Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 70
Colin gave a gasp as one of the Ruffa sheep rose at his feet and leapt clumsily out of his path. He realised that he had been thinking too much and not paying sufficient attention to the work in hand.
“No talking after this,” Northfleet ordered in a low voice. “We’re getting too near to risk anything. Pick your steps and don’t make a sound.”
They circumambulated Wester Voe at a fair distance and reached the spinney without mishap. Then followed a cautious descent into the gardens, with every precaution against the slightest sound. Colin was inclined to regret the fall in the wind. Its noises might have covered their advance. Then he remembered that wind might have sent the rockets astray. That was why Northfleet had been so relieved to hear that the gale had blown itself out, evidently. He seemed to have thought of everything, Colin reflected in some admiration. And even this minor point served to raise his spirits further.
Now the windows of the lounge were in full view: a broad rectangle of light set in the dark bulk of Wester Voe. The French windows were half-open, but the thin, translucent curtains had been drawn so as to hide the interior. Evidently the gunmen had no intention of sitting visible in a lighted room with potential attackers in the darkness outside.
When the party halted, Colin had fallen back to the rear; and he could see the figures of his companions in silhouette against the lit-up windows. Northfleet, moving stealthily in the obscurity, began his preparations. Leven surrendered the bamboo crosses, which were to act as rests for the rockets, being easily adjustable to the proper heights when two ends had been planted in the soil. Then Northfleet relieved Colin of the rockets themselves; but before placing them in their rests he seemed to clip some objects to the rocket-cases. What these things were Colin could not make out. They seemed to be small cylinders, so far as he saw in the faint light, while Northfleet was busy with sighting his battery of rockets and shifting the supports to bring the projectiles to bear on the windows. This done, Wenlock was given some whispered orders, and Colin smelt the tang of a burning slow match. Northfleet had foreseen the risk of using matches to light the rockets, evidently. The flare might have attracted attention had any gunman been on the look-out.
“Now you can start, Trent. Give you fifteen minutes to get to your post. And, look here, mind you keep that wrist-watch of yours under your sleeve. I could see the illuminated dial from yards away.”
Colin needed nothing further. He had already decided on his objective: a long clump of bushes just opposite the girls’ window and about fifty feet from the house wall. It would give him cover, and by approaching it from the far side he had a good chance of reaching it unperceived. In his Boy Scout days Colin had been the best stalker in his patrol, and some of his old cunning came back to him at this crucial moment. He had a mental map of the gardens to guide him, and he chose a route which gave him cover during most of his transit, so that he was able to move quicker than Northfleet had estimated. With a sigh of relief he gained the shelter of the bushes undetected; and, crouching there, he cautiously inspected his wrist-watch, to find he was about eight minutes ahead of his allotted time.
Colin, at first, could detect no sign of a watcher; but within a few seconds steps sounded, and the sentry passed along the face of the house under the girls’ window. Apparently he was in high spirits, for he hummed an air as he went. He walked on, still humming; then, as he turned back at the end of his beat, he broke into full song with an appalling clearness of articulation. It was one of those artless shanties which never by any chance get into print; and Colin, even in the tenseness of that moment, went hot all over at the thought that every word of it must be reaching the girls through the open window above.
But he had little time to brood over this. A more serious trouble faced him almost immediately. The sentry switched on a flash-lamp and began to examine the face of the wall below the window of Jean’s room. His figure was outlined clearly against the illuminated wall, and Colin had no difficulty in recognising the jackal Hawes, still clad in Colin’s clothes. The light flickered from point to point on the wall, pausing momentarily here and there on a projecting stone, the thick stem of a creeper, a stretch of waste-pipe, and the window-sill. Colin had no difficulty in guessing what this survey might mean. The creature was searching for the best method of climbing up to the girls’ window. Every movement of the jackal was clearly visible; and Colin could even see him nod approvingly as his light showed a good handhold which would serve his need. Evidently Hawes had absorbed Zelensky’s ideas to some purpose.
Colin took his pistol from his pocket and released the safety-catch. Then, as he lifted the weapon, he remembered suddenly that his hands were tied. If he fired now the whole of Northfleet’s scheme would collapse. The gunmen in the lounge would hear the report and hurry to the support of their confederate. Except in the last resort he dare not betray himself, but must wait until the rockets went off.
“ ‘Said Abraham the Sailor!’ ” bawled Hawes, completing one of the infamous verses.
He stowed his pistol in his pocket, switched off his flash-lamp, and Colin heard him spit on his