A Lively Bit of the Front Part 21

Thrusting his torch into his breast pocket, the Captain, holding his revolver ready for instant action, threw open the door.

Another long room showed beyond the doorway. At the farther end a table extended almost from side to side. On the floor were several lighted candles that cast an unaccustomed glare upon the faces of a dozen German officers. Some of them were engaged in burning doc.u.ments, others in tearing up books and plans. Right at the far end two men were attacking a fall of debris by means of pick and shovel.

This much Malcolm took in at a glance, as with levelled rifle he supported his captain.

"Surrender!" shouted Captain Nicholson sternly.

"Not so fast," replied a Prussian, speaking in English, and with hardly a trace of a foreign accent. "Let us discuss the situation."

"By all means," agreed Captain Nicholson, confident that he held the winning cards.

The Hun who had spoken was carefully noting the strength of the intruders. He had a particular object in gaining time.

"You are too premature, Herr Kapitan von Anzaken," he continued slowly. The boot is on the other leg. You are our prisoners.

_Nein_--do not get excited--consider: you are but a handful. We are fourteen, all armed. In there"--he indicated a doorway on his left--"are fifty tons of explosives, so I would not have you throw a bomb, for our sakes and yours. Again, I have but to touch this b.u.t.ton and the tunnel to the dug-out by which you made your approach will be blown in. We have particular need of you, since your friends will hesitate twice before attempting to smoke us out with you here.

Now, to avoid further unpleasantness, you will throw down your arms and make surrender."

"I'll see you to blazes first!" retorted Nicholson. "Hands up, or----"

Like a flash a dozen hands went up--but each hand held an automatic pistol! The New Zealand officer made no attempt to back. Outwardly calm, he stood erect on the threshold, with his four men close behind him.

Confronting him were the obviously excited Huns. Even the slight pressure of a trembling finger upon the trigger of one of the automatic weapons would mean death to the imperturbable Nicholson.

"I give you ten seconds to surrender!" he exclaimed.

"And I give you five to throw down your arms!" retorted the Prussian major. "One--two--three----"

Cras.h.!.+

A blinding flash seemed to leap up from the floor, and, with a deafening roar bursting upon his ears, Malcolm was dimly conscious of being hurled backwards by a terrific blast, then everything became a blank.

He regained his senses to find himself in utter darkness. He was lying on the floor with his shoulders and head leaning against something aggressively hard. Acrid fumes a.s.sailed his nostrils. He tried to move, to find a heavy, inert body lying across his legs.

Groping to find out the nature of his surroundings, his hand came in contact with his uncomfortable pillow. It was a pair of hobnailed boots. As he thrust them aside the wearer stirred.

"What's up, Sergeant? Another stunt?"

It was M'Turk, wandering in his mind. Evidently he was under the hallucination that the Platoon sergeant was rousing him at an unearthly hour of the morning.

"Where are we, M'Turk?" asked Malcolm.

The Digger grunted.

"Ask me another, chum," he replied, coughing after every word. "By gum! I remember--those swine of Huns and fifty tons of explosives.

Well, we're still alive and kicking, so to speak. Where are the others? The Captain?"

"Someone lying across my legs," replied Malcolm. "Our captain, I fancy. Have you a match?"

"Have I a match?" repeated M'Turk mirthlessly. "A dozen boxes in my dug-out. Came with me last parcel--but ne'er a one on me. Where's that torch?"

Sitting up, Malcolm bent forward and searched the man who was pinning him down. He was wrong in his surmise. It was not Captain Nicholson, but one of the riflemen. In one of his pockets Carr found a squashed box containing three or four precious matches.

The first match fizzled and went out.

"Damp, like everything else except my throat!" muttered M'Turk. "I could drink half a gallon at one go. Try again, chum."

At the second attempt the flickering light struggled bravely for the mastery, then out it went.

"Two more," announced Malcolm.

"Hold on," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his companion. "I've a paper. I'll tear off a piece, and you can set it alight--if your matches aren't all duds!"

This time the attempt was successful. In the glare of the burning newspaper Malcolm made the astonis.h.i.+ng discovery that Grouser Joliffe was lying across his legs, while nearer the room in which the German staff officers had been was d.i.c.k Selwyn, leaning against the wainscot and breathing stertorously. The faces of both men were black with smoke and dirt. There were no signs of Captain Nicholson or M'Kane.

"Old Grouser, by gum!" exclaimed M'Turk. "How in the name of everything did he get there?"

"Give it up!" replied Malcolm, as he made his way to Selwyn's side.

"There are a lot of things that want explaining in this hole."

"Say what?" prompted his companion, tearing a fresh strip from the newspaper and rolling it into a rough-and-ready torch.

"Where are Fritz & Co.? Where is our officer? How is it that I was next to him, and now Selwyn is nearer the door; while Joliffe, who is supposed to be on the way to the dressing-station, is here? And what about the fifty tons of explosives?"

M'Turk staggered to his feet and made his way to the entrance to the inner room. The door had been wrenched from its hinges; from the root ferro-concrete girders had fallen, bringing with them a pile of debris that completely covered the table. Of the Huns, all were buried beneath the mound of earth, unless they had been blown to pieces by the explosion.

"Not so much as a Hun's b.u.t.ton left as a souvenir!" reported M'Turk.

"Hope our mates haven't been kyboshed. Yet it seems to me that if fifty ton of stuff did go up we wouldn't be here now--except in little bits."

"That's what puzzles me," admitted Rifleman Carr. "Perhaps only a portion of the explosives went off. Again, who propped you and Selwyn up against the wall?"

M'Turk made another roll of crumpled paper.

"Won't last out much longer at that rate!" he remarked ruefully.

"Hallo! What's that?"

A couple of dull concussions were distinctly felt. In the inner portion of the s.p.a.cious dug-out more rubble slid noisily from the caving-in roof.

"Fritz getting to work again," said Malcolm. "They are sh.e.l.ling the captured position."

"And following it up with a counter-attack," added M'Turk. "Strikes me our chaps won't have any time to attend to us for a bit."

"I did the job properly that time--a bit too properly?" exclaimed Grouser Joliffe, who had recovered consciousness and was taking a lively interest in the conversation.

"You did what?" enquired M'Turk.

"I wasn't going to be done out of the fun," said Joliffe doggedly.

"Didn't I draw that little tinpot's fire, and give you a chance to b.u.t.t in?"

"You did, like a blooming idiot!" agreed M'Turk.