CHAPTER IIIt was the very number of Wales’ attackers that saved him. There were too many of them, they were too eager to get at him. As he hit the pavement, they dropped their flashlights and crowded around in the dark, getting in each other’s way, like frantic dogs chivvying a small animal.
A foot trampled his shoulder and he rolled away from it. All around him in the dark were trousered legs, stumbling over him. Voices yelled, “Where is he?” They yelled, “Bring the lights!”
The lights, if they came, would mean his death. A mob, even a small mob like this one, was a mindless animal. Wales, floundering amid the dark legs, kept his head. He shouted loudly,
“Here come the Evacuation trucks—here they come! We’d better beat it!”
He didn’t think it would work, but it did. In that noisy, scu
