'Well, you've got these plucky boys to thank for putting it out,' said the captain, waving his hand towards the blackened Outlaws.

Section Officer Perkins turned to the blackened Outlaws, recognised them slowly through their coating of grime, and stared at them as though he couldn't believe his eyes. His mouth dropped open. He looked like a man in the throes of a nightmare. He gasped and gulped.

'W w what happened?' he said at last.

'They saw the fire,' said the captain, 'and very pluckily came in and put it out. They telephoned us as well. They've shown great pluck and presence of mind, and I think you ought to be very grateful to them.'

'Y y yes,' stammered Section Officer Perkins. 'Yes, of course, I am.'

'A very dangerous habit, leaving lighted cigarettes about,' said the captain. He had always disliked Section Officer Perkins and was enjoying his discomfiture.

'Y y yes,' stammered Section Officer Perkins.

He was still staring at the four Outlaws in the manner of a fascinated rabbit, as if he could never take his eyes off them again. If he hadn't unfortunately remembered putting his cigarette down at the sound of the telephone bell and not going back into the room again, he would have thought they'd set fire to the place themselves. They were devils enough for anything . . . But the captain of the fire brigade was shaking hands with them and obviously expecting him to do the same. He did it, muttering unintelligible thanks and congratulations. William savoured the moment to the full, then said carelessly: 'I s'pose you won't be goin' round to see our fathers tonight?'

'N n n no,' stammered Section Officer Perkins. 'No, of course not.' He was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then went on: 'Er how did you come to see the fire at all? You couldn't have seen it from the road.'

But William hadn't thought out the answer to that question yet. He pretended not to hear it.

'Come on,' he said to his Outlaws. 'Time we went home to tea.'

CHAPTER 4.

THE OUTLAWS AND THE PARACHUTIST.

'GET out of here, you kids!' said the Home Guard man impatiently.

William and the Outlaws withdrew a few steps and continued to watch the fascinating spectacle Home Guard men with tin hats and uniforms, carrying rifles and manning a fortress of camouflaged sandbags with loopholes for shooting through. It was incredibly impressive, exciting and romantic . . .

'I said, get on out of here,' repeated the Home Guard man, advancing threateningly upon them.

The Outlaws knew, of course, that he was only Billy Foxton, the blacksmith, who had let them watch him shoe horses and even occasionally lend a hand, but the tin hat, uniform and rifle invested him with such majesty that, obeying reluctantly, they turned and wandered disconsolately down the road.

'Gos.h.!.+ I wish I was grown-up,' said William. 'They have all the fun.'

'An' I bet you anythin' the war'll be over by the time we're grown up,' said Ginger. 'I bet you anythin' it will. I bet that when we're grown up we'll jus' have to go to offices with no fun at all. Grown-ups didn't have any fun till this war started, an' they won't have any more when it's over.'

'Fancy Billy Foxton with a uniform an' a gun an' a tin hat.'

'They've got wire things they can put right across the road, too.'

'I know . . . Tank traps,' said Henry.

'Crumbs! Wun't you like to shoot through one of those little holes?'

'One of 'em brought down a German plane the other day.'

'Our cook's cousin's a 'contamination man. He wears things jus' like a diver.'

'I'd sooner be a Home Guard man. I'd like to shoot through the little holes.'

'Our gardener knows a man what's got a friend what knows someone what caught a parachutist dressed up as a woman.'

'Gos.h.!.+'

'They do that, you know. They dress up as women.'

'Crumbs!'

'Yes, if ever you see a woman what looks like a man you c'n be jolly sure it's a parachutist. If we were one of them we'd jus' put that wire thing across the road an' start shootin' at 'em through the little holes. Jus' think! They might find one any minute any day. Or whole armies of 'em. An' all we've gotter do,' in a tone of bitter disgust, 'is jus' do nothin'. It's not fair.'

'An' I bet we could do it all as well as them,' said Ginger.

'I jolly well bet we'd do it better.'

'An' I don't see why we shouldn't.'

'They wouldn't let us.'

'Don't see how they could stop us. We'd have one of our own. Somewhere where they've not got one. I bet there's lots of places where they've not got one. An' I bet if we did we'd catch a parachutist before they did.'

'It wasn't much good when we had an A.F.S.,' said Douglas.

'No, but we had it too near the other one,' explained William. 'They got jealous an' there was that mess-up about that fire . . . I say, we could get a thing to put across the road, an' we could make a fort with holes in.'

'They'd find out we'd got one an' stop us,' said Henry again.

