Dick stopped and jumped off, leaning his bike against the bank.
“There—do you see?” whispered Danny, brushing aside a mass of nettles and revealing the old drain pipe. “There goes the wire. Do you see?—it runs up the post. They’ve cut a groove for it and tarred it over, so it scarcely shows! The German chap is just down there. Put your ear to the hole—you may hear the buzzer.”
Dick lay down in the ditch, his ear glued to the pipe.
“By Jove, so I can!” he whispered excitedly. “It’s quite clear—yes—yes!...” He listened intently for some minutes. Then he got up. “I can’t make any sense of it—it’s in code.” He ground his teeth. “And to think that beast is taking it all down!” he whispered. Then a sudden inspiration seized him.
“We’ll soon put a stop to his eavesdropping!” he exclaimed. “It may give the show away, that he’s found out, but if he tries to escape, our chaps will nab him all right.”
Taking his axe from its case, Dick dealt a blow to the post, severing both wires.
“Now I must connect them again, up there,” he said, and proceeded to swarm quickly up the post. Danny watched admiringly.
Clinging on with his legs, Dick worked with deft fingers. He had not got his Telegraphist Badge for nothing.
“That’s done,” he said, sliding down. “Now for Captain Miles.”
As they flew past the mill, Danny waved his hand to Allen and the Kangaroos on duty there. Then he began to think anxiously of the report he was to make to Captain Miles.