The hammering down below kept on steadily for an hour or so. Then there was silence for quite a while, I expect while The Man’s army was getting rested and recovering its grit. It was beginning to grow dusk before we saw a single Japanese.

Mark held a council of war. It wasn’t much of a council, if that word means people talking together and offering one another advice. Mark did most of the talking and all of the advising. It wasn’t because he wouldn’t accept advice. No, sir. He wasn’t that sort of fellow at all. He was always glad to listen and to change his own plan if somebody offered a better one, but right now he was the only one that had any plan. Mostly he was. The rest of us fellows were pretty good at doing things we were told, and maybe we were up to the average on brains, but Mark was a little out of the ordinary there. Anyhow, he had a different kind of brain. It was the kind that can’t help scheming and figuring. So the council of war consisted mainly in his telling us what to do.

“We can’t hold this l-l-line of defenses,” says he. “It won’t be long before we have to make a strategic retirement to the next floor. That’s our last stronghold, and it’s the s-s-strongest. We can hold out there till—”

“Till it rains, I hope,” says I. “Then we’ll get a drink.”

“Is that still on your mind, Tallow? Well, the first minute I have to spare I’ll get you a drink.”

“Is that a promise?” says I.

“Yes,” says he.

That settled it. If Mark Tidd said he’d get water, then water would be got. I was satisfied.

“How you goin’ to get it?” Plunk says.

“I don’t know yet,” says Mark. Now wasn’t that just like him! He knew there must be some way of getting water up there, and he was sure, if there was a way, he could find it. I wish I was as confident of myself as that. Maybe that’s why Mark is more thought of by folks than we are—because he never gives up, and because he knows if anybody can do a thing he can do it, too.

“We’ll have to r-r-retreat,” says he. “Maybe not at the next attack, but soon. If The Man uses the scheme I’m thinkin’ of we’ll retreat right sudden.”

“Will we have time,” says I, “to run up the stairs and pull them up after us?”

“I’ve f-f-fixed it so we will,” says he. You see, he’d thought it all out and was ready for anything. Of course he did make mistakes once in a while, like forgetting the water, but that was seldom. As Uncle Ike Bond said when he bought a citron because his bad eyesight made him think it was a muskmelon, “The best of us’ll make mistakes.”

“Now,” says Mark, “we want to know when to r-r-retreat. The two guards want to know b-because they’ve got farther to run. We’ll have to have a signal. The minute they hear it, or you hear it, forget everything but how to get to the t-t-top of those stairs the quickest way there is. The signal will be two screeches like this.” He showed us, and they were screeches for certain. A catamount would have been so proud of them he’d have jumped out of his skin. I guess a catamount that could yowl like that would be a sort of opera-singer among his folks, and they’d pay to hear him perform.

“Will that do?” says Mark.

“Do?” says I. “Yell like that and we won’t have to retreat. It’ll scare the Japs stiff so they’ll fall down-stairs and bu’st their necks.”

“All right,” says he. “You, Tallow, go and tell Motu and Binney.”

I went off to tell them. Motu was leaning on the railing, looking over, when I got there.

“How’s business?” says I.

He looked at me sort of blank. Then he smiled so all his fine white teeth showed between his lips. “Ha! Tallow, it is an American question. I understand. To be sure. How is business? There has not been business. I have not had a single—what do you say?—a single customer.” He stopped and looked sort of disappointed. “You boys have had all the fighting,” he says. “You fight for Motu, yet Motu has no part in it.”

“Don’t let that worry you,” says I. “Guardin’ is as important as fightin’, and harder to do, I expect. Besides,” says I, “if you was tryin’ to keep pirates from capturin’ a treasure you wouldn’t bring it right up to the fightin’-line where they could grab it and run. No, sir, you’d keep it back where it would be safe. Well, Motu, you’re our treasure after a manner of speaking. We’re tryin’ to keep the Japanese from takin’ you, so we want you back where they can’t haul you off in the mix-up. That’s strategy.”

“Strategy maybe,” says he, “but not honorable strategy for the treasure. Where others fight for you you should fight also for yourself, and not in the rear rank, but in front. Let no man be struck a blow in your defense that you yourself can take. So my father taught me.”

I sort of figured it out that Motu had the right sort of a father. My grandfather fought in our war, and that’s exactly the sort of thing he used to tell me. He was great on honor, granddad was. I told Motu about him because I didn’t want him to think American boys weren’t taught about honor as much as Japanese boys were.

“You’ll get enough fightin’ before we’re through with this,” says I, “so don’t worry about takin’ a little rest.”

Then I went on and told Binney, who hadn’t seen any of the enemy, either. He was worried, though, about a spruce-tree that grew pretty close to a window. He’d been thinking that maybe a man could climb it and get out on a limb that almost touched the wall, and from there jump smack through a window. It looked possible to me.

By this time it was getting quite dark and I hurried back to the stairs where Plunk and Mark were sitting. Mark had another big sandwich for each of us, so I carried supplies to Motu and Binney. Both of them asked for water, so I told them we were just out of it, but would have a fresh supply soon. Binney kicked a little about it, but Motu just smiled and said, “If we have to have water your Mark Tidd will get it.”

I went back to my place again. Mark had a couple of blankets spread on the floor. “Two men s-s-sleep,” says he. “You and Plunk take t-t-turns with Binney and Motu.”

“How about you?” says I.

“No sleep for me to-night,” he said, with that look around his ............