Castle of the Eagles by Felton Mark;

Author:Felton, Mark;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Published: 2017-02-08T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

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The Ghost Goes West

‘I don’t believe any party of would-be escapers ever worked harder or more consistently than ours, and this included all those grand fellows who helped for the sake of helping with no hope of participating in the final break-out.’

Brigadier James Hargest

‘He’s away!’1 hissed Jim Hargest in a fierce whisper to Miles and Combe, who had resumed sitting on the stone bench. Hargest looked to his left. Sentry No. 1 was still lingering above Pip Stirling’s bonfire, looking down at the flames. Hargest glanced along the battlement walkway to his right. Sentry No. 2 was looking to his right, the 40 paces back to where Dick O’Connor had entered the embrasure. Something was wrong.2 The guard started to walk towards Dick’s position, unslinging his Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm rifle. Hargest knew in that instant that the sentry had seen something. Hargest realised he had to be stopped, and fast.

Hargest turned back and whispered to Miles: ‘Sentry No. 2 has seen something. Go quickly and intercept him and for goodness sake keep his attention.’3 Miles immediately tried to catch the guard’s attention, but the sentry was completely focused on the flash of white he had seen by the embrasure and ignored the big South African.

What the sentry had seen out of the corner of his eye was a flash of one of O’Connor’s hands or a piece of his clothing as the General had struggled for those extra few seconds with the wooden block and its twisted rope.4 The sentry went to the nearest embrasure and leaned out, gasping in surprise. A small figure dressed in nondescript clothing and carrying a leather suitcase strapped to his back like a rucksack was most of the way down a brown rope.

The guard, in a considerable state of surprise, leaned out of the embrasure and levelled his rifle at the figure below, cycling the weapon’s bolt with a harsh metallic click.

O’Connor, who was deep in concentration as he clumsily abseiled down the side of the castle, realised that the game was up when he heard a loud cry from above. Gripping the rope for dear life, O’Connor looked up and saw the head and shoulders of the Italian guard leaning out from an embrasure some distance away. His rifle was pointed squarely at O’Connor’s dangling form.5

‘Arresto, arresto!’ yelled the Italian, ordering O’Connor to halt. ‘Fermati o sparo!’ O’Connor, who had studied Italian assiduously since being made a prisoner, knew exactly what the guard was yelling: ‘don’t move or I fire’. He needed no further warning. The rope creaked and a slight warm breeze wafted up from below the castle.

The alarm had been raised and below him O’Connor soon saw a mass of helmeted and heavily armed Italian soldiers running to the place where the end of his rope lay coiled in the grass. They pointed rifles with fixed bayonets at him and seemed to all be shouting at once.6 From their frantic gestures it was clear that they wanted him to climb down immediately.

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