No Man's Island

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER XXV

  SQUARING ACCOUNTS

  Armstrong profited by the enemy's first check to bind his handkerchiefround Mr. Pratt's arm.

  "Hadn't you better go upstairs, sir, out of harm's way?" he asked.

  "Call myself a casualty and slink to the rear? No, thank you, my lad.Not while I can stand and use my left arm. We must hold our ground hereat all costs."

  "Here, sir?"

  "Yes. They must not drive us beyond the first floor. No doubt theyhave released the man you tied up, and the fact that they still attackus shows there is something upstairs they don't want to leave."

  "I saw some tin cases in the room above."

  "Filled with forged notes, beyond doubt. But what's this? Do you smellburning?"

  "Smoke--wood smoke. D'you hear the crackling? They have fired thetower."

  "Not they. They won't burn their notes. They want to drive us above.It is very ingenious--and very unpleasant."

  The pungent smoke from burning wood rolled up the staircase inever-increasing volume. Percy came running down, carrying, not an ironbar, but an assegai taken from the wall of the top room.

  "Didn't notice it before," he said.

  "Run up again and open the door to the roof," said his uncle. "We mayas well stave off asphyxia as long as we can."

  Armstrong caught sight of a head peering up from the round of the wallbelow. He raised his hand suddenly as if to fire. The headdisappeared.

  "Spying to see if we have gone," chuckled Mr. Pratt.

  With the opening of the door above, the smoke rose more rapidly. Mr.Pratt coughed.

  "I have the misfortune to be a trifle asthmatical," he said. "It isvery unpleasant."

  "May as well cough, too. It will encourage 'em," said Armstrong, with agrim smile. "Percy, you can manage a churchyard cough."

  They both coughed, at first deliberately, but as the smoke thickened,involuntarily.

  Suddenly there was a rush of feet below. Armstrong bent forward,thrusting out his iron bar; but the foremost of the assailants, theSwede, seemed to have expected the move, for he slipped aside, bentalmost double, crying to his comrade behind him, and sprang towardsPercy. The boy, having just run downstairs and only at that momentcaught up the assegai, was a little late with his lunge. Jensen seizedthe head of the weapon and tugged at it, forcing Percy down a step ortwo. To save himself, Percy let go; the Swede staggered backwardagainst Radewski, who was in the act of discharging his revolver atArmstrong. The jostling of the man's arm spoilt his aim, and thebullet, which, fired point-blank, would probably have found its billetin Armstrong's breast, struck him on the right shoulder and spun himhalf round. Mr. Pratt had hitherto been unable to use his pistol forfear of hitting one or other of the boys; but now, seeing that both werefor the moment at a disadvantage, he dashed between them, fired with hisleft hand at the Pole, only two steps below, and sent him rolling downthe stairs with a shot in his groin.

  But the enemy were not this time to be denied. Jensen, inspired withlust of vengeance, had quickly recovered his footing. Immediately belowhim Rod and Sibelius, pointing their revolvers, only awaited anopportunity of firing as soon as there was no risk of hitting their owncomrade. Mr. Pratt, who was weaker than he knew, had just pulled histrigger without effect; either the chamber was empty or something hadjammed. Armstrong, with a wound in the shoulder, was leaning, for themoment overcome with pain, against the wall of the staircase. Taking inthe whole scene, Percy felt that all was over. His own weapon was gone;even if he should seize Armstrong's bar, single-handed he must soon beoverpowered.

  At this crisis, by one of those tricks of the mind which no one canaccount for, he suddenly remembered the packet of pepper he had boughtin the village, and one of the uses to which pepper could be put. Itwas still in his pocket. Snatching it out, he swiftly unfolded the topof the cone-shaped paper bag, and holding the bag by the screwed-up end,he scattered its contents upon the face of Jensen, just rounding thebend. With a howl of rage and pain the Swede recoiled on his comradesbehind, driving them back upon the remainder of their party at the footof the stairs. The volume of wood smoke had lessened when they startedthe attack; and now the cloud of pepper, floating down slowly upon thefumes, spread over the whole width of the staircase. A chorus ofsneezes soared up--a chorus in many parts, from the shrill tenor ofPrutti, the Italian chauffeur, to the resonant bass of the corpulentSwiss, Maximilien Rod. Gradoff's sneeze was distinguishable fromJensen's, and the two strangers performed a duet in sternutation. Therewere interludes of cursing and yelling; Rush's sense of humour appearedto be tickled, as well as his nostrils; for Pratt declared that he heardhim guffawing between his sneezes. After all, Rush was an Englishman.

  The performers were still busy--the audience on the stairs was about tomove a little higher up--when there came, from some spot without, asound of cheers. Never was applause so unwelcome to a foreign band.With the sneezes now mingled cries of alarm, the noise of feet scufflingamid litter, a running to and fro. Percy, with a whoop of delight,dashed downstairs, picking up his assegai on the way. When he reachedthe room below, he was momentarily checked by a sneeze; then, throughthe clearing smoke, his streaming eyes beheld two figures struggling onthe floor. A second glance distinguished them as Jensen and his oldenemy, Henery Drew. The farmer was uppermost.

  "THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST."]

  "Come and see fair play, Jack," Pratt shouted up the stairs toArmstrong, who had pulled himself together and was following him.

  From outside came fierce shouts, pistol shots, the clash of weapons.Pratt dashed out. Gradoff and his gang (all but Rush, who hadsurrendered at once) were sustaining an unequal struggle with theinfuriated villagers who had closed upon them. On the one sideWarrender, with Rogers and the rest, on the other the group of villagerscollected by Drew--of whom the general dealer, smarting for his unpaidbill, had constituted himself the temporary leader in rivalry withConstable Hardstone--a body of some twenty determined men, who wereperhaps a little breathless from haste. Not so with the others. AsSamson lost his strength with his hair, so these internationaladventurers, desperate, courageous enough, holding life cheap, became aschildren under the debilitating pungency of pepper. A man cannot sneezeand fight. Some few shots were fired; a bullet grazed Rogers's shiningskull; another struck out of Blevins's hand the mallet he carried; athird carried away the lobe of an ear from a young carter, who refusedto leave the field until he had found it. Short, sharp, decisive, thebattle ended in a general capitulation. Only one of the foreignersescaped; Gradoff, seeing that all was lost, kept his last bullet forhimself.

  From the doorway Mr. Pratt had watched the pinioning of the prisoners.A cheer broke from his neighbours and tenants. And, just as a movetowards the house was being made, Mr. Crawshay and two of his men, armedwith shot-guns, came trotting across the sward.

  "God bless you, Pratt, my dear fellow," cried the old gentleman,grasping his neighbour by the hand, and shaking it vigorously up anddown.

  Mr. Pratt sneezed.

  "And you, Crawshay," he said. "But try the other hand, my friend; myright arm bears an honourable wound."