“Spread out on each side of the young devils!” yelled the raging German corporal from where he lay. “Scatter and surround them! Work up on them from behind!”
His commands were quickly obeyed, and even such a rapid fire as the boys were able to pour into the enemy could not prevent three or four of them from running far around on either side, where, lying flat in the long weeds, they opened a dangerous flank-fire that immediately made the wall of no further protection to its gallant defenders.
“It’s all up with us now,” called Bob, as he took another ineffective shot at one of the sharp-shooters.
“If only the Ocean Flyer would come!” groaned Buck. “I can’t understand why it hasn’t arrived before this!”
At that moment, as if in answer to his desperate cry, there came the ominous roar of a powerful motor, high up in the air, and there came the great airship, swooping down with its seventy-two feet of planes magnificently outspread, and Alan Hope standing out on the lower runway, swinging deadly bombs in his hand.
The Germans saw the approach of the strange aircraft at the same instant, and startled cries of: “Ein Flieger! Ein Flieger!” (an airship) broke from them as they diverted part of their fire upon it.
The Flyer swept on down in gradually narrowing circles and lessened speed until it hung almost directly over the hard-pressed boys by the wall. Then a hundred-foot rope ladder, one end of which was attached to an opened port, was tossed down to them and Alan, making a megaphone of his hands, shouted:
“Climb up! Quick! There is a whole division of cavalry dashing down the road!”
Buck caught the loose end of the ladder first, and ran up the tough spruce rungs like a monkey, despite the sway of the rope supports. Bob did his best to weight down the end of the ladder with one hand, while with the other he emptied his remaining pistol at the Germans who now came at him in a body and on the run. Chips of masonry from the wall were flying all around his head as the bullets struck it.
Buck reached the top of the ladder and was dragged safely inside through the porthole, while Bob made a flying leap, caught the fifth rung and began to climb as fast as he could. German bullets whizzed past his ears, but fortunately none hit him. As he climbed, he yelled: