up from the boats.”
“And there’s me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others shut up in the House.”
He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which the most enlightened business mind showed no escape. Prudence, inventiveness, were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.
“We must create a diversion,” he said. “I’m for the Tower, and you laddies must come with me. We’ll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I had my wee pistol.”
“If ye’re gaun there, Dickson, I’m comin’ wi’ ye,” Mrs Morran announced.
Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed. “Five laddies, a middle-aged man, and an auld wife,” he cried. “Dod, it’s pretty hopeless. It’s like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world trying to confound the strong.”
“The Bible’s whiles richt,” Mrs. Morran answered drily. “Come on, for there’s no time to lose.”
The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie. There were no tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
“They’re a’ round the Hoose,” he croaked. “I was up a tree forenent the verandy and seen them. The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top o’ the brae, and they a’ turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but it was a near thing. I seen the Captain sklimmin’ the wall, and a muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin’ round the Hoose seekin’ a road in. They’ll no’ be long over the job, neither.”
“What about Mr. Heritage?”
“They’re no’ heedin’ about him any more. The auld Tower’s bleezin’.”
“Worse and worse,” said Dickson. “If the police don’t come in the next ten minutes, they’ll be away with the Princess. They’ve beaten all Dougal’s plans, and it’s a straight fight with odds of six to one. It’s not possible.”
Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope. “Eh, the puir lassie!” she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her shawl.
“Laddies, can you no’ think of a plan?” asked Dickson, his voice flat with despair.
Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had been silent, but under his tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy. Jaikie’s report seemed to bring him to a decision.
“It’s gey dark,” he said, “and it’s gettin’ darker.”
There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson listened.
“The enemy’s mostly foreigners, but Dobson’s there and I think he’s a kind of guide to them. Dobson’s feared of the polis, and if we can terrify Dobson he’ll terrify the rest.”
“Ay, but where are the police?”
“They’re no’ here yet, but they’re comin’. The fear o’ them is aye in Dobson’s mind. If he thinks the polis has arrived, he’ll put the wind up the lot… WE maun be the polis.”
Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme. I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the tactics of “Infiltration,” whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected them. But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
“It’s gettin’ dark,” he said, “and the enemy are that busy tryin’ to break into the Hoose that they’ll no’ be thinkin’ o’ their rear. The five o’ us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin’ and keepin’ out of sight, and what hinders us to get in among them, so that they’ll hear us but never see us. We’re used to the ways o’ the polis, and can imitate them fine. Forbye we’ve all got our whistles, which are the same as a bobbie’s birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin’ a man’s voice. Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and that’s my plan.”
With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of the environs of Huntingtower. Peter Paterson was to move from the shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his communications. “As soon as one o’ ye gets into position he’s to gie the patrol cry, and when each o’ ye has heard five cries, he’s to advance. Begin birlin’ and roarin’ afore ye get among them, and keep it up till ye’re at the Hoose wall. If they’ve gotten inside, in ye go after them. I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep out o’ sight and no’ let himsel’ be grippit.”
The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it expounded than it was put into action. The Die-Hards faded out of the kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking at each other. They did not look long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed by Mrs. Morran’s out-of-doors boots and Dickson’s tackets. Arm in arm the two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the South Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving tongue, and this was what he sang:
“Proley Tarians, arise!
Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
Heed no more the Fat Man’s lies,
Stap them doun his throat!
Nocht to lose except our chains… “
But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which, blank and immense, now loomed before them. Dickson’s ears were alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be round the verandah at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery where the road forked, one path running to the back door and one to the stables. They took the latter and presently came out on the downs, with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a formal garden running along the west side of the House.
The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all but fallen, and the House was a black shadow against the dusky sky, while a confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily: then another.
The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. “That’s the laddies’ patrol.” she gasped. “Count the cries, Dickson.”
Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then there was perhaps
