But Bill scarcely noticed them; he turned to look first at Jim and then at Larry, and then cast a glance over his shoulder towards the spot where the attacking party of Germans were forming.
"You'll stay in your places," he ordered sharply. "Someone's got to be here to watch those fellows, and that someone's going to be the one you've put in command. If you're not contented with him, get someone else, for while I'm in command of the party here I stay. Jim, stop cackling! Go over there and lie down by Larry. Here, boy!" he called to another of the men, "your rifle'll be useful over here to stop the rush, and, Nobby, you're the boy for the bombs—get 'em ready and heave 'em over as the Huns get within distance!"
The incipient mutiny collapsed as rapidly as it had commenced. Not indeed that Larry or Jim or any of the others were inclined to quarrel over-much with the young leader they had themselves appointed. The urgency of the situation in the first place made argument undesirable if not impossible, and then Bill's abrupt commands, his obvious control of a difficult situation, the fact that an attack was just about to be launched, caused them to think of other matters; the rattle of the machine-gun, too, assisted, and to that was presently added heavy firing from many points, which caused all to keep under cover, that is, all but Bill, who stood stoically peering out over the top of the ruin, watching that party of Germans as they crept from shell-hole to shell-hole, firing an occasional shot, and getting closer every minute.
But if Bill remained aloft in his post of vantage and of danger, and if he had summarily quelled the anticipated mutiny, he could not arrest entirely the growls of Nobby, the surreptitious scowls of Larry, and the almost open threats thrown at him by Jim. Then Nobby put an end to the matter.
"He's right," he said. "That there young Bill is a-doin' just like what one of our young orficers would do, same as your orficers would take on, Larry, and here are you a-cussin' of him for it. You ought to be ashamed of yerself, you ought!"
That, with bullets flicking just above the wall and half an inch over the top of Nobby's tin hat! Not that it upset this gallant British soldier, not either that it could upset Larry—the quiet and somewhat retiring Larry. To speak the truth, in all his experience of Bill, Larry had never been so abruptly silenced, and, conscious as he was that his young friend was quite in the right, he yet burned with indignation at the summary way in which his own efforts had been worsted, and, finding Nobby close at hand and now trying to turn the tables on him, he swung round, leant up on one elbow, and poured a torrent of invective upon him.
"Say, here, this is real fine! Here's you and me and Jim gets turned down by that there young cuss of a Bill, and when he's put in the last word and fired the last shot, as you might say, there's you come roundin' on a pal—you, Nobby, what never could keep yer mouth shut. See here, sir; you're British, I'm American—only just as British as you are, if you know what I mean—I——"
A bullet put a very sudden end to Larry's explosion; it hit the tip of his tin hat and sent it off amongst the ruins booming and clanking, while the shock of the blow partly stunned the American. He blinked at Nobby, who just a second before had raised a huge grimy fist and placed it within an inch of his nose. Larry blinked again. Nobby grinned. Jim roared outright, and thus, with the help of an enemy bullet, the little fracas was brought to a friendly ending. A second later Bill's voice was heard.
"Boys!" he called out; "there's a bunch of Huns within sixty yards of us, and they've all converged into one shell-hole. I don't suppose there's a man here who could pitch a bomb that far—only if there was——"
"Look 'ere, young chap," came from Nobby, "sixty yards! and yer don't think a man can do it! You watch. Larry, stand by to corpse the first Fritz that puts his head up and tries to shoot at me. Jim, you do the same. Same over there. You watch the boys with that machine-gun. I don't take much notice of a single rifle, but being filled up with lead ain't healthy, as Larry likes to say; it ain't good for a fellow. So just you watch, and yer mates with you. Now then for brother Fritz in the shell-hole!"