The Air Patrol Part 21

"Lucky we didn't go to bed after all," said Bob to Lawrence. "Is that wire ready?"

"Yes, but the rock isn't drilled yet, is it?"

"We'll soon finish that. The track must be blocked at once, or we may have this going on all night."

He called the miners up, and ordered them to go back to their work.

"Mashallah, sahib, but it is not safe, we shall all be killed," one of them ventured to say.

"Nonsense. They won't come on again."

"But some have got past, sahib. They will come back and shoot us."

"They won't venture within the light of the bonfire, and if they do the Sikhs will shoot them down. Come on: I'll go with you. Give me the dynamite, Lawrence. Fazl, you take the end of the wire. Now then, a few minutes' more work, and we'll tumble a mountain of rock on to the track, and be able to sleep soundly for the rest of the night."

His confident bearing, and the example of his personal leadership, inspired the men with courage. The bridge was again lowered; Bob pa.s.sed over with Fazl and the miners; Lawrence, Gur Buksh and the Sikhs posted themselves between the bridge head and the southern extremity of the compound to guard against any attack on the part of the men who had gone up the track. They could not number more than a dozen or so at the most, and Bob felt sure that after what had occurred they would not be very ready to approach the spot that had proved so fatal to their comrades.

He ordered the men to move very quietly. On reaching the place where they had flung down their tools, he bade them wait a little. From round the bend came the sound of voices, apparently some distance away. The enemy had not withdrawn altogether: would they have the courage to come on again? The machine-gun was no protection to the working-party, for it could not fire without great risk of hitting them. Bob sent one of the men back to fetch three of the Sikhs; their rifles might at any rate suffice to check a rush long enough for the miners to retreat to the bridge.

As soon as the Sikhs arrived, he ordered the men to resume their drilling, for which the bonfire gave sufficient light. The first sounds attracted the attention of the enemy. They raised their voices, and Bob, grasping his revolver, told the Sikhs to level their rifles and fire if he gave the word. All were concealed from the enemy by the shoulder of the cliff. The work went on without interference from the enemy beyond, but presently shots began to patter on the rocks from the rifles of those who had pa.s.sed up the valley. The bonfire was now an inconvenience, and the danger was greater to Bob and the Sikhs, who stood erect, than to the miners stretched on the ground. But it was a risk that must be endured, and Bob spoke a cheery word to the men at his side, and urged the miners to hurry on with their work. Unknown to him, at the first shot Lawrence had led the other Sikhs across the bridge and posted them on the track, to repel the Kalmucks if they should venture nearer to get a better aim.

In a quarter of an hour the drilling was finished. Bob sent the miners back, and himself laid the charge of dynamite. Then he inserted the wire, and retreated with Fazl and the Sikhs.

"Good man!" he said to Lawrence when he reached the bridge. "It's all done. We've only to make the contact."

"n.o.body hit?" asked Lawrence anxiously.

"Never a man. I think we'd have done better. Now let's get back. In five minutes we'll have a little earthquake."

They crossed into the compound, the bridge was raised, and Bob sent Fazl into the shed where the battery was kept, to complete the electric circuit. The firing had ceased. Nothing was to be heard but the rushing water. In a few minutes there was a dull, sullen rumble; the ground quivered, and immediately afterwards a terrific crash which echoed and re-echoed along the valley. The bonfire was suddenly obliterated as by an extinguisher.

"Another trick to us!" said Bob gleefully. "And now I think we can go to sleep with an easy mind. They won't get past till they've moved a thousand cartloads of rubbish."

"What about those fellows who got past?"

"We can leave Gur Buksh to deal with them. They can't get into the compound; if they did they'd never get out again. I shouldn't wonder if they're wishing they hadn't been in quite such a hurry. Now, my boy, bed: neither you nor I will need any rocking to-night. It's barely eight o'clock: we ought to get a good twelve hours, and I can do with it all."

