The Last Rung of a Broken Ladder
For a couple of strides he advanced towards them, deceived for an
instant by the jacket of the dead German which Dennis was wearing. Then
he sprang back with a startled cry, his light vanished, and the clang of
the heavy door echoed dully in the pitch darkness.
Bob Dashwood's hand gave his brother's shoulder a warning grip, and the
pair listened, scarcely breathing. In both their minds was the one
thought: Had their enemy gained the outer room before the door closed,
or was he still there, waiting for the first sound that should betray
their whereabouts?
Dennis, who had been standing erect when the torch beam found him, now
crouched low; but Bob stood motionless, his head turned sideways to
listen, the half-smoked cigarette still in his mouth.
The silence of the room seemed to be intensified by the gunfire outside;
and, without thinking, Bob Dashwood pulled at the cigarette.
The tiny end shone faintly, with a brighter glow, a loud report broke
the unnatural stillness, and the bullet of an automatic pistol carried
the cigarette from the smoker's lips and struck the wall behind him!
Even Bob Dashwood, to whom physical fear was unknown, felt himself turn
pale at the narrowness of his escape.
The spy was still there, and evidently a crack shot, while they had no
firearms!
After a long, thrilling pause, a gloating laugh came out of the
darkness.
"The English are the greatest fools in the world; or is it perhaps that
they have no weapons, hein?" said the spy's voice, the soliloquy being
evidently intended for his listeners' benefit.
Dennis was conscious that his brother had edged away behind a large
boiler, and groping desperately in the pockets of the German coat,
hoping against hope that he might find something that would turn the
tide in their favour, his own fingers closed on--a raw potato!
An idea occurred to him, and with a silent jerk of his forearm he threw
it to the other end of the room. As the potato fell, Von Dussel swung
round and fired two shots in the direction of the sound, and under cover
of the reports Dennis joined Bob in his temporary shelter.
A snarl of vexation broke from the angry Prussian at his second failure;
and, taking Bob's hand in his own, Dennis tapped out a Morse Code
sentence on the back of it with his first finger, relieved to find from
his brother's answering squeeze that Bob understood him.
"Give me that rifle," he tapped. "There might be an unused cartridge
left in the magazine, after all."
Bob supported himself on the side of the boiler, and Dennis took the
Mauser from him without noise.
He knew the barrel must be choked with earth from the use it had been
put to, but, after all, it was a chance.
_Bur-r-r-r!_ The telephone bell struck an odd, imperative note at that
moment, and Von Dussel spoke sharply.
"You hear that, you hound?" he thundered. "You Dashwoods, you! How long
have you been here?"
They knew it was only a ruse to make them betray themselves, prompted by
their enemy's keen anxiety to answer the summons, and they stood behind
the boiler perfectly still.
_Bur-r-r-r!_
"So you will not speak," snarled Von Dussel. "Very well, I am going to
answer that message. I shall have a Browning pistol in one hand and the
receiver in the other. You had better look out; you will never leave
this room alive, either of you."
Dennis, groping silently in front of him along the brick base in which
the boiler was fixed, had found a heavy screw wrench, and, repeating his
former manoeuvre, hurled it this time to the opposite end of the
engine-room.
It dropped with a loud clang; but Von Dussel was on his guard, and
before he fired he switched his light on for an instant, and Dennis
pulled the trigger of the rifle.
It was only for a second's space that Dennis saw the man with his hand
raised, and he could not repress a fierce shout of joy as a Mauser
bullet dashed the Browning pistol from Von Dussel's hand.
"Perhaps we English are not such fools, after all!" he laughed. But
when the spy's voice answered him, it was from the opposite side of the
room.
"That remains to be seen," was his reply. "I tell you, you will not
leave this place alive. The brewery is mined, and I am going to fire the
charge. Good night. I will send Madame Dashwood a field post card
to-morrow!"
In vain Dennis had pulled on the trigger while he spoke, the rifle
pointed in the direction of the voice. That cartridge had been the last
one; and as they heard the heavy door bang for the second time that
night, they knew that the man had gone and would keep his word!
"Dennis, boy," said Bob quickly, "I'm rather afraid our number's up,
after all. I'm useless with this leg, but where there's life there's
hope. There's a permanent ladder at the end of this hole. Give me my
crutch again, and, meanwhile, see where it leads to."
Dennis did not require telling twice.
"You're right, Bob," he said. "There's death on the other side of that
door, so it's wasting time to try whether that hound has fastened it or
no." And while he spoke he flashed his own pocket torch to the far end
of the engine-room. "You'll be able to pick your way, and I'll be back
in a shake," he concluded, tearing along the floor and bounding up a
permanent ladder to the next storey.
A circling sweep of his invaluable light showed the lad a low-ceilinged
room corresponding to the one he had just left, and a cool wind blowing
in from somewhere reminded him of his adventure in the German dug-out,
and the friendly passage he had discovered.
