Without appearing to stop to take aim he fired once. Then Cargraves was at him, clawing at his hands.
Von Hartwick brought the pistol down on his head, club fashion, and moved in to grapple him about the waist.
The Nazi pilot clasped his hands to his chest, gave a single bubbly moan, and sank to the floor. No one paid him any attention. After a split second of startled inaction, the three boys were milling around, trying to get in a shot at von Hartwick without hitting Cargraves. Cargraves himself had jerked and gone limp when the barrel of the pistol struck his head. Von Hartwick held the doctor’s thirty pounds of moon-weight up with one arm. He shouted, “Silence!”
His order would have had no effect had not the boys seen something else: Von Hartwick was holding the pistol to Cargraves’ head. “Careful, gentlemen,” he said, speaking very rapidly. “I have no wish to harm your leader and will not do so unless you force me. I am sorry I was forced to strike him; I was forced to do so when he attacked me.”
“Watch out!” commanded Morrie. “Art! Ross! Don’t try to shoot.”
“That is sensible,” von Hartwick commended him. “I have no wish to try to shoot it out with you. My only purpose was to dispose of him.” He indicated the body of the Nazi pilot.
Morrie glanced at it. “Why?”
“He was a soft and foolish pig. I could not afford to risk his courage. He would have told you what you want to know.” He paused, and then said suddenly, “And now — I am your prisoner again!” The pistol sailed out of his hand and clanged against the floor.
“Get Doc out of my way,” Ross snapped. “I can’t get a shot in.”
“No!” Morrie thundered. “Art, pick up the pistol. Ross, you take care of Doc.”
“What are you talking about?” Ross objected. “He’s a killer. I’ll finish him off.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Well — Doc wouldn’t like it. That’s reason enough. Don’t shoot. That’s an order, Ross. You take care of Doc. Art, you tie up the mug. Make it good.”
“It’ll be good!” promised Art.
The Nazi did not resist and Morrie found himself able to give some attention to what Ross was doing. “How bad is it?” he inquired, bending over Cargraves.
“Not too bad, I think. I’ll know better when I get some of this blood wiped away.”
“You will find dressings and such things,” von Hartwick put in casually, as if he were not in the stages of being tied up, “in a kit under the instrument board in the control room.”
“Go look for them, Ross,” Morrie directed. “I’ll keep guard. Not,” he said to von Hartwick, “that it will do you any good if he dies. If he does, out you go, outside, without a suit. Shooting’s too good for you.”
“He won’t die. I hit him very carefully.”
“You had better hope he doesn’t. You won’t outlive him more than a couple of minute.”
Von Hartwick shrugged. “It is hardly possible to threaten me. We are all dead men. You realize that, don’t you?”
Morrie looked at him speculatively. “Finished with him, Art? Sure he’s tied up tight?”
“He’ll choke himself to death if he tries to wiggle out of that one.”
“Good. Now you,” he went on to von Hartwick, “you may be a dead man. I wouldn’t know. But we’re not. We are going to fly this ship back to earth. You start behaving yourself and we might take you with us.”
Von Hartwick laughed. “Sorry to disillusion you, dear boy, but none of us is going back to earth. That is why I had to dispose of that precious pilot of mine.”
Morrie turned away, suddenly aware that no one had bothered to find out how badly the sergeant-pilot was wounded. He was soon certain; the man was dead, shot through the heart. “I can’t see that it matters,” he told von Hartwick.. “We’ve still got you. You’ll talk, or I’ll cut your ears off and feed them to you.”
“What a distressing thought,” he was answered, “but it. won’t help you. You see, I am unable to tell you anything; I am not a pilot.”