She pulled him around, angry. “That’s a terrible thing to say. I’m beginning to get rather tired of the cynical and sardonic bit, Harry Martineau. Can’t you drop your guard just occasionally? Even with me?”
Before he could reply there was a sudden scream. They turned and looked down to the barn in the clearing through trees and saw Mary struggling in Kleist’s arms, Greiser standing to one side laughing.
“For God’s sake, Harry, do something,” Sarah said.
“1 will, only you stay out of it.”
He started down the slope as Sean Gallagher ran out of the trees.
Kleist was excited, the supple young body squirming against him. “Shut up!” he told her. “Just be a good girl and I won’t hurt you.”
Greiser’s eyes were shining, the mouth loose. “Don’t forget, Inspector, fair shares for all, that’s my motto.”
Gallagher arrived on the run, shouldering the sergeant out of the way like a rugby forward. As he reached Kleist, he stamped hard behind the German’s left knee, causing the leg to buckle and punched him hard in the kidneys. Kleist grunted and went down, releasing the terrified girl.
Gallagher picked up Mary’s basket and gave it to her and patted her face. “It’s all right now. love,” he said. “You run on up to the house to Mrs. de Ville. Nobody’s going to harm you this day.”
She ran like a frightened rabbit. As Gallagher turned, Greiser took a Mauser from his pocket, his eyes wild. Kleist called, “No. Ernst, and that’s an order. He’s mine.” He got up, easing his back, and took off his raincoat. “Like all the Irish you’re cracked in the head. Now I shall teach you a lesson. I shall break both your arms.”
“Half-Irish, so only half-cracked, let’s get it right.” Sean Gallagher took off his jacket and tossed it to one side. “Didn’t I ever tell you about my grandfather, old Harvey le Brocq? He was sailing in cod schooners at the age of twelve, bosun on windjammers on the grain run from Australia. Twelve times round the Horn by the age of twenty-three.”
“Talk away,” Kleist said circling him. “It won’t do you any good.”
He rushed in and swung a tremendous punch which Gallagher avoided with ease. “In those days a bosun was only as good as his fists, and he was good. Very good.” He ducked in and landed a punch under the German’s left eye. “When I used to come over from Ireland as a kid to stay with him, the village lads would work me over because I talked funny. When I went home crying, he took me out in the orchard and gave me the first of many lessons. Science, timing, punching, that’s what counts, not size. God, as he often reminded me, and he was a lay preacher, had never intended the brutes to rule on earth.”
Every punch the German threw was sidestepped, and in return, Gallagher seemed to be able to hit him wherever he wanted. On the hillside a few yards away, Sarah, Marti-neau and the Vibert girl watched as the Irishman drove the inspector back across the grass.
And then there was a sudden moment of disaster, for as Gallagher moved in, his right foot slipped on the grass and he went down. Kleist seized his chance, lifting a knee into his forehead and kicking him in the side as he went down. Gallagher rolled away with surprising speed and came up on one knee.
“God save us, you can’t even kick straight.”
As he came up, Kleist rushed at him, arms reaching to destroy. Gallagher slipped to one side, tripping the German so that he went headfirst into the wall of the barn. The Irishman gave him a left and a right in the kidneys. Kleist cried out sharply and Gallagher swung him around. He grabbed him by the lapels and smashed his forehead against the bridge of the German’s nose, breaking it. Then he stepped back. Kleist swayed and fell.
“Bastard!” Greiser called.
Gallagher swung around to find the sergeant confronting him with the Mauser, but in the same moment a shot rang out, kicking up dirt at Greiser’s feet. They turned as Marti-neau walked down the slope, Walther in hand.