim little hedge: Audley went through it as though he still had a tank around him.
Butler followed him and found himself in a dusty little lane, with an open vineyard on the far side of it.
