A Tatter of Scarlet Part 32

The four-inch was now poking a lean snout out of the door which had been smashed open by the mortar, and stretched along, laying her on the centre of the darkness, was Jack Jaikes, cursing the Providence which had not given him eyes like Rhoda Polly's.

"Now," said my mentor hastily, "tell them now is the time. They can't miss if they fire into the brown! Right in the centre of the gap in the line of that white chimney."

The discharge of the big gun beneath us quite made us gasp. It shook Rhoda Polly's aim, and this time No. 27 went off pretty much at random.

But what we saw within the gap opposite made up for everything. The sh.e.l.l burst under the mortar or perhaps within it--I could not distinguish which. At any rate, something black and huge rose in the air, poised as if for flight, and then, turning over, fell with a clangorous reverberation into the house behind, smas.h.i.+ng down the white chimney and causing the blue-coated National Guards with which it was filled to swarm out. Some took to their heels and were no more heard of in the history of the revolt of Aramon. Others pulled off their coats and fought it through in their s.h.i.+rts.

Dennis Deventer waved his hat, and all except Jack Jaikes yelled. He was busy getting the gun ready for a second discharge. But Dennis stopped him.

"Jackie, my lad," he said, "no more from this good lady the day--get up the mitrailleuses. They had only that one big fellow and you have tumbled him in sc.r.a.p through the house behind. I don't know how you sighted as you did."

"I did not," said Jack Jaikes grumpily--"only where Rhoda Polly told me."

"Well, never mind--that job's done," said the Chief soothingly; "hurry with the machine guns. They will take ten minutes to get over that little surprise and wash it down with absinthe. Then we shall have to look out. They will come, and if we have not their welcome ready, they will come to stay."

At this point I begged for permission to come down and join Jack Jaikes'

gang.

I was no use up there, I said, Rhoda Polly could see all round me. She must call down the news, as there was no time to teach her the Morse.

"Well, come along then," said Dennis, and I did not stop even to say good-bye to Rhoda Polly. At last I was going to have a chance.

When I got to my gang Dennis Deventer was speaking.

"I will give you what help I can by sending men from the north wall and that next the river. I don't expect any a.s.sault there. But I cannot weaken the defence along the side of the Chateau orchard. That is where we are weakest, and where I must go myself. For they are sharp enough to know it. I leave you in charge here, Jack Jaikes. Keep the men steady and don't allow swearing in the ranks!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

"h.e.l.l UPSIDE DOWN!"

There was strangely little exultation. Each man felt the tussle was yet to come and nerved himself for it. The big square lay out silent under the moon, splashed with the shadows of the pollarded poplars, the benches upturned, a tree or two uprooted, and beyond all the black gash knocked in the row of white houses. It had a strange look, sinister, threatening, all the more so because it had always been so peaceful and well-ordered--like a man's tranquil life till the day Fate's mortal-sh.e.l.l bursts and there is no more peace for ever and ever.

"Now mind, you fellows," said Jack Jaikes, "fire low and steady. They are ten times our numbers, but we will fight in shelter and we have these beauties!"

He patted the three mitrailleuses in turn. He had taken charge of the middle one himself, and set his friend Allerdyce and young Brown to command those on either side. We stood at attention, each man knowing that the time could not be long.

Far down towards the Chateau we heard the rush and jar of an attack. A similar noise came from farther up the wall towards the fitting shops.

"Jehoshaphat, they are flanking us!" exclaimed Jack Jaikes. And before anyone could interfere--supposing that any had so dared--Jack Jaikes had stepped outside the wall into the c.u.mbered Cours of Aramon. I took the liberty of following. Away to the right we could see nothing, except the clouds of smoke drifting up or being tossed by the rough sudden swoop of the blast, stooping down out of the moonlit heavens and the night of stars.

Jack Jaikes must have been conscious of my presence, but he did not order me back. He was talking to himself and he wanted a listener. As Bacon says, he wanted a friend with whom to toss his ideas as a haymaker tosses hay.

"Down there by the Chateau doesn't matter," he said, looking that way long and earnestly, "Dennis Deventer is there--with MacIntyre and the whole Clydebank gang--little to fear there. Listen, young fellow, how the machine guns are barking--_U-r-r-r-rh!_ I wish ours were talking too, but that mortar shot rather scared them--though it ought not--easy thing to rush a four-inch gun firing sh.e.l.l at that distance and with their numbers. One hole in the line, and then you are upon her.

But--see, young un, there they go b.u.t.ting in at the corner of the wall yonder. We must give them a volley. Fellows, run out the mitrailleuses--my own one first. Easy there over the stones! Now the others!"