They felt a strange pang as they pa.s.sed through their uncle's room. It was the first time they had entered it since the fatal morning when they set out so cheerfully with him in pursuit of Nurla Bai. Neither spoke of him; his loss touched them now with a poignancy of feeling that would not endure expression. Bob closed the door quietly, as if a sleeper lay within; and both undressed in silence.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

A CRY IN THE NIGHT

"What say you, friend?--how will this matter end?"

Chunda Beg seated himself on the wall, against which the havildar was leaning, peering out into the darkness. His rifle lay across his arms.

"Hai, Chunda, is that you?" replied Gur Buksh, in a low tone. "I thought you were snoring on your charpoy. 'Tis a chill night."

"I slept indeed a little--forty winks, as the sahibs say; then I rose and came out to seek wisdom of thee, O experienced one. How will this matter end, I ask?"

"Who can tell!" said the havildar with a shrug. "The G.o.ds know; I know not."

"You do not know; of course I did not suppose you a soothsayer, a man of double sight, though there are such; I have seen them, and heard them foretell things that most certainly came to pa.s.s. But they were fakirs, haggard of cheek and eye, and dirty--mashallah! how dirty! What I meant, friend, was that you, being a man of war, and wise in many things, should enlighten my simplicity, and say what is the blossom and fruit of your meditations on these strange happenings."

Gur Buksh did not turn his head, but gazed steadily out across the stream. On each side one of his men was patrolling the wall; the rest of the Sikhs were sleeping under blankets on the ground a few yards away, ready to spring up at a whisper.

"The Bengali says we shall all be cut into little pieces," Chunda Beg went on. "He will make good carving, being very plump."

"The Bengali is the son and grandson of a.s.ses," grunted Gur Buksh. "He reads books!"

"The sahibs read books too," suggested the khansaman.

"That is different. They read the wisdom of their own people; the Bengali reads, and imagines he becomes one of them, and talks foolishness."

"That is true. Yet in this case perhaps it is not foolishness. There are many hungry beasts lurking down the track yonder."

"Hyenas!"

"Twenty thousand of them, says Fazl."

"Flat-nosed Kafirs; what are they to us?"

"That is true; they are of very little account. Still, there is a great number of them, and--correct me if I am wrong, havildar--a hundred hyenas are perhaps a match for one lion."

"Look you, khansaman, we have to make every man here believe that he is a lion. I do not deny that we are in a strait place, but what is that?

I have been in strait places before. Hai! was I not one of the thirty with a young sahib in the hills, and did we not defend a post against a monstrous rabble of Khels, and drive them off, and strike such fear into the dogs that they slunk away and troubled us no more?"

The havildar's eyes gleamed as he recalled that fight.

"And are our young sahibs even as that one?" said the khansaman. "The huzur--may he sleep well!--was a good man, but these two striplings are very young."

"Hai! but they have red blood in their veins. They are of the race of the Sirkar: they will never yield. Think you of what they have done in these last days. Are they not quick and ready? Are not their eyes keen and their minds swift? They fear nothing, and overlook nothing. Fyz Ali told me how the chota sahib rode back to help him when he was alone and beset by the Kalmucks, and the chota sahib is no man of war. Of a truth, the sahibs know not what fear is. And Bob Sahib carried food to the Pathans up the river; he thinks of their welfare, and they love him.

What is to come we know not, but be sure there will be very great doings here."

"Hark, havildar! What is that?"

Chunda Beg sprang off the wall, and bent over it with the havildar, straining his eyes into the darkness. A faint cry reached them from the other side of the ravine. They listened in silence, waiting for a repet.i.tion of the sound. In a few seconds they heard it again.

"A trick of the Kalmucks maybe!" murmured Gur Buksh. "Get you swiftly to the house, khansaman, and rouse the sahib. Say nothing but that I wish to speak with him."

The khansaman hurried away. Pa.s.sing noiselessly into the boys' bedroom, he touched Bob on the shoulder and gave his message. Bob was awake in an instant.

"Tell him I'm coming," he said.