Burton of the Flying Corps

by Herbert Strang

He preceded them down the stairs. When the three men were in the cellar he left them his torch to work by, instructing them to carry the boxes to the end of the tunnel.

It was necessary to devise a train for exploding the dynamite at the pinch of necessity. Having no gunpowder this was a difficulty until Marco hit on a method. He bade Nuta bring some cotton cloths and some jars of grease that were among their belongings in the cart. The cloths he asked her to tear up into thin strips, and then to soak thoroughly with the grease. By knotting these strips together she could make, he hoped, a match as long as the tunnel.

There was no time to test it, or to judge how quickly it would burn. Scarcely ten minutes after the woman had begun her task Burton saw, from the loophole at which the machine-gun had been placed, the head of the enemy column appear on the track within effective rifle range. It consisted of a half-troop of cavalry, and was moving with cautious slowness. In another minute it came to a halt. Two officers in front held a consultation. One of them peered through his glasses at the silent tower. Their attitude suggested uncertainty. The lack of signals from the tower must have apprised them that their friends were not in possession of it; but the information conveyed by the men who had escaped overnight was necessarily vague, and they were ignorant whether the position was held by their foes, or had been abandoned.

At the window, but out of sight of the enemy, Burton and the two Serbs watched them keenly. Enderby had been placed at the remote end of the room, behind a barricade of timber, accoutrements, and rugs. In the last few moments Burton had discussed with him whether it would be well to open a parley with the enemy, and announce his intention of disputing their passage.

"My advice is to the contrary," said Enderby. "Deeds, not words. A shot will tell them all you wish them to know."

The consultation on the track came to an end, and the horsemen began to move forward slowly. Two of them, one apparently an officer, rode a little in advance of the rest. When they were still about half a mile distant, Marco raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired. Apparently he missed, for the two men instantly threw themselves from their horses and took cover among the rocks at the side of the track. A bugle rang out, and all down the column, as far as it was in sight, the troopers dismounted, left their horses, and advanced up the track on foot by short rushes from one patch of cover to another.

"What will they do?" Burton asked himself. He tried to put himself mentally in their position. All the information they could have was that the tower was in enemy hands. They could not know who its captors were, or how many they numbered. No doubt they would suppose that the patrol had fallen to a superior force, but they would infer that this force was a comparatively small one, since it was already clear that no attempt was to be made to dispute their passage on the track itself. Their natural course would be to feel the strength of the garrison, and perhaps to refrain from throwing themselves against a strong defensive position until they had brought up guns to bombard it. The wild and rugged nature of the ground made rapid movement difficult, and Burton hoped that the inevitable delay would not only enable the British Army to secure its retirement, but would also give time for the dispatch of a light force to bring off himself and his party. The latter event he did not count on; it might prove to be impracticable; in that case he could only look forward to the ultimate capture or destruction of the tower. It was his resolve to hold up the enemy till the last possible moment; if surrender were then necessary to save Nuta and Captain Enderby, he would at least have the satisfaction of duty well done.

Up to the present Marco's shot had been the only one fired. The two Serbs, if left to themselves, would have aimed again and again at the Bulgars, of whom they caught glimpses as they darted from rock to rock. But Burton prevailed on them to withhold their fire.

"They don't know exactly how we are placed," he said to Marco, "and we may as well keep them ignorant as long as possible. They are bound to leave cover if they mean to attack us; then will be our chance."

The position gave incomparable advantages to the defence. Standing on a spur of the hillside, the tower could be assailed only from the track; its rear face overhung a precipitous cliff which not even a goat could scale. For more than a hundred yards from the tower the track was wholly devoid of cover; the declivity on the one side and the high jagged ground on the other equally forbade an encircling movement. Burton's hope grew high as he weighed the chances for and against him.