The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-12
WAIT! CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIH
 At 3 o'clock that morning the snow stopped falling, but it kept drifting in little showers off the roofs and other high places i'll every gust of wind. The tide was almost full: it eddied dark about the dock billings and rushed with a loud seething under the blanks.
 "One hour more" Karl thought pacing, gun on his shoulder, along the landward side of the pier.
 A hundred paces north, and 100 south. If I walk slowly, it is only 10 more trips out and back again along the post" He shlv- cred with the cold and heard, out to his left, the dark sea rising and battering against the rocks
 At last the sky grew clear. And one more turn. The stars read I o'clock. And then he heard the quick tramping of boots from the street side.
 "Who goes there?" He sprang forward, rife in hand.
 Corporal of the guard"
 Come on up"
 "All well?'
 All we'll" They raised their arms at each other.
 A man left the detail and marched over to the wharf.
 Good night" Karl slung his rifle around and strapped it to his back. Strange how their voices echoed in the cold air.
 Good night"
 He walked slowly filled with a strange and sudden diSquiet he could not understand. The street was windy and still; the dark houses on either side looked very cold. The others were already fal ahead. How many nights he had turned straggler from the detail so he could meet karen at one ot their countless rendezvous.
 He thought again of the last note Karen had sent him-a note of farewell telling him she had gone to Stockholm with her mother.
 Just ahead lay the square, broad and shadowed in the light of the stars. A little snow eddy swept past the fountain. The church tower lifted skyward, glistening all silver.
 At first he did not hear the untitled voice that called out from the dark alleyway. Soldier" it cried. Soldier"
 He whipped around, reaching for his gun. Who are you? What do you want?' His own voice sounded hollow to him.
 It was the doctor, standing in the shadows, his face pale and frightened as death. "Your name is Fischer?" he asked.
 And Karl felt an uncanny shiv- ering take hold of him. But he snapped. ''Yes. What are you do- ing out? What ?"
 As he stepped into the shadow an arm shot forth behind him with bewildering speed and locked about his throat.
 He cried out and felt 8 heavy leather sleeve bite into his mouth He struggled furiously, but the arm was like steel. And at that moment, in frenzy of fear and torment, he saw the doctors gap ing, disfigured face as he lungeo forward. the glittering blade of a bayonet held high.
 It struck.
 He turned; his head felt heavy as a stone, and then for the first time he felt the pain as he coughed. With a sudden plunge the earth opened up and he started falling sickeningly. and tried tc rouse himself, reached out {.
 But he did not wake.
 Only Osterholm and his two helpers, Oluf and Einar, were Jeff in the farmyard. They worked hur- riedly and tensely. emptying the boxes, stumbling heavily through the drifts, for the most part silently --the plan had been developed 1T detail hours ago-but now and ther one of them would say a quiet woro and glance out through the icy darkness to the road.
 A wagon stood in the court Osterholin laid half the shining rifles in the straw that covered the space behind the seat, and then he and the two boys pitched fork after forkful of dry fodder on top of them. Afterward they went to the barn for blanks to make a false bottom over the guns.
 Above that they piled firewood out of the storehouse, stacked to the top. The sentries could pull down half of it and never. see a thing. But if one lowered the tall board and reached in, there lay the hundred and fifty rifles and the long boxes O. cartridges. The rest of the guns, secure in the eel lar, could wait until the revolt had started. But 1t would be too dan- Igerous to have them all in town.
 Despite the dark the clock read morning. The cocks were growing in their GOODS. Osterholm led out the horses. They shook their hides under the blankets and reared when they felt the cold iron of the bit. And then all five of them horses and boys and man jolted out onto the road with low. care ful snap of the whip, and the steam blowing out of them into Cstnr5,olns nasfled watch out