Two seconds afterwards there was a stunning report and a blinding flash, apparently from beneath the car. It spun round and round like a teetotum, then fell over to one side with a crash.
For a few moments the three men were too much shaken to move. In the consciousness of them all those moments were a blank. They lay on the roadside where they had been thrown, like dead men. Then they realised with a shock of surprise that they were alive. Pariset was up first. Before he had time to stagger to the others, Kenneth sprang to his feet. Granger moved more slowly, and when he too stood erect, it was seen that his false beard was gone.
"I feel cold," he said, touching his chin, and smiling, though he was pale as death.
They glanced at the car. The off front wheel had disappeared; the off hind wheel was buckled; the bonnet and radiator were a mass of twisted iron. It was a complete wreck.
A shell bursting little more than a hundred yards away warned them to be gone, and they started to run towards the fort.
"Hellwig!" exclaimed Kenneth suddenly.
They ran back. The spy, the man whom the Kaiser delighted to honour, lay huddled in the bottom of the car, under the machine gun. It had broken his neck.
"Poor devil!" murmured Granger.
They turned hastily, and ran on silently, each thinking his own thoughts. Pariset was the least concerned at Hellwig's fate. To him Hellwig was merely a German and a spy, who had met with his deserts. Granger, whatever his private animus against Hellwig, could not but remember that they were members of one profession, who faced the same perils and might suffer the same end. Kenneth was the most deeply affected. He had disliked Hellwig, and had the average Englishman's contempt and hatred of spying. It was the one thing that alloyed his liking for Granger. But, as he said to Pariset afterwards:
"If there must be spying, and I suppose there must, it is something to spy like a gentleman, and that I am sure Granger does."