Presently with the three machine guns we were standing completely shelterless in the Cours of Aramon with half a dozen darksome streets and alleyways gaping at us truculently. "Turn them to the left," he shouted. "Farther out, Allerdyce! Keep your alignment, you Brown--swearing's forbidden, but think that ye hear Donald Iverach at it!"

The light little guns with the pepperpot snouts were swiftly swung round in the direction of the scaling ladders and the hurrying clouds of men.

Each man, Allerdyce, Brown, and Jack Jaikes himself, had his hand on the handle which was to grind death.

"Lie down, you sweeps!" he called to us. "Flat--not a head up."

We lay down, but I looked sideways between the wheels of the centre machine gun. The long legs of Jack Jaikes almost bestrode me.

"GO!"

And then all h.e.l.l broke loose. The noise of the jarring explosions melted into one infernal whoop, and seemed to ride the storm which at this moment was mounting to the heavens from the south and shutting out the moon.

The attacking party was mown as with a clean-swept scythe. For an instant three swathes were clearly visible--Jack Jaikes, Brown, and Allerdyce had each made his share of the crop lie down.

There came an explosion of rage and anguish.

"Again!" shouted Jack Jaikes. "Keep down that head," he cried to me, and kicked savagely in my direction as he danced about. I obeyed. No account could be required of men at such moments. He might stamp on my head if he found it in his way.

"Sweep the wall and fire low!" was the next order. "Mind, Donald Iverach and the boys are on top. We must not shoot them, but we _must_ help those ladders down. It is a pity we dare not run out the four-inch--only we could never get her back."

Again the rending siren shriek divided the night. We lay on the ground seeing gigantic shapes twisted in seeming agony over guns high above us.

Our chins were in the dust and the play of the lightning flashes made the thing somehow demoniacal and unearthly.

"h.e.l.l upside down!" as the man next to me pithily said--a parson's son like myself, but from Kent, Pembury in Kent, where young Battersby is still not forgotten.

The mitrailleuses flared red below and the skies flared blue above. The thunder roared continuously and the noise of the machine guns cut it like the thin notes in the treble corner of a piano. Heaven raged against earth, and earth in the person of Jack Jaikes ground out shrill defiance. But that night the bolts from the earthly artillery were the more deadly.

"Cleaned the beggars out!" shouted Jack Jaikes, or at least that is near enough to what he said. "Now then, up you fellows and we will get them back!"

It was easier said than done. For it was one thing to get the little guns down the rubble heaps beneath the battered gateway and quite another to fetch them back. We were compelled to put all our three gun crews into one, and even then we could not have succeeded without the help of the men with ropes pulling from within. I saw Rhoda Polly tugging like one possessed, though why she was not on her tower I do not know.

We had left the other two machine guns unprotected and had to jump back to rescue them. Still there was no enemy in sight and we got Brown's fine No. 1 back into shelter. Remained Allerdyce, and as we rattled down to fetch her up, suddenly the whole of the square in front of us was swept by a storm of bullets. Somehow I found Hugh Deventer beside me.

"You gave us a good eas.e.m.e.nt up at the corner," he said, "I was sure they would get back on you next. Give me a place. I can hoist a gun better than you!"

He was behind the wheel, but even as he set his weight to it Allerdyce---eternally smiling Scot from Ayrs.h.i.+re, called Soda Bannocks--collapsed over the piece he had commanded and worked. Another man yelled with sudden pain, and I felt a sharp blow on the calf of my leg.

"Clear!" shouted Jack Jaikes, "I will fetch the men. Up with the gun."

And he drew Allerdyce off the top of the mitrailleuse as one might gather a wet rag.

The storm pa.s.sed and as we panted upwards the bullets still tore our ranks. It could not be done. We had not the force. We paused half-way and blocked the wheels with stones so that she would not slip back.

"Great G.o.d, what's that?" I turned at the anguish and surprise in the voice of Jack Jaikes, and I saw clear under the rain-washed splendours of the moon Keller Bey walking down the main Cours of Aramon. One hand held aloft a white flag, and on the other side clasping his arm was--Alida!

I dreamed--I was sure I dreamed. That bullet--those fellows knocked over--Allerdyce smiling and abominably limp on the top of his own gun--Jack Jaikes gathering him up--all these things had crazed me, and no wonder. I saw "cats in corners," as I used to do in old college days when I studied too much and too long.

But yet I looked and saw the vision continued. Moreover I heard. Keller Bey was calling out something as he waved the flag. Black cats did not speak. They keep an exact distance away--about four yards and always in the corner of a room or in a stairway--never in the open. What was he saying? One word recurred.

"Treve!--Treve!--Treve!"