A voice from beneath the canvas top broke in angrily:
"I tell you, they were Germans. It's either a silly joke, or it's serious, and you ought to report it. It's your duty to warn the Coast Guard."
The constable considered deeply.
"I wouldn't take it on myself to wake the Coast Guard," he protested; "not at this time of the night. But if any Germans been annoying you gentlemen, and you wish to lodge a complaint against them, you give me your cards"
"Ye Gods!" cried the man in the rear of the car. "Go on!" he commanded.
As the car sped out of Stiff key, Herbert exclaimed with disgust:
"What's the use!" he protested. "You couldn't wake these people with dynamite! I vote we chuck it and go home."
"They little know of England who only Stiffkey know," chanted the chauffeur reprovingly. "Why, we haven't begun yet. Wait till we meet a live wire!"
Two miles further along the road to Cromer, young Bradshaw, the job-master's son at Blakeney, was leading his bicycle up the hill. Ahead of him something heavy flopped from the bank into the road, and in the light of his acetylene lamp he saw a soldier. The soldier dodged across the road and scrambled through the hedge on the bank opposite. He was followed by another soldier, and then by a third. The last man halted.
"Put out that light," he commanded. "Go to your home and tell no one what you have seen. If you attempt to give an alarm you will be shot. Our sentries are placed every fifty yards along this road."
The soldier disappeared from in front of the ray of light and followed his comrades, and an instant later young Bradshaw heard them sliding over the cliff's edge and the pebbles clattering to the beach below. Young Bradshaw stood quite still. In his heart was much fear—fear of laughter, of ridicule, of failure. But of no other kind of fear. Softly, silently he turned his bicycle so that it faced down the long hill he had just climbed. Then he snapped off the light. He had been reliably informed that in ambush at every fifty yards along the road to Blakeney, sentries were waiting to fire on him. And he proposed to run the gauntlet. He saw that it was for this moment that, first as a volunteer and later as a Territorial, he had drilled in the town hall, practiced on the rifle range, and in mixed manœuvres slept in six inches of mud. As he threw his leg across his bicycle, Herbert, from the motor car further up the hill, fired two shots over his head. These, he explained to Ford, were intended to give "verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." And the sighing of the bullets gave young Bradshaw exactly what he wanted—the assurance that he was not the victim of a practical joke. He threw his weight forward and, lifting his feet, coasted down hill at forty miles an hour into the main street of Blakeney. Ten minutes later, when the car followed, a mob of men so completely blocked the water-front that Ford was forced to stop. His head-lights illuminated hundreds of faces, anxious, sceptical, eager. A gentleman with a white mustache and a look of a retired army officer pushed his way toward Ford, the crowd making room for him, and then closing in his wake.
"Have you seen any—any soldiers?" he demanded.
"German soldiers!" Ford answered. "They tried to catch us, but when I saw who they were, I ran through them to warn you. They fired and"
"How many—and where?"
"A half company at Stiffkey and a half mile further on a regiment. We didn't know then they were Germans, not until they stopped us. You'd better telephone the garrison, and"
"Thank you!" snapped the elderly gentleman. "I happen to be in command of this district. What are your names?"
Ford pushed the car forward, parting the crowd.
"I've no time for that!" he called. "We've got to warn every coast town in Norfolk. You take my tip and get London on the long distance!"
As they ran through the night Ford spoke over his shoulder.
"We've got them guessing," he said. "Now, what we want is a live wire, some one with imagination, some one with authority who will wake the countryside."
"Looks ahead there," said Birrell; "as though it hadn't gone to bed."
Before them, as on a Mafeking night, every window in Cley shone with lights.