'Bet they wouldn't,' said William, the optimist. 'We'd go somewhere where they couldn't see us. Gos.h.!.+ There's hundreds of roads an' lanes an' places where they haven't got 'em, an' where those ole parachutists might easily come along . . . Well, I think it's our juty to have one.'

They considered this aspect of the question in silence. William was, as ever, persuasive, convincing his hearers even against their will.

'We've got no guns,' said Douglas at last.

'Well, we've got weapons, haven't we?' said William. 'Weapons is all you need. We've got an air-gun haven't we, an' a pea-shooter, an' catapults, an' bows an' arrows, haven't we? Gos.h.!.+ I nearly killed our gard'ner with a pea-shooter. At least he told my father I did, an' my father nearly killed me for it. An' I bet I can't count the windows an' things I've broke with my bow an' arrows an' catapult. If they'd all been Germans I bet the war'd 've been over by now.'

'We haven't got little holes to shoot through,' said Henry.

'We can make 'em, can't we?' said William. 'Anyone can make holes, can't they? Well, holes are there ready. You've only got to put somethin' round 'em.'

'Where'll we have it?' said Ginger.

'Somewhere where they can't see us,' said William. 'They'll only start bein' jealous an' try to stop us if they see us. They jus' won't b'lieve that we can do it as well as what they can. Grown-ups never do . . .' He paused a moment and considered. 'There's that lane that goes from Hadley Road to Marleigh. They've got nothin' there, an' I bet the Germans could use it as a short cut to get to Hadley. They've not thought of that those ole Home Guard men. They've put forts an' traps an' things all on the main road an' forgot that that lane's a short cut.'

'It's too small for tanks to go along,' objected Henry.

'Yes, but parachutists dressed up as women could go along it,' said William earnestly, 'an' I bet they will, too, if we don't make a fort there. I bet we've gotter do it jolly quick, too . . . They might be comin' tonight for all we know.'

'There's those ole packing-cases in the ole barn,' said Ginger thoughtfully. 'We could use them.'

'An' we've got some ole sandbags,' added Douglas. 'They took 'em away from in front of our shelter an' built a sort of wall instead.'

'An' we've got lots an' lots of wooden seed boxes in our shed,' said Henry. 'I bet we could fill 'em up with earth an' they'd do as well as sandbags . . . I bet our gardener won't notice they've gone.'

'An' there's some green paint in our garage,' said Ginger. 'That'll do for camouflage.'

'Gos.h.!.+' breathed William ecstatically. 'We're going to have a jolly fine one.'

It took the Outlaws all day to erect the 'fort' to their satisfaction. As it happened, no one pa.s.sed by except a butcher's boy, who was so deeply interested in the proceedings that the butcher was receiving complaints all afternoon of joints delivered too late for lunch, and a village ancient, who was, apparently, so absorbed in memories of the past that he did not even notice it. By dusk it was completed. It was a somewhat fantastic erection, taking up, in fact, most of the roadway. At the base were the seed boxes from Henry's tool shed filled with earth and piled on top of each other. Above these came the sandbags laboriously carried from Douglas's air-raid shelter, and arranged so as to leave at intervals gaps forming the 'shooting holes', which were the crowning glory of the whole thing. Above this were ranged packing-cases brought from loft or boxroom as well as the old barn. The whole looked so crazy that you would have thought it would come down at a breath, but by some miracle of balance it resisted the force of gravity. Four large stones 'borrowed' from Ethel's rockery were placed at intervals across the remainder of the road to form a 'tank trap'. As William pointed out, there was no reason why a parachutist should not land with a small portable tank along with his motor bicycle and other equipment. Finally, the Outlaws took up their positions in the rear of the fort pointing arrows, air-guns, pea-shooter and catapult through the 'shooting holes'.

The minutes pa.s.sed. The lane remained deserted. Dusk began to fall.

'We've jus' not gotter mind nothin' happ'nin' at first,' William encouraged his band. 'They've been waitin' for months an' months . . . We've jus' not gotter mind waitin' months an' months, but it might happen any minute. Any minute we might see a man dressed up like a woman comin' down the lane an' when you see a man dressed up like a woman you jolly well know he's a German parachutist. You-'

'Someone's comin' down now,' Ginger whispered excitedly. 'Gos.h.!.+ It looks someone queer, too. Bet you anythin' it's a parachutist.'

The figure approached. It was a large, unwieldy figure. It wore a curious feather-trimmed bonnet tied under its chin, a rusty black cape, and long, voluminous black skirts. The face beneath the bonnet showed masculine and heavy-featured through the dusk. Stout boots, suggesting of a farm labourer's, appeared beneath the rusty skirts.

