Chapter 15
I
'What shall we do?' said Audrey.
She looked at me hopefully, as if I were a mine of ideas. Her
voice was level, without a suggestion of fear in it. Women have
the gift of being courageous at times when they might legitimately
give way. It is part of their unexpectedness.
This was certainly such an occasion. Daylight would bring us
relief, for I did not suppose that even Buck MacGinnis would care
to conduct a siege which might be interrupted by the arrival of
tradesmen's carts; but while the darkness lasted we were
completely cut off from the world. With the destruction of the
telephone wire our only link with civilization had been snapped.
Even had the night been less stormy than it was, there was no
chance of the noise of our warfare reaching the ears of anyone who
might come to the rescue. It was as Sam had said, Buck's energy
united to his strategy formed a strong combination.
Broadly speaking, there are only two courses open to a beleaguered
garrison. It can stay where it is, or it can make a sortie. I
considered the second of these courses.
It was possible that Sam and his allies had departed in the
automobile to get reinforcements, leaving the coast temporarily
clear; in which case, by escaping from the house at once, we might
be able to slip unobserved through the grounds and reach the
village in safety. To support this theory there was the fact that
the car, on its late visit, had contained only the chauffeur and
the two ambassadors, while Sam had spoken of the remainder of
Buck's gang as being in readiness to attack in the event of my not
coming to terms. That might mean that they were waiting at Buck's
headquarters, wherever those might be--at one of the cottages down
the road, I imagined; and, in the interval before the attack
began, it might be possible for us to make our sortie with
success.
'Is Ogden in bed?' I asked.
'Yes.'
'Will you go and get him up as quickly as you can?'
I strained my eyes at the window, but it was impossible to see
anything. The rain was still falling heavily. If the drive had
been full of men they would have been invisible to me.
Presently Audrey returned, followed by Ogden. The Little Nugget
was yawning the aggrieved yawns of one roused from his beauty
sleep.
'What's all this?' he demanded.
'Listen,' I said. 'Buck MacGinnis and Smooth Sam Fisher have come
after you. They are outside now. Don't be frightened.'
He snorted derisively.
'Who's frightened? I guess they won't hurt _me_. How do you know
it's them?'
'They have just been here. The man who called himself White, the
butler, was really Sam Fisher. He has been waiting an opportunity
to get you all the term.'
'White! Was he Sam Fisher?' He chuckled admiringly. 'Say, he's a
wonder!'
'They have gone to fetch the rest of the gang.'
'Why don't you call the cops?'
'They have cut the wire.'
His only emotions at the news seemed to be amusement and a renewed
admiration for Smooth Sam. He smiled broadly, the little brute.
'He's a wonder!' he repeated. 'I guess he's smooth, all right.
He's the limit! He'll get me all right this trip. I bet you a
nickel he wins out.'
I found his attitude trying. That he, the cause of all the trouble,
should be so obviously regarding it as a sporting contest got up
for his entertainment, was hard to bear. And the fact that, whatever
might happen to myself, he was in no danger, comforted me not at all.
If I could have felt that we were in any way companions in peril,
I might have looked on the bulbous boy with quite a friendly eye.
As it was, I nearly kicked him.
'We had better waste no time,' suggested Audrey, 'if we are going.'
'I think we ought to try it,' I said.
'What's that?' asked the Nugget. 'Go where?'
'We are going to steal out through the back way and try to slip
through to the village.'
The Nugget's comment on the scheme was brief and to the point. He
did not embarrass me with fulsome praise of my strategic genius.
'Of all the fool games!' he said simply. 'In this rain? No, sir!'
This new complication was too much for me. In planning out my
manoeuvres I had taken his cooperation for granted. I had looked
on him as so much baggage--the impedimenta of the retreating army.
And, behold, a mutineer!
I took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him. It was a
relief to my feelings and a sound move. The argument was one which
he understood.
'Oh, all right,' he said. 'Anything you like. Come on. But it sounds
to me like darned foolishness!'
If nothing else had happened to spoil the success of that sortie,
the Nugget's depressing attitude would have done so. Of all things,
it seems to me, a forlorn hope should be undertaken with a certain
enthusiasm and optimism if it is to have a chance of being successful.
Ogden threw a gloom over the proceedings from the start. He was cross
and sleepy, and he condemned the expedition unequivocally. As we moved
towards the back door he kept up a running stream of abusive comment.
I silenced him before cautiously unbolting the door, but he had said
enough to damp my spirits. I do not know what effect it would have
had on Napoleon's tactics if his army--say, before Austerlitz--had
spoken of his manoeuvres as a 'fool game' and of himself as a 'big
chump', but I doubt if it would have stimulated him.
