Behind me I heard firing start up again, though not with any great
volume. Below me as I leaned out of the window I saw a number of
usurpers come running out of the broken door to see what was happening,
then turn and go in again. My attention was not on them however, but on
the drive, where the first of a line of motors had already pulled up
and stopped.
It was an old pre-war sedan. Its doors opened and six or seven men
boiled out of it, staring at the castle and shouting as they moved.
Men! Not were-folk, not monsters, but _men_!
Had the sound of our fight carried to Exeter Parva? No, it could never
produce these fifteen autos, decrepit though most of them were. Exeter
Parva ran more to hay wagons.
Then the riddle was solved. The second car, a battered Bentley, halted,
and out of the front seat climbed a man I would have recognized on a
dark night in a cellar.
Dear old drunken, amoral, faithful Arold Smiff! Smiff to the rescue!
"At 'em, Arold!" I whooped. "Inside, son!"
He stared up at me, then waved joyfully. "General! Hoy, General!
Gawddam!" He motioned fiercely to his henchmen. "Come on, you
one-legged paralyzed barstids, earn your wack! Out arms and forrard!"
Great God, did ever such a motley army advance on such an unearthly
enemy? It was like the thieves of Paris defending their city against
Burgundy ... had that kingdom recruited its army from the swamps
of Hell. From the line of cars swarmed a gang of shabby, dirty,
swearing men, as tough and evil looking a mob as ever trod the soil
of England. Spawned in the slums and reared on violence, every one of
them! Muggers, knifers, coshers, men with scarred faces and broken
teeth, men fitting brass knuckles on their fists as they came, men
sliding straight razors (the favorite weapon of our underworld)
from their frayed sleeves and clicking open big clasp knives, men
drawing automatics for which you could have staked your life they
had no permits, men who were scarcely more than wild boys and men
who had grown gray and bald in crime; at once as undisciplinable and
as effective a fighting troop as one could find anywhere. I think I
screamed encouragement to them as they came, for I was half-hysterical
with relief. Arold Smiff, miraculously, had come in time.
* * * * *
As they ran toward the castle I ducked inside and went to my friends,
loading my guns as I moved. The aliens were still attacking up the
stairs, but now they wavered as the vanguard of the thugs struck them
from behind. All roaring hell broke loose.
I saw plenty of action in the last war; I saw the slaughter of the
Normandy beaches and the havoc wrought through France, Germany, and
several other countries; but the goriest brawl I ever laid eye on was
the fight at Exeter Castle between Arold Smiffs hundred criminals and
the motley hordes of the silver land.
We were outnumbered, at the start, nearly two to one. But our crooks
were professional killers, used to the mechanics of murder, and the
usurpers were not. The hall was jammed from wall to wall with a
struggling, howling, thrashing jam of fighters, so that often when a
man was killed his body could not fall; conditions were thus perfect
for our knifers and gougers, throttling experts and razormen.
The aliens for the most part had turned from us to engage this new
menace. We tore away our barricade and charged down to mix it with
them. I caught a glimpse of Arold before I struck the level. He had
an automatic in his right hand and in his left, one of those fearsome
weapons used by the gangs in their private wars, called a "moley"--a
large potato, stuck half-full of safety razor blades. When pressed
against the face and twisted, it made a grisly instrument of torture,
mutilation, and often death. I grimaced. These were wicked men who had
come to our rescue.
With our heavy Colts we blasted back the beast-men till we had cleared
a space at the foot of the stairs; standing shoulder to shoulder, we
bellowed, "Rally! To us, to us, rally round!" and many of the rogues
fought through the press to join us, so that shortly we were the
nucleus of the battle. Bedford led a charge that smashed the center of
the enemy line and crumpled up the right wing as it returned. I saw
John Baringer go down from a blow on the head; beat my way to him and
dragged him to the relative safety of the big fireplace.
* * * * *
I was entirely out of ammunition by then. Sticking the pistols in my
belt for last-ditch use as clubs, I grappled with the human husk of
a big sprawling beetle-beast, throttled him, took away a butcher's
cleaver he was utilizing, brained him with it and waded into the combat
once more. I was splashed with gore from boots to hair, my left arm was
numb from a crack on the elbow, I was whooping like a maniac, and felt
myself supremely happy. I would not have been anywhere else for ten
thousand pounds sterling.
I found myself next to Arold. I hugged him, and his muddy-crimson eyes
squeezed up with a grin. "General! Bloody fine scrim!"
"How did you know to come here?" I yelled at him; but the tides of
battle flung us apart before he could answer. I knew, though. Nobody in
the world but Geoff could have brought him.
I found myself engaged with a razorman of our own forces, and had to
explain who I was, in exceedingly rapid speech. Then I went hunting
for the Colonel, and found him dripping blood (someone else's) by the
stairs. Now the fight had become a massacre, and the aliens, fleeing,
found a heavy guard on the door and no sanctuary anywhere short of the
grave. "Colonel," I screeched in his ear, "your voice will carry over
this hubbub. Go up the stairs a bit--tell 'em to leave a few alive--got
to parley!"
He clumped up the steps, and his bull's roar quelled the racket like
thunder drowning out a kindergarten choir. The thugs turned astonished
eyes upward, and the few usurpers still on their feet shrank together
in a corner. For one brief instant I felt pity for them. Then I
remembered their plot to take over our world....
"That's enough," the Colonel was saying. "Collect the remaining enemies
and bring 'em here, lads."
The "lads" did so. Alec and I went up the dozen steps to join the
Colonel, Marion ran down from the upper floor, and Arold Smiff pushed
through his followers to wring my hand heartily. Then we all looked at
the things from the silver land, and I began to speak.