As he sprang back to his place beside his comrade, other sentinels joined them, and behind them loomed the tall form of Captain Clarke.
“What’s around there, Aydelot?” Clarke asked. 315
“Didn’t you hear?”
Thaine’s reply was lost in a roar of rifles, followed by increased firing along the entire line, massing to the north before the Twentieth’s front.
“There are ten more men on the way up here. We’ll hold this place until reinforcements come,” Captain Clarke declared.
It was such a strategic point as sometimes turns the history of war. But the odds are heavy for sixteen men to stand against swarms of insurgents armed with Mausers and Remingtons. In the thrill of that moment, Thaine Aydelot would have died by inches had this tall, cool-headed captain of his demanded it. Clarke arranged his men on either side of the way, and the return fire began. Suddenly up the road a lantern gleamed. An instant later a cannon shot plowed the dust between the two lines of men.
“They’ve turned a cannon loose. Watch out,” Clarke called through the darkness.
A second time and a third the lantern glowed, and each time a cannon ball crashed through a nipa hut beside the little company, or threw a shower of dust about the place.
“They have to load that gun by the light of a lantern. Let’s fix the lantern,” Thaine cried, as the dust cloud settled down.
“Good! Watch your aim, boys,” Captain Clarke replied.