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They had gone a mile, perhaps, when Skelton's agonised voice burst its barriers: "I couldn't I couldn't stand it to hear the shots!" "I ain't heard no shots," remarked Macniff. There had been no shots fired.... And now in the ghastly light of dawn the Germans on Mount Terrible continued methodically the course of German justice.
"Why don't they shoot her and be done?" he murmured huskily. And, later: "I can't make out what they're doing. Can you, Harry?" But Skelton neither answered nor stirred. After a while he rose, not looking around, and strode off down the eastern slope, his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. Macniff slouched after him, listening for the end.
Macniff looked up at the carved wooden image, then, at a word from Skelton, dropped the girl's limp arm. The girl opened her eyes and stood swaying there, dazed. Skelton began to laugh in an unearthly way: "Where the hell are you Germans?" he called out. "Come out of your holes, damn you. Here's one of your own kind who's sold us all out to the Yankees!"
The business was so grotesquely outrageous, so utterly and disgustingly hopeless in its surprise and untimelines, that McKay's sharp laugh rang out under the sky. There they were, the same trespassers of the morning, squatted on the heather at the base of Isla Craig a vast heap of rocks their machine drawn up in the tall green brakes beside the road. The flashy, fat man, Macniff, had the banjo.
Yet they had to cross the peak; they dared not remain in a forest where they believed Recklow was hunting them with many men and their renegade comrade, Helsa, to guide them. As they toiled upward, Macniff heard Skelton fiercely muttering sometimes, sometimes whining curses on this girl who had betrayed them both who had betrayed him in particular.
Macniff sneered as he slouched by her: "They're Germans, ain't they? Wot are you squealin' for?" "Harry! Harry!" she wailed for her own countrymen had her now, held her fast, thrust a dozen pig-eyed scowling visages close to hers, muttering, making animal sounds at her. Once she screamed. But Skelton seated himself on a rock, his back toward her, his head buried in his hands.
Over and over again he repeated his dreary litany: "No, by God, I didn't think she'd do it to me. All I want is to get my hooks on her; that's all I want just that." Toward dawn they had reached the base of the cone where the last rocky slope slanted high above them. "Cripes," panted Macniff, "I can't make that over them rocks! I gotta take it by the path. Wot's the matter, Harry?
She stopped, stepped nearer, peered into Skelton's shadowy face: "Harry! What's the matter? Wh-why do you look at me that way what are you doing! Let go of me " But Skelton had seized her by one arm and Macniff had her by the other. "Are you crazy?" she demanded, struggling between them.
Suddenly he started up the path to the summit dragging the half-conscious girl. Macniff ran along on the other side to help. "Wot y' goin' to do with her, Harry?" he panted. "I ain't got no stomach for scraggin' her. I ain't for no knifin'. W'y don't you shove her off the top?"
The girl sat between him and the thin man, Skelton. "Ah, there, old scout!" called out Macniff, flourishing one hand toward McKay. "Lovely evening, ain't it? Won't you and the wife join us?" There was absolutely nothing to reply to such an invitation.
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