man once more, he hurried to the telephone.
'Command Post, quick… Leonard here. General Alarm. Seal the gate. Private Deering is at large somewhere in the camp. He is an enemy agent. Arrest him. Get cracking. I'm coming along to you straight away.'
Before he had finished speaking the hooters had set up their steady high-pitched clamor, as at the sighting of Jagger's helicopter that morning. Acting on a strong but vague impulse, Leonard snatched his raincoat from its hook behind the door and flung it over the mess of exposed secrets on his bed. That done, he ran out of the room and down the stairs.
The hall was full of colorfully attired officers shouting questions and speculations at one another. Leonard shouldered his way through and gained the Command Post. Jagger, Hunter and Ross-Donaldson followed him in.
'What happened?' everybody seemed to be asking him.
'It's Deering, my batman. I found him going through my files in my room. I fought him but he escaped. He's our man all right. He can't get away.'
'Any idea where he is, sir?' asked the duty sergeant-major.
The rapid battering of a heavy-caliber automatic weapon started up from somewhere above them. All present turned reflexively to the television screens on the walls. One of them showed considerable chips of concrete flying off part of the wall of Hut D4. On another, a sentry, half doubled up, was just running out of shot.
'Well, we know where he is now, don't we?' said Ross-Donaldson. 'He must have gone straight up to the roof. A good position for maximally destructive self-terminating improvisation.'
Another burst sounded overhead, though without effect visible to those in the Command Post. Hunter started for the door.
'Where are you off to, old lad?' asked Jagger.
'Take a look out front. Can't see anything from here.'
With Ross-Donaldson close behind, Hunter ran down the hall to the front door. Here a group that included the Colonel and Ayscue was in rapid internal movement, some of those still inside the threshold pushing outwards, those beyond it halted or stepping back as the machine-gun started firing again. Hunter and Ross- Donaldson squeezed past and moved along the outside wall until they were almost directly beneath Deering's position. A familiar voice, the tension in it sounding through the amplification, bawled out over the public-address system.
'Leonard speaking. Keep down, everybody. Camp patrol to concentrate at northern gable end of farmhouse. Take your time. Don't expose yourselves unnecessarily.'
'That's sound enough, anyway,' said Ross-Donaldson. 'From the northern end they'll be able to move round and take him in the rear.'
'I liked the bit about exposure, too.'
Figures were moving among the huts beside the main track. A civilian vehicle of some sort was halted there, its windshield reflecting the evening sun. The gun opened up, sounding shockingly loud and near to the two under the wall, and the reflection seemed to vanish. The figures went to ground.
'Somebody'll get killed if this goes on,' whispered Hunter when the gun had stopped. 'No doubt there's a silly little man down there thirsting for a decoration. Deering'll murder them if they get much nearer. Let's see… Ah yes. Would you give me a hand up here?'
He indicated a nearby drainpipe, from the top of which a short crawl across sloping tiles would bring him to the machine-gun post.
'You'll get your head blown off,' said Ross-Donaldson.
'I think not. He won't be able to depress that thing far enough to bring it to bear, and it'll take him much too long to get it off its mounting, even if he knows how to. Come on, Alastair.'
Ross-Donaldson offered his shoulders and Hunter soon had his head above the level of the gutter. Deering was about fifteen feet above and to the right, blinking along the gun-barrel. A pair of boot-soles and an outflung arm presumably belonged to the man who had been on duty at the post. Hunter spread his hands on the gutter and set about heaving himself up. A part of the gutter gave with a creaking sound. Deering heard, looked and saw him. Without touching the machine-gun, the man reached behind him and picked up a machine-pistol, no doubt the property of the unconscious guard. Before he could swing its muzzle round, Hunter was below the level of the gutter. He hung there, listening carefully. When he heard the scrape of metal or shoe-leather on the tiles above he dropped straight to the ground, shouting to Ross-Donaldson to run.
They both ran. There was no burst of machine-pistol fire from behind them. Instead they heard a machine-gun, though not from Deering's position. Without any clear idea of how they got there, they found themselves behind the lee of a corner of Hut D4, where a solitary corporal lay full length.
'That was kind of him,' shouted Hunter, indicating the machine-gun post aloft in the meadow. 'Saved our bacon.'
'What?' yelled Ross-Donaldson as the gun continued to fire.
Hunter flapped his hand and started crawling to the corner of the hut. As he did so the clamor of heavy-caliber ammunition suddenly doubled. For a few intolerable seconds the two machine-guns continued to shoot it out, then the one in the meadow fell silent. Smoke and sparks and chips of flying stuff could be seen around it. After a moment, while Deering fired on, somebody started descending the steel ladder that led down to the meadow. Hunter turned quickly and snatched up the corporal's machine-pistol from where it lay beside him. The man's mouth started moving largely. Hunter moved round the hut into full view of Deering and fired a burst at him from the shoulder. He missed, but there was immediate silence as Deering shifted his sights to the new target. Hunter fired again and saw brick dust rising from the farmhouse roof. A moment later he was startled by the tremendous noise through the air about him made by what Deering was shooting. A moment later still a hand seized his arm and pulled him back into cover. The machine-gun stopped at once.
'No need to overdo it,' said Ross-Donaldson. 'That chap's down the ladder now and away. I must say he might have opened up in the first place a little sooner than he did. And why didn't he stick it out where he
