“I'm on in that last scene,” growled Herbert.
“Only,” repeated Ford with emphasis, “We must be sure he has seen us.”
Not twenty feet from them came a bursting roar, a flash, many roars, many flashes, many bullets.
“He's seen us!” yelled Birrell.
After the light from his open door had shown him one German soldier fully armed, the Coast Guard had seen nothing further. But judging from the shrieks of terror and the sounds of falling bodies that followed his first shot, he was convinced he was hemmed in by an army, and he proceeded to sell his life dearly. Clip after clip of cartridges he emptied into the night, now to the front, now to the rear, now out to sea, now at his own shadow in the lamp-light. To the people a quarter of a mile away at Morston it sounded like a battle.
After running half a mile, Ford, bruised and breathless, fell at full length on the grass beside the car. Near it, tearing from his person the last vestiges of a German uniform, he found Birrell. He also was puffing painfully.
“What happened to Herbert?” panted Ford.
“I don't know,” gasped Birrell, “When I saw him last he was diving over the cliff into the sea. How many times did you die?”
“About twenty!” groaned the American, “And, besides being dead, I am severely wounded. Every time he fired, I fell on my face, and each time I hit a rock!”
A scarecrow of a figure appeared suddenly in the rays of the head-lights. It was Herbert, scratched, bleeding, dripping with water, and clad simply in a shirt and trousers. He dragged out his kit bag and fell into his golf clothes.