'Help!' they yelled again. 'Help!' But although the officer must have heard them he took not the slightest notice. Then the driver looked up casually at the window, his face changed suddenly, he spoke to the officer and brought the lorry to a halt. The latter glanced up and muttered a quick order, the lorry reversed and bumping its rear wheels on the kerb, pulled up with a jerk on the pavement beneath them.
The crowd welled up against the now stationary vehicle, and brickbats began to fly again, but a third lorry had come into view carrying another load of troops; and a machine gun was mounted on the driver's seat.
The officer stood up and waved his crop. There was a sudden spurt of flame, and a horrible clatter echoed through the narrow street. For a second the crowd hesitated, but even as they did so the watchers at the window saw the front ranks drop, mown down by the blast of flying lead into a horrible shambles. The gun rattled and coughed, spluttering forth its message of death; the third lorry had drawn up beside the second now, and Kenyon could see the face of the man crouched behind the gun; it was a mask of malicious glee; he was shooting to kill and glorying in the fun, as mad with blood lust as any of the crowd he was executing.
The street cleared with extraordinary rapidity, but in every direction bodies lay huddled in grotesque attitudes, or wounded strove frantically to drag themselves clear of this hellish tornado.
'Come on, cried one of the Tommies..'What are yer waitin' fer Christmas Day 'an a well filled stockin'? Jump, an' we'll catch you.'
Bob led the way, landed on his feet and tripped on the uneven surface of the load under the tarpaulin. The soldiers pulled him to his feet. Then Ann and Veronica were lowered by willing hands until their ankles were on a level with the heads of the troops below.
The officer had climbed down and stood on the pavement superintending the evacuation. The Greyshirts followed one another out of the window; then Kenyon, his eyes smarting abominably from the smoke, looked at the American. Only the two of them remained.
'Go to it!' called Harker, flinging a leg over the window sill. I felt certain we'd get out of that jam some way!' then he let himself drop.
Kenyon was perched on the ledge of the other window, below him on the pavement stood the officer. 'Coming,' he shouted, and jumped. He landed with a thud, the officer caught him with a quick grip of the arm, and as he pitched forward, his nose came in sharp contact with the crossed sword and baton of his rescuer's shoulder.
'Brigadier General in full war paint,' flashed into his mind, then he heard a quiet voice say: 'I hope you've brought the promised magnum of champagne,' and looking up, found himself staring into the amused face of Gregory Sallust.
10
The Mysterious Convoy
'Keep your mouth shut,' snapped Gregory with a sudden change of face, 'and thank your stars that Rudd spotted Ann at the window; up you go.'
As Kenyon was hauled up he recognised Rudd, under the thin disguise of a khaki uniform, grinning at him from the driver's seat, and suddenly realised that the loaded lorry was the same that he had seen in Gloucester Road that afternoon. Silas Harker was perched on one side of him and Ann on the other.
'Did you see,' she gasped. 'Gregory! What can it mean?'
'God knows!' He shook his head. 'But better say nothing.'
'Wasn't that just marvellous luck?' The American slapped his enormous thigh and then waved cheerfully to some of his men who were climbing into the rear lorry. The leading vehicle had halted a hundred yards further along the street and its complement of troops were out in the road dragging the wounded and killed on to the pavement so that the convoy could proceed.
Except for a few of the mob who had crowded back into the scant protection of the doorways, Jamaica Road was almost deserted now. Gregory jumped up into his place, waved his crop and the three lorries got under way again.
A woman on the opposite side of the street hurled a chamber pot from a second floor window. It crashed harmlessly to pieces in the road but without waiting for any order a soldier raised his rifle. There was a loud report, a scream and the woman disappeared. One of the men laughed.
'That was pretty brutal and unnecessary,' said Kenyon angrily to the sergeant who was sitting back to back with him.
'Can't blame them, sir,' the man replied. 'If you'd been standing by for days on end, while the blighters chucked things at you and not allowed to raise a finger, I reckon you'd do likewise. It's made a power of difference to the boys, having an officer who believes in tit for tat. They'd follow the General anywhere already.'
'Already.' Kenyon turned the word over in his mind. Evidently Brigadier General Sallust had not been in command of the detachment long; and what the devil could he be doing with them now, anyway? Could he have been posing as a journalist while actually employed by the Military Intelligence? The term journalist could be made to cover a multitude of strange activities. Perhaps that was the explanation, and now that the balloon had gone up he had come out of his chrysalis into his natural splendour of scarlet and gold. But where were they off to convoying Mr. Gibbon's store of groceries under the protection of a platoon of troops? It was all so strange and mysterious that Kenyon had to give up the riddle.
'If only I was not so thin,' Veronica moaned, 'my chassis will be black and blue,' and the hard edges of the cases upon which they were sitting allied to the jolting of the spring less lorry was already proving the acme of discomfort.
' 'Alf a sec', miss, we'll soon make you comfy.' A grinning soldier folded his greatcoat into a cushion and utilised those of his comrades as pillows for her back.
'Oh, thanks thank you most awfully. But are you quite sure you don't need them yourself?'
'Not me, miss; and maybe we're in for a longish run.'
'How too thrilling. I adore motoring at night, but do tell me, where are we going?' Veronica stretched out her slim legs and wriggled comfortably down into her khaki nest.
'Ah! Now you're askin' something.' The man closed one eye with a knowing wink. 'I can't say fer certain but '
He settled himself beside Veronica and they continued the conversation in low voices. Kenyon, knowing her so well could imagine the grave face with which she hid her amusement while she led the soldier on to talk.
The lorries rumbled down Union Road but at the corner where Albion Street leads off to the docks and the Blackwall Tunnel, they were forced to slow down. In front of the low dilapidated houses where the street market is held there was a dense mass of people.
Harker touched Kenyon on the shoulder and pointed to the opposite side of the street. 'That's a cheery poster, isn't it?'
'PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD' stood out in letters a foot high on a great hoarding. For the moment it looked as if the crowd meant mischief. They booed and cat called, but the set faces of the soldiers as they trained their rifles on the mob, obviously only waiting for an order to open fire, overawed even the boldest roughs, and they passed the danger point without a clash.
In the long length of Evelyn Street there were fewer people, only huddled groups gathered here and there on the steps before the dilapidated but still lovely Georgian doorways; yet when they reached its end, it seemed that the whole population of the neighbourhood had gathered in the open space at the entrance of Creek Road. The crowd had evidently broken into the public house on the corner earlier in the evening, and now they reeled about the pavements, fighting drunk after their unaccustomed orgy of strong spirits.
A black mass of people packed the street from side to side making it impossible to pass, and immediately the leading lorry appeared one or two youths began to throw broken glasses and beer bottles. Without hesitation Gregory Sallust blew his whistle and the machine guns started their horrid stutter again.