The men came in, surprise showing on their faces.
“Boys,” said Potter, “they’re going to blow us up to-night.”
The men burst into exclamation, interrogation.
“It’s our turn,” Potter said, and there was bitterness in his voice. “German spies.... They’re coming to-night. I’ve been—warned.”
Perhaps he had it in his mind to make a request of them; perhaps he had felt their loyalty to be such as to require no request of him in the circumstances. None was needed.
“God help ’em if they come!” said Mort, savagely, and he spoke for all.
“They were going to send old Angus up with the shop,” Potter said. There was no feeling in his tone now; somehow he was without emotion. “Without a chance for himself,” he added.
“The damn sn’akin’ blaggards!” growled Pat Cassidy. “L’ave it to us, sorr. Gerrman spies, is it?”
“They’re bringing explosives—TNT. Any man that doesn’t like it can go home—and nobody’ll think the worse of him.”
Pat faced the quartet of his fellow-machinists. “Think the worse of him, is it? Is there a man here which the white liver of him wants to run from a thafe of a Gerrman spy?... There is none, sorr. We’re all Amerricuns here, sorr, and, loike Amerricuns, we stand togither....”