Part 17 (2/2)

”How very violent!” laughed Jules, and his voice, reaching the ear of that German officer, sent the blood flus.h.i.+ng to his cheeks and his feet stamping with rage. ”How very violent! 'Pon my word, Henri, this fellow needs a lesson, for every time we've listened to him he's been going to do something desperate--something desperate, that is, to other people. Shall we answer the beggar?”

”Yes. We'll do the square thing. A moment ago I had a mind to remain quite still and silent, and let the fellow find out for himself what sort of a place we had got; but we'll be quite fair with him, and then there can't be any complaints. Hallo, below there!” he called; ”stand where you are, and don't move forward or one of my men will shoot you.

You ask us to surrender, eh?”

”Ask you!” came the arrogant answer. ”Not at all--I command you!”

”And we take commands only from our own people. Come and take us,”

Henri told him delightedly. ”Come and take us, if you can, but I warn you to look out for the consequences.”

The man below turned about with that precision to be found in the ranks of the Kaiser's armies, and strutted back across the hall, his figure lit up by the beams of light entering through shafts by which the chamber was ventilated. In less than a minute he had rejoined his men, and for a while Henri and his friends watched as a consultation was held. Then, of a sudden, the men dispersed and were lost to view for quite five minutes.

It was perhaps five minutes later when first one and then, perhaps, a couple of dozen grey-coated figures slipped into view from behind the tumbled masonry at the far end of the hall, and, darting to right or to left or down the centre, flopped down behind ma.s.ses of stone and cement with which the floor was littered.

”Now keep down,” Henri told his friends; ”or, better still, keep right away from the barricade, and report instantly if bullets contrive to penetrate the sacks. Personally, I don't think they will, for we've piled them up two deep, and a bag of grain affords tremendous opposition even to a sharp-pointed bullet. Ah! There goes the first!

Well, has it gone through?”

”No. Nor will any others,” the veteran told him, with a chuckle. ”We are safe--safer, indeed, behind these bags, than if we had a stone wall before us. For, mon garcon, you understand there will be no ricochetting, no splintering of bullets, no splashes of lead about us.”

In a few minutes, as the firing from the hall down below became more general, and thuds on the outer face of the wall of sacks became almost continuous, it was borne in upon Henri and his gallant little band that even bullets discharged at such point-blank range had for the moment little danger for them.

”Then we'll line our wall,” said Henri. ”It's not more than twelve feet across, so that six men lying flat on their faces will be sufficient for the purpose; six more will kneel down behind them, so as to be ready to fire over the top of the barricade in case of a rush; and our machine-gun man must squeeze himself into the midst of them.

Now, man the loopholes!”

It was a canny suggestion of the bearded veteran which had caused the men a.s.sisting him to build the barricade to leave loopholes for the rifles of the defenders, not only along the top of this improvised wall, with bags placed so that the heads of those who fired would be protected, but to leave apertures also just a foot from the bottom through which men lying flat on their faces might fire down into the hall. As for the machine-gun, it was piled round with bags, just the bare tip of the muzzle protruding, and, indeed, thanks to the dusk which occluded the top of the stairs, giving no indication of its presence to the enemy. Thus, with the wall manned, and the remainder of his little party squatting on the stone floor of the gun-chamber ready to support their comrades, Henri and his men waited for perhaps half an hour, during which time the fusillade from the men of the 24th Brandenburg Regiment sent a hail of bullets in their direction. They thudded against the bags continuously, while often enough a missile would strike the concrete ceiling of the chamber, and, ricochetting from it, would mushroom against the opposite wall; some even struck the walls limiting the stairway on either side, and, breaking off at a tangent and exploding from the impact, scattered strips of nickel and lead over the heads of the garrison.

”But it is nothing--nothing at all,” that bearded veteran told his friends; and, indeed, he was as good as a reinforcement of a hundred men to them--so gay was he, so full of courage, so optimistic. ”Poof!

Who cares for noise? Not you, my comrades, who have stood days now when torrents of German sh.e.l.ls were pouring on us, when our ears were deafened by the guns of either side. Then who cares for the scream and the hiss of these bullets? They are but a drizzle which follows a storm.”

”Get ready to support the others!” Henri commanded of a sudden, having crept forward to the barricade and peered through one of the loopholes.

”That officer man is getting impatient, and, if the truth be known, he is beginning to wonder if any of us are left up here; for, remember, we have made no answer.”

”An easy shot, eh?” Jules told his chum, gripping the rifle which he had thrust through one of the upper loopholes. ”I could bring him down like a bird, as easy as winking! But I won't,” he added of a sudden; ”no, for that would hardly be fair fighting.”

A whistle sounded down in the hall below, and fifty or more grey-coated figures rushed from the far end, where, no doubt, they were waiting out of sight and under shelter. Forming up across the hall, they were given a sharp order, and almost at once dashed forward.

”They are coming!” Henri called softly to his following. ”Don't show as much as a finger, if you can help it. Open fire only when they get to the exit from the hall, and cease fire immediately you have checked their dash towards us.”

Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! The machine-gun opened with two short bursts just as the Brandenburgers reached the foot of the staircase, while the Frenchmen manning the loopholes opened a furious fire, which first checked the rush of the enemy and then drove the survivors backwards. Indeed, in one minute they were all out of sight, and even those who had been sniping at the barricade had disappeared entirely.

”But it will not be for long; no, my friends,” Henri told his party.

”That dash is in the form of a reconnaissance, I expect; though, no doubt, they hardly expected to meet with such resistance.”

”Bien! We shall hear from them again shortly,” Jules laughed; while the bearded veteran banged one broad hand down on his thigh and chuckled loudly.

”Yes, indeed! Yes, indeed! We shall hear from them, and they shall hear from us, and our voices will be as loud as any Prussian's. But, my Henri, though you are already a commander, and have won our hearts, yet your inexperience of command has led you to forget one thing which is essential.”

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