"We've smashed the junction and smashed the bridge. No train will pass that way again and no ship will come up the Rhine. We've done our work—and not a building outside injured and not a civilian attacked. They'd be proud of that, your people, sir. You can't do this other thing, sir. It isn't the game. It isn't cricket."
He watched the commander's face keenly. He waited until he saw the bitter twist pass from the mouth and the frown go out of his eyes.
"They wouldn't want that," he urged. "They'd be ashamed, those people of yours." He waited a moment. "The old code, sir, an officer and a gentleman."
The commander's head drooped a little. The stiff poise of his grey beard softened. His shoulders lost their tenseness suddenly.
"I—I—" he wavered. He turned to the navigator. "Right about and back," he said weakly. He slipped into the rear among the shadows.
The navigator sprang to his compass.
"Nor'west by west," he ordered.
"Nor'west by west," the steersman repeated mechanically.
And as Meriwell leaned over the car he saw the town race flatly away from them, while the guns still chattered viciously, like disturbed magpies, and their charges burst high in the air into pretty, artificial stars.