Chapter 18‘Hold!’ Nilsson shouted to the gate guard as he started to run down the stairs that led to the courtyard.
A few swift strides carried him to the gate where he was intercepted by the man who had been on sentry duty on the wall above the arch. He, too, was breathless from his own reckless descent of the stairs.
‘He came out of nowhere, Captain,’ he protested before anything was asked of him. ‘I was listening to you, but still on look-out, honestly. I don’t know where he came from. He just...’
‘It’s all right,’ Nilsson said, as he pushed him aside, almost gently. The man turned to others standing around him, with a desperate, pleading expression, as if the need to justify his apparent lapse had to run the course he had plotted for it in his dash down the stairs. It spluttered to
