Before the music of it died away the sergeant showed his hand, and death
at its grizzliest grinned through the window. A great mass of damp,
smouldering straw, lifted on pikels, was thrust into the window-frame,
filling it completely, and thick wreaths of dense, foul smoke eddied into
the room, while through the straw the rain of bullets poured on, smashing
and splintering on walls and ceiling, door and barricade.
The Colonel slashed and poked at the straw with his rapier. Telling
Margaret to crouch on the floor, I crawled on my belly and fetched the
bed-staff, which stood in its accustomed corner of the chimney-piece. It
made a much more serviceable tool for the job, and I flung it across to
the Colonel, who seized it and worked it like a blackamoor till he was
almost the colour of one, and had, to judge by his voice and demeanour,
got almost beyond his German in his rage. Asking for Margaret's
handkerchief, I tied it loosely round her mouth, my heart near to bursting
as I looked into her calm and patient face. Then I lay down flat and
wormed out into the room and, after a hard struggle, wrenched off one of
the rods which carried the rings of the bed-curtains.
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