spraying you people. I reached him in time to spoil his aim. Friend of yours?”
“You’re an American,” the boy said. “I’m Lionel Grantham. This is Colonel Einarson. We’re very grateful to you.” He screwed up his forehead and looked at Einarson. “What do you think of it?”
The officer shrugged his shoulders, growled, “One of my children—we’ll see,” and kicked the ribs of the man on the ground.
The kick brought the soldier to life. He sat up, rolled over on hands and knees, and began a broken, long-winded entreaty, plucking at the Colonel’s tunic with dirty hands.
“Ach!” Einarson knocked the hands down with a tap of pistol barrel across knuckles, looked with disgust at the muddy marks on his tunic, and growled an order.
The soldier jumped to his feet, stood at attention, got another order, did an about-face, and marched to the automobile. Colonel Einarson strode stiff-legged behind him, holding his automatic to the man’s back. Grantham put a hand on my arm.
“Come along,” he said. “We’ll thank you properly and get better acquainted after we’ve taken care of this fellow.”
Colonel Einarson got into the driver’s seat, with the soldier beside him. Grantham waited while I found the soldier’s revolver. Then we got into the rear seat. The officer looked doubtfully at me out of his eye-corners, but said nothing. He drove the car back the way it had come. He liked speed, and we hadn’t far to go. By the time we were settled in our seats the car was whisking us through a gateway in a high stone wall, with a sentry on each side presenting arms. We did a sliding half-circle into a branching driveway and jerked to a standstill in front of a square whitewashed building.