The car halted and Allison shouted again, making his voice gruff. He got the pa.s.sword and snapped permission to advance. The car charged forward in a surge of speed that made Allison leap aside.

From the darkness beside the road Stan had moved in. He saw that there were three men in the car, counting the driver. He also saw the shadowy form of Arno closing in on the other side. A tall officer climbed out.

He snapped an order at Allison. Allison backed away a few steps to allow the other two officers to get out. Stan had moved up and Arno had a gun barrel shoved into the neck of the driver. Tony leaped forward with his gun ready.

"Get your hands up!" he snapped and Allison gave the same order in German at the same instant.

Startled grunts came from the three officers. One of them reached for his pistol. Allison's gun barrel came down over his head and the officer pitched forward. The other two elevated their hands.

The boys closed in and took away the men's side arms. They helped themselves to caps and light topcoats and belts, then they bound and gagged the officers. The ranking officer, a colonel, was furious. Until the gag stopped his mouth he poured forth a stream of angry abuse.

With the officers laid out far back in the bushes, Arno donned the driver's cap and jacket. They were ready for the real adventure, cracking the gates of the German prison camp.

"You know the roads, so you take over, Arno," Stan said.

"Shall we drive right through and into the front yard of the big house?"

Arno asked.

"Is there a back yard?" Stan asked.

"A very s.p.a.cious one, but with a high stone fence around it and only one gate, though it is a very wide gate," Arno answered.

"There is the stone pa.s.sageway to the wine cellars," Tony put in.

"We don't want to be caught in any wine cellar," Allison answered.

"We have to figure on fast work. The dirty work we've done here will be discovered within a few hours, then they'll be after us," Stan said.

"I know the house and I think I know the spot where prisoners will be held. The Germans always take the best rooms for themselves. I think they will hold my father in the servants quarters at the back of the house. I have even decided which room he will be given. There is one having no running water and very little light."

"We'll have a look there first," Stan said. "If we park in the back we'll be near to those rooms?"

"Yes," Arno answered. "We can reach them through a narrow hallway without entering the main part of the house."

"O.K., driver, move on."

Arno started the car and they rolled down the road at a fast pace. Stan could not see the road but Arno knew every turn. They soon swung into a long driveway and headed toward a big stone gate with machine gunners at each side. Sentries armed with rifles paced back and forth across the opening.

"Here goes!" Stan snapped. "Try your German on the boys. If you flop, we start shooting our way in."

Arno charged up in the best German manner of driving an official car.

The heavy machine guns on each side of the gate converged on the car and one of the sentries bellowed an order.

CHAPTER XIII

NIGHT RAID

Arno did not put on his brakes until he had forced the guards at the gate back two paces. Allison leaned out over the door, his cap pulled down over his eyes. He bellowed loudly in German, blurring a string of words together and winding up with the pa.s.sword from the outside post.

He was taking a chance that that was the pa.s.sword for the whole area.

The guards backed away, presented arms, and jerked into stiff positions of attention. Arno lost no time in shooting the car through the gates.

They entered a shadowy courtyard where the light was dim. The Yank raid on Bolero Villa, just over the hill, had caused every post in the vicinity to be blacked out.

"We are under the window of the room," Arno said in a low voice.

"There's a guard down the wall a ways," Allison said. "I'll give you fellows a calling-down in German to make the guard think I'm really on the warpath, then we'll march right in."

"Perhaps I had better try the window while you are trying the door,"

Tony said. "You might have trouble. There will be plenty of light inside."

Allison raised his voice and began berating the boys in German.

"_Schwinehund!_" he bellowed and followed that up with other choice words of abuse. He had a bright idea and added that he was going to find the man who had handled the blackout. He said he could see light from the back hallway all the way out to the road.

Instantly they heard the guard moving toward the back door.

"Now's our chance," Allison whispered. "I said we could see light from the back hallway. We'll make them douse the lights."

They headed toward the back door and stomped up the wide steps. The guard opened the door and they saw that the hallway was dark. Allison roared at the fellow and he came to a stiff salute, presenting arms.

"General Bolero," Allison snapped. "We would speak to him."

The boys did not understand, but they caught the general's name and had an idea. The guard protested but Allison thrust several papers at him.

He had taken the papers from the officer's pocket but had no idea what they were. When the man started to use a pocket flashlight to read the papers, Allison smashed the light out of his hand, roaring at him about the blackout.

The soldier was thoroughly cowed. He turned and started down the hallway with the boys close behind him. Tony had found the window barred on the outside and had joined the others. He nudged Stan as they halted before a door. It was the very room Arno had said his father would be kept in.

The guard unlocked the door. As it opened, a flood of light shone over the men. The general's window had been boarded up, so he was allowed a light. He was sitting at a little table writing. Stan did not wait to see any more. He knew the guard was wise the moment he saw the raiders in the bright light. Their shoes and trousers gave them away as well as their faces. Stan had moved along very close to the guard. His arm went out in a perfect commando attack and before the guard had time to shout he was silenced and heaved into the room.

In an instant Tony was across the room and in his father's arms. Arno stood beside them gripping one of the general's arms. The general looked over Tony's shoulder at Stan and Allison.

"I am honored," he said.

"Turn out the light," Stan ordered.

The general shoved Tony aside and switched off the light. "You have taken greater chances than you should. I am hardly worth the effort."

When he had ceased speaking they listened. Several men were moving down the hall, talking in angry voices.

"That is the commandant of this post. I know his voice. He has with him a number of his officers," the general said in a low voice.

"They'll wonder where the other guard is," Stan said. "We better jerk the boards off that window and get out of here."

"That cannot be done," the general said. "They are planks, not boards, and they are spiked to the outside of the house."

Allison had opened the door a crack. "They have turned on the light.