"Now keep down," Henri told his friends; "or, better still, keep right away from the barricade, and report instantly if bullets contrive to penetrate the sacks. Personally, I don't think they will, for we've piled them up two deep, and a bag of grain affords tremendous opposition even to a sharp-pointed bullet. Ah! There goes the first! Well, has it gone through?"
"No. Nor will any others," the veteran told him, with a chuckle. "We are safe—safer, indeed, behind these bags, than if we had a stone wall before us. For, mon garçon, you understand there will be no ricochetting, no splintering of bullets, no splashes of lead about us."
In a few minutes, as the firing from the hall down below became more general, and thuds on the outer face of the wall of sacks became almost continuous, it was borne in upon Henri and his gallant little band that even bullets discharged at such point-blank range had for the moment little danger for them.
"Then we'll line our wall," said Henri. "It's not more than twelve feet across, so that six men lying flat on their faces will be sufficient for the purpose; six more will kneel down behind them, so as to be ready to fire over the top of the barricade in case of a rush; and our machine-gun man must squeeze himself into the midst of them. Now, man the loopholes!"
It was a canny suggestion of the bearded veteran which had caused the men assisting him to build the barricade to leave loopholes for the rifles of the defenders, not only along the top of this improvised wall, with bags placed so that the heads of those who fired would be protected, but to leave apertures also just a foot from the bottom through which men lying flat on their faces might fire down into the hall. As for the machine-gun, it was piled round with bags, just the bare tip of the muzzle protruding, and, indeed, thanks to the dusk which occluded the top of the stairs, giving no indication of its presence to the enemy. Thus, with the wall manned, and the remainder of his little party squatting on the stone floor of the gun-chamber ready to support their comrades, Henri and his men waited for perhaps half an hour, during which time the fusillade from the men of the 24th Brandenburg Regiment sent a hail of bullets in their direction. They thudded against the bags continuously, while often enough a missile would strike the concrete ceiling of the chamber, and, ricochetting from it, would mushroom against the opposite wall; some even struck the walls limiting the stairway on either side, and, breaking off at a tangent and exploding from the impact, scattered strips of nickel and lead over the heads of the garrison.
"But it is nothing—nothing at all," that bearded veteran told his friends; and, indeed, he was as good as a reinforcement of a hundred men to them—so gay was he, so full of courage, so optimistic. "Poof! Who cares for noise? Not you, my comrades, who have stood days now when torrents of German shells were pouring on us, when our ears were deafened by the guns of either side. Then who cares for the scream and the hiss of these bullets? They are but a drizzle which follows a storm."
"Get ready to support the others!" Henri commanded of a sudden, having crept forward to the barricade and peered through one of the loopholes. "That officer man is getting impatient, and, if the truth be known, he is beginning to wonder if any of us are left up here; for, remember, we have made no answer."
"An easy shot, eh?" Jules told his chum, gripping the rifle which he had thrust through one of the upper loopholes. "I could bring him down like a bird, as easy as winking! But I won't," he added of a sudden; "no, for that would hardly be fair fighting."
A whistle sounded down in the hall below, and fifty or more grey-coated figures rushed from the far end, where, no doubt, they were waiting out of sight and under shelter. Forming up across the hall, they were given a sharp order, and almost at once dashed forward.
"They are coming!" Henri called softly to his following. "Don't show as much as a finger, if you can help it. Open fire only when they get to the exit from the hall, and cease fire immediately you have checked their dash towards us."