THE ENEMY STRIKE.
In the sudden silence which fell on the group at Jack’s low-spoken cry,
not a sound was to be heard.
Captain Murray shook off Jack’s grasp on his arm and mounted another
step.
“You’re hearing things, my boy. I didn’t hear a sound. Ah!”
The exclamation was jerked from him as, distinct, yet faint, there came
a distant thud. It might have been the slamming of a door, or the
dropping of some heavy object. What it was, Captain Murray did not wait
to hear, but with a cry of “Come, come on, fellows,” he started to bound
up the cellar steps, the bullseye of light from his torch showing a
closed door at their head.
After him leaped the others, crowding the narrow stairway. But as
Captain Murray reached the door and grasped the handle, he came to an
abrupt halt. The door was locked. And as the others piled up behind him,
there came to their ears the sharp crack of revolver shots, muffled by
distance and intervening walls and floors, from somewhere in the body of
the house above them.
“Something funny here,” muttered Captain Murray. “We left this door
open.”
But in the same breath he was thrust aside and against the stone wall on
his left, while a bulky form brushed by him on the right, along the
unrailed edge of the stairway, and went crashing, shoulder first, into
the locked door ahead. The door reeled under the impact, but still held.
However, it was made of flimsy material and once more the big fellow who
had taken the initiative crashed into it. The door flew outward, and the
human battering ram with it, landing on hands and knees.
It was Bob. He jumped to his feet as first Captain Murray and then the
others started forward over the breach which he had made.
“Which way?” he cried.
The spatter of revolver shots, heard when they had been crowded together
on the stairway, had ceased. The house was silent about them. They
looked at each other, nonplussed. Then Jack raising his voice shouted:
“Dad, Dad, where are you?”
A moment. Then from overhead came Mr. Hampton’s voice in reply:
“Up here, Jack. In the front room.”
There was a faintness in the tone, however, which was far from
re-assuring and Jack cried again:
“What’s all the shooting for, Dad? You all right?”
A hollow groan was his only answer. And at that Jack thrust aside
Captain Murray, who stood between him and a door leading from the
kitchen, into which they had emerged from the cellar stairway, into the
body of the house, and darted ahead.
“After him, fellows,” said Captain Murray, setting the example. “That’s
the way upstairs.”
Jack in the lead, the rout streamed through a large room bare of
furnishings as had been the kitchen, and lighted only dimly by reason of
the fact that latticed shutters barred the several windows. Out of this
into a long hall leading to the front door, then a sharp turn to the
left and up a boxed-in flight of stairs. Heavy boots beat a tattoo on
the bare boards.
Filled with terrifying fears on account of his father, Jack was racing
madly in the lead, with Captain Murray at his heels, followed by Bob and
Frank, and the others streaming after. At the head of the stairway, they
turned again to the left, entering a corridor which led toward the
street front. On the left, above the dark stairway, was a hand rail; on
the right a number of doors opened into rooms, into which those of the
party who, unlike Jack and Captain Murray, had not before been over the
ground, peered as they ran by. But the rooms were unfurnished, except
for mattresses and crumpled coverlets seeming to cover every available
inch of floor space; and they were unoccupied, too. The corridor ended
at the open door of a larger room than the others which faced on the
street, and into this dashed Jack, going straight, with a strangled cry,
to the form of his father. Mr. Hampton lay on a greasy mattress, near
the front wall, and beside an open window looking out upon the street.
His face was white, and his eyes closed, and the left shoulder of his
light-colored, summer coat was stained dark.
Jack had no eyes for anyone but his father, beside whom he knelt with a
choking cry which caused the latter to open his eyes.
“They got away, Jack,” said Mr. Hampton, painfully. “But you’re safe,
aren’t you? I was afraid—”
His voice dropped to an unintelligible murmur, and his eyelids fluttered
shut again.
Jack looked up, staring around wildly, as if for help. But the others
had deserted him. And then for the first time he saw the other occupants
of the big front room. In the far corner they lay—the two aviators who
had accompanied the Hamptons and Captain Murray into the house, and
Captain Cornell. All three were bound. Jack half rose to his feet in
astonishment. Captain Cornell had been found bound and gagged when they
first had gained entrance to the house. But how came these others so?
When he and Captain Murray had descended to the cellar in search of the
tunnel entrance, they had left his father on the lower floor, and the
two aviators upstairs cutting Captain Cornell’s bonds. He passed a hand
across his eyes.
Well, that mystery must be left to solution by the men loosing the bonds
of the trio. His part was to get aid for his father. He called, and Bob
and Frank broke away from the little group on the opposite side of the
room and hurried to him. An ordinary emergency might have found Jack the
coolest of the three. But in a case such as this, involving his father,
positions were reversed. The poor fellow was half frantic. And Bob and
Frank, with an exchange of understanding glances, elbowed him aside and
went to their knees beside Mr. Hampton.
The latter again opened his eyes, and as his glance fell on them he
spoke in a stronger voice.
“The bullet took me in the shoulder, boys,” he said. “Don’t think it
smashed the bone, although it was a close shave. Wasn’t that knocked me
out, but when I fell I struck the wall with my head. Cut off my coat, so
you can see what to do. Then bind my shoulder up with something, and
I’ll manage to survive, I reckon.”
His voice gained in strength as he proceeded, and on concluding he
struggled to sit up. Jack with a gulp of relief got on his other side
and thrust an arm beneath him. Bob, opposite, did likewise; and Mr.
Hampton was raised to a sitting position against the wall.
“Stripping for action, Frank?” asked Mr. Hampton with an attempt to
smile that ended in a grimace of pain. “No use. It’s all over. They, got
away out of the window.”
Frank had torn off his light-weight summer coat and now ruthlessly
stripping off his white linen shirt with a great popping of buttons
ripped it in half from collar to neckband and began tearing the halves
thus created into quarters.
“Making bandages,” he said. “Peel off his coat, fellows. Don’t stand
there like ninnies.”
Jack and Bob hastened to comply, easing the wounded shoulder as much as
possible, and, having removed the coat, stripped off the shirt sleeve,
revealing a hole through the shoulder muscles, from which the blood was
slowly pumping.
“Hurry, now, one of you, get some water,” commanded Frank. “Must be
water somewhere. Jack, you’ve been through here. Maybe, there’s a
bathroom. If not, there must be water in the kitchen. If you can’t find
anything to put it in, take this cloth and wet it well.” And thrusting
one of the long strips into Jack’s hands he sent him scurrying away with
a peremptory gesture.
With another of the linen strips, Frank wiped the blood away from the
wound in Mr. Hampton’s shoulder, discovering that the bullet had entered
from the rear, where there was only a bluish mark that already had
stopped bleeding, and had come out in front. “No sir, didn’t smash the
bone,” he said, thankfully, as with deft fingers he felt of the wounded
man’s shoulder. “You were in luck, Mr. Hampton.”
“I was that,” the other answered. “Came on them just as they were
leaving. But here’s Captain Murray, wanting to hear my story,” he added
glancing up at the aviator, who, striding across the room, was now
bending anxiously above him. “I don’t know all that happened, Captain,”
he said. “But between our friends over there and myself, I guess we can
piece the yarn together.”