Meanwhile, Tom, first looking in every direction, slipped under the bushes and felt carefully of the wiring. It was not simple flat fencing ranged in orderly strands, but somewhat like the entanglements before the trenches. As best he could, in the dim light, he selected seven places where, if the wiring were parted, he believed it would be possible to get through. The seven points involved four wires. He had to use his brain and calculate, as one does when seeking for the “combination” of a knotted rope, and his old scout habit of studying jungle bush before parting it when on scout hikes, served him in good stead here. He was nothing if not methodical, and neither the danger nor his high hopes interfered with his plodding thoroughness.
Having selected the places, he poured a little of the liquid on the wiring at each spot and hid the bottle in the bushes. Then he rejoined Archer, the first step taken in their risky program.
“How’ll I know the places if I go there?” Archer inquired.
“You won’t go there,” said Tom. “I’ll be the one to do that.”
“I’m the entertainment committee, hey?”
There was no sleep that night either—nothing but silent thoughtfulness and high expectation and dreadful suspense; for, notwithstanding Archer’s loquacity, Tom refused positively to talk in their box stall for fear some one outside might hear.
In the morning they gave the crack in the cylinder another dose (but oh, how prosy and unimportant seemed this business now), and at evening they screwed down the cylinder head, and with a gibing audience about them, wrestled with the mixing valve, slammed the timer this way and that, until the dilapidated old engine began to go—and kept on going.
“There you are,” said Archer blithely, as if the glory were all his. “Who’re the public benefactors now? Every time you get a drink at that pump you’ll think of Slady and me. Hey, Slady?”
The engine kept on going until they stopped it. And the Philistines put aside their unholy mirth and did not stint their praise and gratitude.
“Two plaguy clever American chaps,” said a ragged British wireless operator.