The Legion of the Lost, стр. 18
The girl stopped; Drusilla dabbed the scratches. Raffleck looked down at the girl, who was perhaps twenty but might have been two or three years older. She was not beautiful, but even what she had experienced that night could not rob her face of charm which tore at Drusilla’s heart.
‘You are safe now,’ Drusilla said.
‘I am safe!’ said the girl. She shuddered. ‘But Mama—she—she is dead. The other man killed her, he shot at her. Then I flew at him and knocked the gun from his hand. He tried to catch me but I ran. I flung the door in his face and then I ran again. But I should have stayed behind for Mama. I should have looked after her, although—the bullet went into her face,’ she sobbed.
‘You could have done nothing by staying,’ said Drusilla.
She took a ring of safety-pins from a small pocket in her skirt and began to fasten the girl’s dress, while Raffleck, knowing that there was nothing he could do then, went to the door.
Palfrey was nearest it and as the Norwegian stepped into the darkness Palfrey said quickly: ‘Don’t move, please.’
Raffleck stood quite still.
Palfrey strained his ears to catch a repetition of a sound he thought he had heard. There was no mistaking it; someone was hurrying towards the hut from the north – and the hills. As he lumbered onwards, drawing rapidly nearer, Olaf came to Palfrey’s side and gasped: ‘It is not the pastor, for he does not come that way!’
The blundering footsteps grew louder. Then a torch was switched on, carving a single beam of light through the darkness. It missed all of the waiting men but shone on the hut. There was a pause before the man holding the torch uttered a guttural oath in German and, keeping the torch steady, came on.
Chapter Eight
Palfrey is Disquieted
Palfrey, Raffleck and Olaf moved away from the advancing beam, trying to see the man who held it. Palfrey was toying with the idea of going forward and distracting the man’s attention so that Olaf could attack him, when there was another sound – a scuffle of feet on the gravel just behind the German. The latter swung on his heel so that the light shone on Brian, who was close to the man. The latter, crying out, tried to defend himself, but Palfrey caught a glimpse of Brian using his gun as a club before the torch went out.
They heard the thud; a scuffling sound followed.
After what seemed a long time, Brian called: ‘It’s all right.’
He was standing over the unconscious body of a German soldier, a big, blond creature whose hat was by his side and whose temple was swelling where the gun had struck him. Brian stood up and said thoughtfully: ‘He won’t come round for a bit. I wonder if he’s on his own?’
‘It seems like it,’ said Palfrey. ‘Olaf—’
‘A moment, please!’ said Olaf in an urgent voice.
This time, when they stopped, the silence was broken by someone who was within a few feet of them. Palfrey, prepared for further emergency action, heard Pastor Martin’s voice.
‘What is happening?’ Martin drew nearer, but when Brian switched on the torch which he had taken from the ground, the pastor said quickly: ‘No light, please!’ He listened as Palfrey told him briefly what had happened, then went on: ‘I will see the child, we must learn if there are more besides this man to come. This one must not live,’ added the pastor, quietly, ‘but there must be no signs that he was killed here.’
He turned away and went into the hut.
Conroy spoke softly at Palfrey’s side.
‘It looks as if another Hun is going to know what hell’s like, Sap. What do we do? Draw lots for the privilege?’
‘There is no need for that,’ said Raffleck quietly. ‘I have a hypodermic syringe charged for such a contingency—although I expected to use it on myself.’ His voice was quite calm and dispassionate. ‘Allow me, please.’ When he straightened up there was a lighter note in his voice. ‘That is all he will need. He will be dead within an hour. I have given him a strong dose of insulin. It will be best to take him to the cottage from whence he came, for then it will look as if they were both killed together.’
Martin, emerging from the hut, said: ‘How was he killed? Strangled? But would a child like Hilde—it is Hilde Silversen, Olaf, from the cottage—have the strength to strangle him?’ Urgently, Martin went on: ‘You have not used a knife? It is difficult to erase all signs of blood, and there will be a widespread search when the men are discovered to be missing.’
‘Steady,’ said Palfrey reassuringly. ‘There will be no trace of how he was killed, Pastor, except a small puncture in the skin. If he were to be dropped from a height soon, his neck would be broken.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Martin, smiling in the darkness, ‘that will answer all questions, except—’ he paused – ‘the safety of Hilde.’
‘She’s hardly a heavyweight,’ said Palfrey slowly. ‘We’ll have room for her. But I’d like to know a little more about her.’ He waited while the pastor appeared to marshal his thoughts.
Martin spoke simply.
The Silversens had been like thousands of other families in the west of Norway, united, contented; the father farming his poor ground, but making a better living out of his