CHAPTER 24 OUT OF THE SEA

The answer to Penny’s whispered question soon became obvious. George Emory looked carefully about the windswept beach. The three tense watchers thought that he might approach the dune where they lay hidden, but he did not.

Instead, the man paused while several yards away and gazed toward the sea. A moment he stood thus, silhouetted against the sky. Then using a glowing flashlight, he began making wide sweeps with his arm.

“A signal!” Jerry whispered. “He’s trying to attract the attention of a boat out at sea!”

“Shall we go for him?” asked Mr. Parker.

“Wait!” Jerry advised. “He’s not the only one we’re after. We’re stalking bigger game.”

At intervals for the next fifteen minutes, George Emory repeated the flashlight signals. Then he turned off the light and waited.

Anxiously, Jerry, Penny and Mr. Parker kept their faces turned to the sea. They sensed that the hour of action was at hand, and it worried them that Army men had failed to arrive.

“Look, Dad!” Penny suddenly whispered. She had glimpsed far from shore a long shadowy object which easily could be a boat. No lights were showing nor had she heard any sound.

“I don’t see a thing,” Mr. Parker whispered back. “Yes! Now I do! Jove! It looks like a submarine that’s surfaced. I can make out the conning tower!”

“But why would it dare come here?” Penny speculated. “Won’t it be detected by the patrol planes?”

“Tonight’s a bad night,” Jerry pointed out. “Besides, the shore is so indented at this point of coast that perfect protection is almost impossible. They’re sending a boat, that’s sure!”

A small craft had been launched from the wave-washed deck of the submarine. Manned by two men who rowed with muffled oars, it slowly approached the shore. When it was very close the watchers behind the sand dune saw by its grotesque sausage shape that it was a large, rubber boat. Like a gray ghost it slid over the water.

Mr. Parker gripped Penny’s hand in an encouraging squeeze.

“Wish you were safe at the hotel,” he whispered. “I was a fool to let you come.”

Penny’s heart pounded but she shook her head vigorously. Not for anything would she have missed the adventure. However, she was cool headed enough to realize that the situation was not shaping up well for her father and Jerry.

There were two men visible in the rubber boat, unquestionably armed. Then George Emory must be reckoned with and the arrival of others might be expected at any moment. Jerry carried a revolver but her father had no weapon. Already it was too late for any member of the trio to safely go for help.

“That sub may intend to land Secret Agents here,” Jerry speculated. “But from the code message we deciphered, it’s more likely they plan to take aboard one or more passengers.”

“Perhaps that escaped flier,” Penny supplied.

“He’s a valuable man to them. Well worth the risk they’re taking to try to rescue him.”

“If passengers are to go aboard, where are they?” Penny whispered. “There’s no one here but George Emory.”

“We must wait and watch. We’ll soon see enough or I miss my guess.”

The rubber boat had reached the surf and was being churned by the waves. Two men in full military uniform, leaped out and guided the boat to the beach. George Emory waded out to meet them. Shaking the hand of each, he spoke rapidly in German. Though Mr. Parker understood the language, he was unable to catch a word.

Tensely, the trio waited and watched. At any moment they feared that the men from the submarine might seek the cache of explosives hidden not far away. Soberly Jerry and Mr. Parker considered trying to reach the box in the sand. To do so they must cross an open, unprotected span of beach with every likelihood of being seen.

“Let’s wait and see what happens,” Mr. Parker advised. “We shouldn’t risk calling attention to ourselves.”

George Emory and his two companions obviously were awaiting someone. Nervously they paced the beach. Several times Mr. Emory looked at his watch. Then from far down the road came the sound of a car traveling at high speed. Tires screamed in protest as the auto came to a sudden halt on the paved road back from the beach.

“That’s why they’ve waited!” Jerry whispered.

Barely a minute elapsed before two figures were seen coming swiftly from the direction of the road. A man and a woman crawled through the bushes, under the fence, and walked hurriedly across deep sand to the beach.

“Mrs. Deline!” Penny identified the woman. “The man with her is the same fellow who stole food from our camp!”

“I’d know his face from photographs I’ve seen,” contributed Jerry. “He’s Oscar Kleinbrock, escaped German prisoner. The man I was sent here to trace!”

Mrs. Deline and her companion reached the group of men who awaited them.

“You are five minutes late,” George Emory reproved.

“Can we help it?” Mrs. Deline snapped. “We’re lucky to be here at all. Do you know that the road is being watched?”

“By whom?”

“Army men. We were nearly stopped but were able to turn off into the thicket and wait.”

“Then there’s no time to waste in talk,” George Emory said curtly. Turning, he spoke to the German flier in his own language.

“He’s telling him to get aboard the rubber boat,” Mr. Parker interpreted tensely. “Now they’re saying goodbye to Emory and Mrs. Deline.”

“Somehow we must hold them all here!” Jerry whispered grimly.

“It’s two against five. And they’re armed.”

Mr. Parker and Jerry looked at each other, fully realizing how slim was their chance of success. They were not thinking of themselves but of Penny and what could happen to her if they failed. Mr. Parker touched her arm.

“Penny,” he whispered. “Slip away in the darkness and make a dash for the hotel. Jerry and I will try to hold them until help comes. Just keep low as you run or those fiends may take a pot-shot at you.” Penny would not desert her father and Jerry. Stubbornly, she shook her head.

