“That is so, Jack,” Frank Russel said. “We cannot expect direct help from them, but by making a sortie they will draw away some of these fellows who are watching us.”
“Then I vote we make a bolt for it!” Wilfred cried excitedly. “It will be our only chance, and if we don’t take advantage of it we shall never get any.”
“Yes, we must make a rush,” Jack agreed, “and by striking out here at the back, and away round to the left, we ought to manage it. To go straight ahead to meet a sortie party would mean that we should be surrounded.”
“You’re right, lad, perfectly right!” Frank Russel cried. “We’re playing a move with men who are as slim as slim can be, and to get away we must beat them at their own game. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. It is just what any ordinary set of fellows would do if they were in a close fix like this. They’d rush towards the comrades who were coming out to help them. Our friends the Boers will expect us to do that, and we’ll disappoint them.”
“Then it is agreed we make a rush,” said Jack. “Let us have a look at the ponies.”
Going into the kitchen, they found that Prince and one of the Boer ponies alone remained alive, Vic and the others having been struck down by the shell.
Jack stepped up to the body of the little animal which had proved a true friend to him, and patted her gently on the neck. Then he climbed on to the table again and out on to the roof.
For three hours nothing happened, and then a large force of Boers appeared, and having reached their old position, out of range of the defenders’ rifles, they pulled up and put two big guns in position.
For an hour they poured a perfect torrent of shell at the house, smashing it to pieces and bringing that part over the cellar down with a crash upon the ground.
But though it was sufficiently terrifying to Jack and his friends below, it did not damp their ardour. Carefully popping up their heads, they ascertained that there were yet many posts in which they could kneel and fire and still not be exposed to the enemy. And if the worst were to happen, the cellar itself would form a last site for defence, from which they could hope to keep the Boers away for a considerable time.