'It is one of 'em,' whispered William tensely. 'It's one, two, three fire!'

'IT IS ONE OF 'EM,' WHISPERED WILLIAM TENSELY. 'IT'S ONE, TWO, THREE FIRE!'

Air-gun, arrows, pea-shooter and catapult discharged themselves from behind the 'fort' with such devastating effect that the whole ramshackle structure quivered and collapsed, hurling seed boxes, sandbags, packing-cases and Outlaws in glorious confusion to the ground. Having extricated themselves with some difficulty, they retrieved their weapons and looked round for the parachutist. The parachutist lay outstretched and motionless in the middle of the road. In falling beneath the barrage of seed boxes, sandbags, packing-cases and human boys, he had hit his head against one of the rockery stones that formed the 'tank trap' and was apparently, for the time being at any rate, knocked out. It was certainly a case of 'he'. Bonnet and wig had rolled off, revealing a cropped head surmounting an unmistakable male countenance, and the large hands and boots removed all possible further doubt.

'Gos.h.!.+' breathed William. 'It is one!'

'Is he dead?' said Ginger apprehensively. 'We'll get in an awful row if he's dead.'

William approached the prostrate figure and examined it cautiously.

'No, it's all right,' he said. 'He's still breathing. He must've fainted or somethin'.'

'Hadn't we better go'n' fetch someone quick?' said Douglas nervously. 'He might come to, any minute, an' he looks jolly strong.'

'I wonder what's in his bag,' said William, picking up the old-fas.h.i.+oned reticule that lay in the road beside the parachutist.

He opened it and drew out a paper. The Outlaws crowded round.

'Gos.h.!.+' said William. 'It's a pa.s.s into Marleigh Aerodrome. Gos.h.!.+ He's one of 'em, all right. He came over in a parachute dressed up as a woman with a forged pa.s.s into Marleigh Aerodrome.'

He examined the paper intently in the fading light. 'Yes, it's forged, all right,' he p.r.o.nounced at last. 'It's jolly well forged, too. Gos.h.!.+ We only jus' got him in time. He'd've blown up the whole place by now.'

They stood looking down uncertainly at their unconscious captive.

'What'll we do with him?' demanded Ginger.

'We've gotter get him to the police,' said William.

'How?' demanded Douglas. 'He'd be jolly heavy to carry an' he's goin' to be mad when he comes to. He'll prob'ly kill us all an' then go off to Marleigh Aerodrome an' blow it up, same as he'd meant to when we stopped him.'

'Tell you what we'll do,' said William. He turned to Douglas and Henry. 'You go an' fetch the police, an' Ginger and me'll guard him.'

'All right,' said Douglas, obviously relieved to be dismissed. 'All right. We'll be as quick as we can. Tell you what. We'll fetch Major Winton. His house is the nearest an' he's a Special Constable. Come on, Henry.'

Douglas and Henry vanished into the dusk.

William and Ginger stood guard over the prisoner. William held the bow and arrow, Ginger the air-gun. They looked down somewhat apprehensively at the motionless form. Though motionless, it was ma.s.sive and muscular.

'I dunno that this bow 'n' arrow's goin' to be much good,' said William. 'He's too near to take aim prop'ly.'

'Same with the catapult,' said Ginger. 'He'd jump up and be on us before we'd took aim at him.'

'A stick's what we want,' said William reflectively. 'A good strong stick. Then, when he starts gettin' up we'll jus' hit him on the head with it, an' stun him again till the p'lice come.' He glanced across the field at the dim outline of the woods. 'It wouldn't take us a minute to go'n' get one. We'd be back before he's come unstunned.'

'All right,' agreed Ginger. 'Come on.'

They ran across the field into the wood and began to look round for a stout stick. It took longer than they had expected to find one.

'This'll do,' said William breathlessly at last, seizing upon a stout piece of ash about the size of a walking stick. 'Come on. Let's go back, quick . . . If he's started comin' unstunned an' the police aren't there yet, I'll give him a good hit with it . . .'

They hurried back to the road.

The fallen fortress was still there.

The 'tank trap' was still there.

But the captured parachutist had vanished . . .

They stared down incredulously at the spot where they had left him.

'Gos.h.!.+' said William at last faintly, and Ginger echoed 'Gos.h.!.+'

'He's gone,' said William. 'He's come to an' gone. He's probably blown up Marleigh Aerodrome by now.'