The back door of Sanstead House opened on to a narrow yard, paved
with flagstones and shut in on all sides but one by walls. To the
left was the outhouse where the coal was stored, a squat barnlike
building: to the right a wall that appeared to have been erected
by the architect in an outburst of pure whimsicality. It just
stood there. It served no purpose that I had ever been able to
discover, except to act as a cats' club-house.
Tonight, however, I was thankful for this wall. It formed an
important piece of cover. By keeping in its shelter it was
possible to work round the angle of the coal-shed, enter the
stable-yard, and, by making a detour across the football field,
avoid the drive altogether. And it was the drive, in my opinion,
that might be looked on as the danger zone.
The Nugget's complaints, which I had momentarily succeeded in
checking, burst out afresh as the rain swept in at the open door
and lashed our faces. Certainly it was not an ideal night for a
ramble. The wind was blowing through the opening at the end of the
yard with a compressed violence due to the confined space. There
was a suggestion in our position of the Cave of the Winds under
Niagara Falls, the verisimilitude of which was increased by the
stream of water that poured down from the gutter above our heads.
The Nugget found it unpleasant, and said so shrilly.
I pushed him out into the storm, still protesting, and we began to
creep across the yard. Half-way to the first point of importance
of our journey, the corner of the coal-shed, I halted the
expedition. There was a sudden lull in the wind, and I took
advantage of it to listen.
From somewhere beyond the wall, apparently near the house, sounded
the muffled note of the automobile. The siege-party had returned.
There was no time to be lost. Apparently the possibility of a
sortie had not yet occurred to Sam, or he would hardly have left
the back door unguarded; but a general of his astuteness was
certain to remedy the mistake soon, and our freedom of action
might be a thing of moments. It behoved us to reach the stable-yard
as quickly as possible. Once there, we should be practically through
the enemy's lines.
Administering a kick to the Nugget, who showed a disposition to
linger and talk about the weather, I moved on, and we reached the
corner of the coal-shed in safety.
We had now arrived at the really perilous stage in our journey.
Having built his wall to a point level with the end of the coal-shed,
the architect had apparently wearied of the thing and given it up;
for it ceased abruptly, leaving us with a matter of half a dozen
yards of open ground to cross, with nothing to screen us from the
watchers on the drive. The flagstones, moreover, stopped at this
point. On the open space was loose gravel. Even if the darkness
allowed us to make the crossing unseen, there was the risk that we
might be heard.
It was a moment for a flash of inspiration, and I was waiting for
one, when that happened which took the problem out of my hands.
From the interior of the shed on our left there came a sudden
scrabbling of feet over loose coal, and through the square opening
in the wall, designed for the peaceful purpose of taking in sacks,
climbed two men. A pistol cracked. From the drive came an
answering shout. We had been ambushed.
I had misjudged Sam. He had not overlooked the possibility of a
sortie.
It is the accidents of life that turn the scale in a crisis. The
opening through which the men had leaped was scarcely a couple of
yards behind the spot where we were standing. If they had leaped
fairly and kept their feet, they would have been on us before we
could have moved. But Fortune ordered it that, zeal outrunning
discretion, the first of the two should catch his foot in the
woodwork and fall on all fours, while the second, unable to check
his spring, alighted on top of him, and, judging from the stifled
yell which followed, must have kicked him in the face.
In the moment of their downfall I was able to form a plan and
execute it.
'The stables!'
I shouted the words to Audrey in the act of snatching up the
Nugget and starting to run. She understood. She did not hesitate
in the direction of the house for even the instant which might
have undone us, but was with me at once; and we were across the
open space and in the stable-yard before the first of the men in
the drive loomed up through the darkness. Half of the wooden
double-gate of the yard was open, and the other half served us as
a shield. They fired as they ran--at random, I think, for it was
too dark for them to have seen us clearly--and two bullets slapped
against the gate. A third struck the wall above our heads and
ricocheted off into the night. But before they could fire again we
were in the stables, the door slammed behind us, and I had dumped
the Nugget on the floor, and was shooting the heavy bolts into
their places. Footsteps clattered over the flagstones and stopped
outside. Some weighty body plunged against the door. Then there
was silence. The first round was over.
The stables, as is the case in most English country-houses, had
been, in its palmy days, the glory of Sanstead House. In whatever
other respect the British architect of that period may have fallen
short, he never scamped his work on the stables. He built them
strong and solid, with walls fitted to repel the assaults of the
weather, and possibly those of men as well, for the Boones in
their day had been mighty owners of race-horses at a time when men
with money at stake did not stick at trifles, and it was prudent
to see to it that the spot where the favourite was housed had
something of the nature of a fortress. The walls were thick, the
door solid, the windows barred with iron. We could scarcely have
found a better haven of refuge.
