For the sword outwears its sheath,

approached silently, neither legs nor arms breaking water, until he saw the vague shape of a man standing on the poop, just aft of the engine-room hatchway. He was immobile, staring out in the direction of the fortress and the upper town: Mallory slowly circled round the stern of the boat and came up behind him, on the other side. Carefully he removed his hat, took out the gun, caught the low gunwale with his left hand. At the range of seven feet he knew he couldn't possibly miss, but he couldn't shoot the man, not then. The guard-rails were token affairs only, eighteen inches high at the most, and the splash of the man falling into the water would almost certainly alert the guards at the harbour mouth emplacements. "If you move I will kill you!" Mallory said softly in German. The man stiffened. He had a carbine in his hand, Mallory saw. "Put the gun down. Don't turn round." Again the man obeyed, and Mallory was out of the water and on to the deck, in seconds, neither eye nor automatic straying from the man's back. He stepped softly forward, reversed the automatic, struck, caught the man before he could fall overboard and lowered him quietly to the deck. Three minutes later all the others were safely aboard. Mallory followed the limping Brown down to the engine-room, watched him as he switched on his hooded torch, looked around with a professional eye, looked at the big, gleaming, six-cylinder in line Diesel engine. "This," said Brown reverently, "is an engine. What a beauty! Operates on any number of cylinders you like. I know the type, sir." "I never doubted but you would. Can you start her up, Casey?" "Just a minute till I have a look round, sir." Brown had all the unhurried patience of the born engineer. Slowly, methodically, he played the spotlight round the immaculate interior of the engine-room, switched on the fuel and turned to Mallory. "A dual control job, sir. We can take her from up top." He carried out the same painstaking inspection in the wheel-house, while Mallory waited impatiently. The rain was easing off now, not much, but sufficiently to let him see the vague outlines of the harbour entrance. He wondered for the tenth time if the guards there had been alerted against the possibility of an attempted escape by boat. It seemed unlikelyfrom the racket Andrea was making, the Germans would think that escape was the last thing in their minds. ... He leaned forward, touched Brown on the shoulder. "Twenty past eleven, Casey," he murmured. "If these destroyers come through fuji f40fd digital camera reviews early we're apt to have a thousand tons of rock falling on our heads." "Ready now, sir," Brown announced. He gestured at the crowded dashboard beneath the screen. "Nothing to it really." "I'm glad you think so," Mallory murmured fervently. "Start her moving, will you? Just keep it slow and easy." Brown coughed apologetically. "We're still moored to the buoy. And it might be a good thing, sir, if we checked on the fixed guns, searchlights, signalling lamps, life-jackets and buoys. It's useful to know where these things are," he finished deprecatorily. Mallory laughed softly, clapped him on the shoulder. "You'd make a great diplomat, Chief. We'll do that" A landsman first and last, Mallory was none the less aware of the gulf that stretched between him and a man like Brown, made no bones about acknowledging it to himself. "Will you take her out, Casey?" "Right, sir. Would you ask Louki to come hereI think it's steep to both sides, but there may be snags or reefs. You never know." Three minutes later the launch was half-way to the harbour mouth, purring along softly on two cylinders, Mallory and Miller, still clad in German uniform, standing on the deck for'ard of the wheelhouse, Louki crouched low inside the wheelhouse itself. Suddenly, about sixty yards away, a signal lamp began to flash at them, its urgent clacking quite audible in the stillness of the night "Dan'l Boone Miller will now show how it's done," Miller muttered. He edged closer to the machine-gun on the starboard bow. "With my little gun. I shall . . ." He broke off sharply, his voice lost in the sudden clacking from the wheelhouse behind him, the staccato off-beat chattering of a signal shutter triggered by professional fingers. Brown had handed the wheel over to Louki, was morsing back to the harbour entrance, the cold rain lancing palely through the ifickering beams of the lamp. The enemy lamp had stopped but now began flashing again.. "My, they got a lot to say to each other," Miller said admiringly. "How long do the exchange of courtesies last, boss?" "I should say they are just about finished." Mallory moved back quickly to the wheelhouse. They were less than a hundred feet from the harbour entrance. Brown had confused the enemy, gained precious seconds, more time than Mallory had ever thought they could gain. But it couldn't last. He touched Brown on the arm. "Give her