ANDS up!”
For the falling of an eggshell to the floor there was silence.
Peering incredulously at the muzzle of a revolver in the hands of a stocky, grizzled man against the oblong of sapphire which was the open door, the Herr Doktor stood beside the staring sergeant with one hand already in the air upon the skull of Sawyer, whose jaw had fallen. A beam of moonlight through the window and the glow of the lamp turned the heads into three masks in silver and gold.
The officers’ cropped heads, immediately beneath the light, resembled three ripe and yellow gooseberries. At the far end of the table von Muhlhauser’s eyes bulged above his brazen beard like two fat fish swimming beneath the crags of his bushy eyebrows. One hand, sparkling with rings, stuck out, arrested in a gesture.
“The lamp!”
The Kommandant’s yell was as the touch upon a secret spring loosing mechanism into mad activity.
As simultaneously two officers and the sergeant grasped and began to obey the order, two revolvers spat twice each. At the first double discharge one man with a broken wrist dropped his gun; another slumped back into his chair, shot through the head.
At the second the Kommandant’s whirled chair smashed the lamp; somebody swore gutturally; somebody grunted.
For a moment the beam of the moon stabbed across darkness upon the back of von Muhlhauser’s bald skull, to leap back to the window as if terrified as the body of the lamp crashed on the table and burst into flames.
“Get the doc!" yelled Tony to Plessons; and, fearing to kill the Kommandant, dropped his rifle, sprang and swung his left on to the bearded jaw as von Muhlhauser was grabbing for his revolver belt, which had fallen off the chair back.
As Tony continued the motion to give the Kommandant a quietus with the revolver barrel, a bullet crashed into the wall above his stooping back. Whirling, he knocked up the third officer’s muzzle and saw the man’s face split redly in the flame of his gun. Then, swinging about, he tapped the head of the Kommandant just as the latter had wriggled around and grabbed his own revolver.
Another shot crashed in the confined space; and, turning, Tony saw in the light of the flaming tablecloth the officer with the broken wrist dive through the doorway after a bullet from Plessons had caught him through the shoulder blades.
Grabbing von Muhlhauser’s fallen revolver and placing a foot on his stomach, to give warning when he regained consciousness, Tony looked about him.
His gaze took in the body of the sergeant slumped across a chair with his face smashed in from a vicious blow from Sawyer, who stood in the corner strapping the Doktor’s hands with his belt. Just then Plessons leaped and, snatching the blazing cloth and the wreck of the lamp, hurled them outside. They alighted on top of the wounded officer, who half rose to his feet, scrambled a couple of yards and collapsed as yells and the sound of running boots arose.
The rough table made of logs sawn in half was already saturated with paraffin and afire. Seizing two legs, Tony tried to overturn it, but the legs would not budge for they were set in the ground, the table top being merely laid upon four posts; so, yelling to Sawyer to grab his end, they ran it through the door, where luckily it fell up side down on the wreckage of the lamp, partially extinguishing the flames, just as Plessons, firing from the end window, dropped two of the soldiers rushing up in the moonlight. Then as Tony joined in from the door, sending another man to earth, the others turned about and with oaths and yells made for shelter.
“Yah!” shouted Sawyer triumphantly. “We’ll put it all over em, the !”
And in his exuberance he planted a boot in the prostrate sergeant’s ribs so vigorously that it brought the latter to life. Seemingly in one motion, he had his arms around Sawyer’s legs, bringing him crashing to the ground.
“Aie-e!” squalled Sawyer as they heaved together. “Mind my leg, can’t yer, yer !”
“Shut up,” commanded Tony, “or I’ll tap you on the head. Listen; what’s that, Plessons?”
Above the grunting and cursing on the floor rose a queer muffled sound, a kind of hoo-hooing from outside the camp.
“Why it’s them dumb fellas hee-hawing!” exclaimed Plessons. “Gettin’ excited abaht”
A sharp crack, preceding a fusillade, interrupted him. Several bullets whee’d through the cheese cloth window frame and others smacked against the outside of the walls, which were fortunately double bricked.
“I’ll kill yer, yer ” Sawyer was grunting from the ground.
“Here, Plessons, help pry those mutts loose,” Tony snapped angrily. “That fellow will do to interpret. My German isn’t strong.”