Under Mr Abney's rule, the stables had lost their original
character. They had been divided into three compartments, each
separated by a stout wall. One compartment became a gymnasium,
another the carpenter's shop, the third, in which we were,
remained a stable, though in these degenerate days no horse ever
set foot inside it, its only use being to provide a place for the
odd-job man to clean shoes. The mangers which had once held fodder
were given over now to brushes and pots of polish. In term-time,
bicycles were stored in the loose-box which had once echoed to the
tramping of Derby favourites.
I groped about among the pots and brushes, and found a candle-end,
which I lit. I was running a risk, but it was necessary to inspect
our ground. I had never troubled really to examine this stable
before, and I wished to put myself in touch with its geography.
I blew out the candle, well content with what I had seen. The only
two windows were small, high up, and excellently barred. Even if
the enemy fired through them there were half a dozen spots where
we should be perfectly safe. Best of all, in the event of the door
being carried by assault, we had a second line of defence in a
loft. A ladder against the back wall led to it, by way of a trap-door.
Circumstances had certainly been kind to us in driving us to this
apparently impregnable shelter.
On concluding my inspection, I became aware that the Nugget was
still occupied with his grievances. I think the shots must have
stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid
drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on
life's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a
staccato briskness.
'Of all the darned fool lay-outs I ever struck, this is the limit.
What do those idiots think they're doing, shooting us up that way?
It went within an inch of my head. It might have killed me. Gee,
and I'm all wet. I'm catching cold. It's all through your blamed
foolishness, bringing us out here. Why couldn't we stay in the
house?'
'We could not have kept them out of the house for five minutes,' I
explained. 'We can hold this place.'
'Who wants to hold it? I don't. What does it matter if they do get
me? _I_ don't care. I've a good mind to walk straight out through
that door and let them rope me in. It would serve Dad right. It
would teach him not to send me away from home to any darned school
again. What did he want to do it for? I was all right where I was.
I--'
A loud hammering on the door cut off his eloquence. The
intermission was over, and the second round had begun.
It was pitch dark in the stable now that I had blown out the
candle, and there is something about a combination of noise and
darkness which tries the nerves. If mine had remained steady, I
should have ignored the hammering. From the sound, it appeared to
be made by some wooden instrument--a mallet from the carpenter's
shop I discovered later--and the door could be relied on to hold
its own without my intervention. For a novice to violence,
however, to maintain a state of calm inaction is the most
difficult feat of all. I was irritated and worried by the noise,
and exaggerated its importance. It seemed to me that it must be
stopped at once.
A moment before, I had bruised my shins against an empty packing-case,
which had found its way with other lumber into the stable. I groped
for this, swung it noiselessly into position beneath the window,
and, standing on it, looked out. I found the catch of the window,
and opened it. There was nothing to be seen, but the sound of the
hammering became more distinct; and pushing an arm through the bars,
I emptied my pistol at a venture.
As a practical move, the action had flaws. The shots cannot have
gone anywhere near their vague target. But as a demonstration, it
was a wonderful success. The yard became suddenly full of dancing
bullets. They struck the flagstones, bounded off, chipped the
bricks of the far wall, ricocheted from those, buzzed in all
directions, and generally behaved in a manner calculated to unman
the stoutest hearted.
The siege-party did not stop to argue. They stampeded as one man.
I could hear them clattering across the flagstones to every point
of the compass. In a few seconds silence prevailed, broken only by
the swish of the rain. Round two had been brief, hardly worthy to
be called a round at all, and, like round one, it had ended wholly
in our favour.
I jumped down from my packing-case, swelling with pride. I had had
no previous experience of this sort of thing, yet here I was
handling the affair like a veteran. I considered that I had a
right to feel triumphant. I lit the candle again, and beamed
protectively upon the garrison.
The Nugget was sitting on the floor, gaping feebly, and awed for
the moment into silence. Audrey, in the far corner, looked pale
but composed. Her behaviour was perfect. There was nothing for her
to do, and she was doing it with a quiet self-control which won
my admiration. Her manner seemed to me exactly suited to the
exigencies of the situation. With a super-competent dare-devil
like myself in charge of affairs, all she had to do was to wait
and not get in the way.
'I didn't hit anybody,' I announced, 'but they ran like rabbits.
They are all over Hampshire.'
I laughed indulgently. I could afford an attitude of tolerant
amusement towards the enemy.
'Will they come back?'
'Possibly. And in that case'--I felt in my left-hand coat-pocket--'I
had better be getting ready.' I felt in my right-hand coat-pocket.
'Ready,' I repeated blankly. A clammy coldness took possession of me.
My voice trailed off into nothingness. For in neither pocket was
There a single one of the shells with which I had fancied that I
was abundantly provided. In moments of excitement man is apt to make
mistakes. I had made mine when, starting out on the sortie, I had
left all my ammunition in the house.
