Baird began to plaster the smaller dredge with smoke bombs. The scene before him was quickly blotted out in white smoke. He could hear a lot of shouting and rifle firing. The siren continued to scream its warning.
Grabbing Rico by his arm, Baird dragged him through the tall grass to the oak tree.
‘Get back to the hut!’ he said, ‘and hurry. If I don’t join you in a quarter of an hour, I shan’t be coming.’
‘What about the boat?’ Rico panted. He looked as if he were going to faint. Sweat ran down his ashen face and his knees were buckling.
‘Never mind the boat — get going!’
Baird gave him a shove that sent him reeling, then swung himself up on an overhanging branch of the oak tree and climbed just high enough to look over the saw-grass.
The two dredges and the trucks were wiped out by the mass of white smoke. The hut was still visible, and as Baird looked he saw a guard come running out of the smoke, pull the dead guard out of the way and sit astride the machine-gun.
Baird knew it was too long a shot for his Colt, but he thought he might drop a bomb near enough to make the gun useless.
He pulled a bomb from his pocket as the guard swivelled the Browning around on its mounting to cover the tree and that part of the swamp where Rico was.
Baird threw the bomb with all his great strength. As it whistled through the air, the guard opened up with the machine-gun. Splinters flew off the trunk of the tree ten feet above Baird’s head. He saw the bomb drop on to the concrete path about fifteen feet from the gun and explode. He didn’t wait to see what the result of the smoke would be. The hail of lead smashing through the leaves of the tree so close to him shook even his iron nerve, and he dropped to the ground.