"Come on, Bob!" he called down the ladder. "I'll be back in a minute and
give you a hand. We'll do the beggar yet."
He bounded through the door which his light revealed, and found himself
in the open air upon an iron gallery running along the outside of the
building.
His impulse was to lift up a shout of thankfulness at the sight of
another iron ladder, obviously leading into the yard below. To make
quite certain that the way was clear he ran towards it, and stole
cautiously down for a short distance, trying to penetrate the intense
blackness in quest of any sign of Von Dussel.
All at once his feet dropped into nothingness, for, unknown to him, an
English shell had carried away the rest of the ladder a week before,
and, clutching wildly at the last step, he clung there, dangling in
space!
To let go, even had he known the distance between him and the ground,
was absolutely unthinkable with his brother helpless and unwarned within
the building, and though the explosion of the mine might happen any
moment, his one and only effort was to get back by sheer strength of arm
and return to Bob's assistance.
"If we've got to go out to-night we'll go out together," he muttered
between his teeth, and he added something of a prayer to the resolve.
The fragment of the ladder vibrated under his weight as he worked
himself slowly and cautiously to one edge, and the sharpness of the
jagged iron rungs hurt his hands terribly.
"If I can only haul up high enough to get my knee on the first step
it'll be all right," he thought, when something scrunched immediately
underneath him, and he dangled motionless, as a brilliant star-shell
burst directly overhead, making everything around as bright as day.
* * * * *
Caught in the open by the sudden fire of uncountable machine-guns, the
2/12th Battalion of the Royal Reedshires had gone down like grass before
the scythe. Another fifty yards, and they would have reached the uncut
wire in front of that ruined building with the broken chimney shaft.
So close were they that the word was already given to divide and sweep
round the flank of the obstacle when cruel Fate said no; and as he lay
with three bullets through him, tears of rage and anger had dimmed the
keen eyes of their C.O. as he groped for his whistle and blew the
retire.
They had made a fine rush by successive waves across the open, taking
advantage of the tumbled ground to get close up to that seemingly
deserted brewery which had shown no sign of occupation, and from which
no shot had been fired. And then that thing had happened, and he blamed
himself as he sent the brave remnant scurrying back to the trench they
had captured, knowing that he should have rested content with his
capture and not been greedy for more.
He did not realise that he was badly wounded, and he did not care. It
was his own fault, and the tears in his eyes were for those khaki heaps
that lay to right and left of him. He even resisted three of the
survivors who ran to his help. They only grinned when he threatened them
with pains and penalties; and, picking him up, they had carried him in
under a murderous rain of bullets.
The battalion was barely half its strength when it reached the trench,
and it had all happened just as the dusk drew down on the land.
When they called the roll the voices of the company sergeants were
hoarse and shook with an odd quiver.
"Abbot, Anstey, Ashwell?" No answer. "Bellingham?"--"Here."
"Burton?"--"Just died, sergeant," somebody else replied. And so it went
on alphabetically from A to Z, and of the A's there were very few, and
of the Z's there were none.
A senior captain took over command, and word was sent back to the
brigadier.
"It's bad enough as it is, sergeant-major," said the senior captain.
"He'd better not be told just now that both his sons are among the
missing."
Later on there came to the young lieutenant, who was the only officer
left in A company, two dusty, fierce-eyed little men who had gone
through the burden and heat of the day without a scratch, although their
bayonets were red enough.
And they had begged leave to go and search for Captain Dashwood and
Dennis, and the young lieutenant had choked audibly as he refused the
permission.
"Yes, I know, Hawke," he had replied to their earnestly repeated
entreaties. "But I'm acting under strict orders. Not a man is to cross
the parapet on any consideration whatever. If we're counter-attacked
before reinforcements arrive, Heaven help us!"
Then the two fierce-eyed little men had gone away, having apparently
accepted the inevitable, and neither had said a word until they reached
the far end of the trench.
"Tiddler?"
"I should bloomin' well think so, 'Arry!"
That was all, but it was enough; and that was how Harry Hawke and his
bosom pal came to be wandering under the eastern wall of the deserted
brewery after a fruitless search among those khaki heaps that lay so
still in front of the German wire.
For three hours they had crawled backwards and forwards, questioning the
wounded and giving a hand where they could with the field dressing, but
always receiving the same reply.
At length one man told them that the German stretcher-bearers had come
out and carried some bodies away, but they had been recalled before they
reached him, and there had been a great skedaddling from the building in
front. He had heard them removing machine-guns; he could swear to that.
"Come on, Tid!" said Harry Hawke. "We may find them in there. It is our
last chance."
They were working their way very carefully along the wall when a
star-shell of unusual brilliancy burst, and Hawke jumped forward,
gripping his rifle.
"Swop my goodness! Tiddler!" he cried, with a fierce chuckle, "here's a
bloomin' Allemong trying to escape! You've left it a bit too late,
sonny!" And he lunged upwards at the dangling figure in the light of the
star-shell!