“We want to know that you are safe,” Jerry urged. “Please go while you still have a chance. You can help us most by bringing help.”

Penny’s determination to remain, weakened. Yet reason told her she never could reach the hotel and return with help in time to do any good. It dawned upon her that Jerry was only saying what he did to get her safely away.

“If only we had the box of explosives!” she whispered. “With it we might have a chance against those men!”

“It’s too late to dig up the box now,” said Jerry. “We probably couldn’t find it without a light. And the noise we’d make—”

“Let me try,” Penny interrupted.

“All right, see if you can get your hands on the box,” her father agreed suddenly. “Slip back of the dune, and then circle. Don’t try to cross the beach. Be careful! Remember the least sound will bring a hail of bullets.”

Penny nodded and slipped away into the darkness, crawling on hands and knees. Barely had she left the shelter of the big sand dune than she heard two shots fired in quick succession.

“Those came from Jerry’s revolver!” she thought. “Oh, it was a trick to get me safely away! Now he and Dad are in for fireworks!”

Raising her head above the protecting sand dune, Penny saw why Jerry had fired. The rubber boat was being launched. To delay the attack would mean that the entire party might escape.

“They’ll all get away!” Penny thought in dismay. “How can Jerry and Dad hold them single handed?”

George Emory returned Jerry’s fire with deadly aim. The bullets bit into the dune, throwing up little geysers of sand.

“Launch the boat!” he shouted savagely to the men from the submarine. “Get away while you can! Be quick!”

Jerry and Mr. Parker were determined that the party should not escape. As the men sought to launch the rubber boat, they made a concerted rush for the German flier who was to be taken aboard the waiting submarine. Caught by surprise, he went down beneath their blows.

Fearful of hitting his own man, George Emory dared not fire again. Instead, he and the crewmen of the submarine fell upon Jerry and Mr. Parker. In the melee, one person could not be distinguished from another.

“Fools! Fools!” cried Mrs. Deline as she watched the fierce, uneven struggle. “There is no time to be lost!”

Jerry and Mr. Parker were putting up the fight of their lives, but they were no match for four able bodied, trained men. Penny, desperate with anxiety, saw that the struggle could end only in one way—disaster for Jerry and her father.

“If I had that box of explosives maybe I could help them!” flashed through her mind.

Rolling over a dune, she ran to the place near the fence where she thought the cache was buried. Frantically she clawed and dug at the sand. She could not find the box.

“It must be here!” she told herself desperately. “Or was it hidden in the next dune?”

She tried another place slightly to the right. As she dug, she heard a sound behind her. Turning swiftly, she saw Mrs. Deline starting across the beach toward her.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” the woman shouted.

Penny’s hand encountered something hard and firm. The box of explosives! Digging wildly, she lifted it from the bed of sand and sprang to her feet. Her fingers closed upon one of the hand grenades.

“Get back!” she ordered Mrs. Deline, balancing herself as if to throw.

The woman stopped short, then retreated a few steps. But only for a moment was she frightened.

“Why, you infant, you couldn’t throw a grenade!” she jeered. “You don’t know how. Besides, you haven’t the nerve!”

“Get back!” Penny ordered again. “I warn you.”

Mrs. Deline laughed scornfully and came on.

Even the thought of throwing a hand grenade terrified Penny. She knew that she could not deliberately harm Mrs. Deline or even the men who were mercilessly beating her father and Jerry. Yet she had to do something.

“Maybe I can destroy the rubber boat!” she thought. “It’s far enough away so that no one should be hurt by the explosion.”

Whirling away from Mrs. Deline, Penny faced the sea. Fixing her eyes on her target, the rubber boat at the water’s edge, she hurled the grenade.

“Idiot!” cried Mrs. Deline, flinging herself flat on the sand to protect her face from flying fragments.

Penny did likewise. The grenade dropped with a thud on the sand beside the rubber boat. Her aim had been perfect. But there was no explosion. Belatedly, Penny realized that she had forgotten to pull the safety pin.

Mrs. Deline kept her face buried beneath her arms and did not yet know what had happened. Sick with the knowledge that she had failed, Penny was desperate. Her father and Jerry were being cruelly beaten by their opponents. In another minute they would be overpowered and the Germans would escape to the waiting submarine.

“I can’t let them get away!” Penny whispered. “I must do something!”

Remembering the pencil bombs, she groped in the cardboard box for them. They were not there. Instead, her fingers closed upon the sharp bladed knife.

“I’ll slash the rubber boat!” she thought. “I’ll try to make a hole in it!”

Before Mrs. Deline realized what the girl was about, Penny darted down the beach. The men from the submarine did not see her. Reaching the rubber boat, she leaped into it. Working with desperate haste, she jabbed the knife through the bottom. The material was tough and it took all of her strength to make a long jagged gash. Water seeped in, slowly at first, then faster.

“I’ve done it!” Penny thought jubilantly. “I’ve done it!”

Her triumph was fleeting. The next instant the girl was struck a hard stunning blow from behind. As she collapsed in a limp little heap on the sand, she dimly saw the cruel, angry face of Mrs. Deline. Then all went black and she knew no more.