"Can you throw a bomb fairly into that emplacement?" asked Ralph, addressing the redoubtable Ginger, who, despite a severe shaking, still retained half a dozen Mills bombs.
"You bet," replied Ginger. "Two afore they knows they're on the way to Kingdom Come."
"All right," continued Setley. "Alderhame, McTurk and I will follow up with the bayonet. We must wipe both crews out. Ready?"
Crouching ready to spring and hurl his deadly missiles the bomber removed the safety-pin. To Setley it seemed an interminable time before he threw one bomb. Four seconds? It seemed like forty before the missile burst with a loud report right in the centre of the over-attentive Huns.
Up sprang the four men, Ginger with another bomb and the rest with rifle and bayonet. Over the sand-bags they leapt, landing upon the bodies of the bombed gunners, scrambled over the intervening debris and made for the second machine-gun.
"Take that, you dirty skunks!" shouted Anderson, launching another bomb. The missile, missing its mark, exploded harmlessly beyond the sand-bag emplacement.
The Germans faced about, and with levelled revolvers defended themselves against the unexpected assailants.
With a rifle-shot Setley brought down one of the men—a big bloated sergeant—and plunged his bayonet into the second. As he did so, he was just conscious of a tingling sensation in his left shoulder. A revolver bullet, fired at practically point-blank range, had seared his flesh. McTurk accounted for the man who had fired that shot and then went down with a ghastly wound in his throat.
As he fell the dying Tommy grasped Setley by the ankles, bringing the lad prostrate upon the ground. Before he could regain his feet Ralph found himself at grips with a tall, slim, bearded Fritz, who in his frenzy attempted to batter in his antagonist's head with the butt of his revolver, notwithstanding that the weapon was still loaded in four chambers.
Guarding his head with his left hand, Setley recovered himself sufficiently to plant a powerful blow with his fist upon the point of the Hun's chin. The man recoiled, dropped his revolver, and raised his hands above his head. As he did so a fragment of shrapnel caught him and stretched him lifeless upon the floor.