While the dead were being buried and the wounded removed, there was a long cessation of the savage struggle. Indeed, the long lull in the firing almost led some people to believe that it would be heard no more. Crowds on the Western heights glanced curiously, anxiously, towards Fort Warden, with some idea that its picked garrison would now abandon their desperate and daring attempt to hold the position. It became known that the enemy's plans had been in part defeated—either by reason of some official blunder or through the watchfulness of the French at the other extremity of the Channel Tunnel. The German troops that were to have raided the French terminus, and then poured into England, under the protection of the guns of Fort Warden, already seized by their advance guard, had not arrived, and could not now approach to aid their countrymen. Movements of foreign warships and transports were hourly reported by telegraph and wireless messages, but the British Fleet had by this time formed a deadly barrier of iron and steel around the coast line of Kent and Sussex. There must be a great battle and a great defeat of our squadrons before another foreigner could set his foot on Kentish shore. The brooding day wore on, tense with suspense and fear. In the stillness that accompanied the deepening of twilight, hundreds of field-glasses were finally directed towards the silent fort to discover[Pg 123] whether the American and German flags had yet given place to the white flag of submission. Any such anticipation, however, proved unfounded. For suddenly, as the dusk increased, the roar of artillery was heard; the masked batteries of the British once more had opened simultaneous fire upon the Fort. Instantly the challenge was accepted. Fort Warden roared its defiance. The big naval gun thundered its repeated demand for surrender; the siege guns crashed in unison; the howitzers savagely chimed in, barking as in sudden fury, like monster dogs of war; and fifty field guns combined to swell the dreadful, deafening chorus.
Presently the fire from the Fort slackened. It seemed clear they were husbanding their strength for work more crucial. Or could it be that they were running short of ammunition? Perhaps, it was conjectured, more damage had been done to Wardlaw's Works than the British had supposed. Such speculations cheered the spirits of officers and men. But the wiser among them only shook their heads. They appreciated the mettle of the men who held the fort, realised that they had counted the cost, expected no quarter, and meant to win or die. The British staff knew that it would be folly to cry until they were out of the wood. They realised that many a man must bite the dust in agony before the British Standard floated over Wardlaw's Works again, if, indeed, it ever fluttered there at all! The invaders would, and must, hold the Fort till their last gasp—not because they in themselves could hope for ultimate triumph over the increasing forces that now surrounded them, but because to them time was everything—time for their countrymen to develop elsewhere the work of conquest; time for the American and German combined squadrons to[Pg 124] land troops at unprotected spots of Great Britain and Ireland, while they, the daring three hundred, monopolised the attention of the flower of England's troops. The plans of the Allies were elaborate. This was but their first great move.
Meanwhile, imperative orders had been given for the British to attack the Fort again. The attempt was to be made directly darkness had set in, and it was only to pave the way for a new and even more determined onslaught that the guns had broken forth in the renewed bombardment already chronicled. Troops, Regular and Territorial, still were pouring into Kent.
No drum or bugle note disturbed the evening air; an interval of ominous silence, pregnant with dreadful threats and dire potentialities, preceded the renewed attack. When the hour had come, the word of command, uttered in a whisper, was whispered on from rank to rank. In open order, the swarming infantry battalions crept swiftly up the hill, simultaneously making for the Fort on every side. They reached a certain point, then paused under the last scrap of cover that remained available, while the field telephones sent swift messages to certain batteries. The signals served their purposes, and as the guns burst out again, the men sprang to their feet and doubled forward.
Those who were advancing from the South stopped almost instantly, dazzled and confused. The powerful searchlight of the Fort glared into their faces with bewildering suddenness, and the insistent racket of rifles and machine guns told them that their advance had been discovered. The doomed and blinded soldiers fell in scores, in hundreds, before a withering storm of bullets. Then, just as suddenly as it had been revealed, the flashlight was concealed;[Pg 125] but only to glare forth again on the British supports that were hurried to the front. Thus, brilliant light and deepest darkness alternated in swift and bewildering succession, and through both alike the leaden messengers of death mowed down the advancing troops.
Rank after rank reeled back upon their climbing comrades. On the South side, once more, the attack had failed, and failed at heavy cost.
North, West, and East, the result had been the same—repulse, defeat. The night was now illumined with extraordinary brilliance. Star-shells, rising high into the air above the Fort, burst in quick and dazzling succession. The blinding glare lighted up the hill, the sea, and every field and building, revealing, too, the fleeing figures of the retreating force and the prostrate forms of hosts of dead and wounded. A hail of bullets from the Maxims persistently pursued the remnant of the fleeing soldiers, and swept the plateau and the hillside clear of living things.
Pom, pom, pom! the murderous machines of wholesale destruction continued their deadly work until the men who worked them could find no living thing to put to death.
Broken and beaten—many of them desperately and horribly wounded—the panting remnant of the attacking force heard, as, at last, they halted, a shrill shout of triumph from the jubilant defenders of the Fort.
But the night's work was far from finished. The Fort must fall—cost what it might, the Fort must fall. If it could not be captured above ground in the staring light of star-shells, the attack must be made by burrowing in darkness through the hill itself. Preparations for this desperate and dangerous work had been already started, and much progress made.[Pg 126] For twelve hours or more, during what appeared to be a suspension of hostilities, the sappers had worked in relays with furious and unremitting energy. While their comrades above ground were being repulsed, while the star-shells went up in a rapid succession, and the implacable searchlight swept the hill in all directions, the picks of the Engineers, yard by yard, were steadily hacking a way towards the very foundations of the Fort.
These tunnelling operations would have been infinitely more tedious and more arduous had not an elaborate system of subterranean passages already been provided by Major Wardlaw. Various cunningly devised galleries bad been secretly cut in the hill in order to furnish the garrison of the Fort (on the assumption that the garrison would be English and acting on the defensive), with the means of taking an attacking force in the rear, and of laying mines for the destruction of any besiegers. But the tables had been turned, though how far, if at all, the invaders were aware of these hidden avenues and the method by which they could be made available, remained a matter of doubt and anxious speculation to the British Staff. Meanwhile, hour after hour, deep in the heart of the hill, the sappers sweated at their work. Nearer and nearer they approached to the spot at which a mine, if exploded, might be expected to shatter at least a section of the Fort, and open a way for British bayonets to enter.
A few more yards and the vital point would be reached. Then, suddenly, the sapper who was wielding a pickaxe in advance of all the rest paused in his work, listening intently. He raised his hand excitedly, and the officer in command of the party instantly crept forward, and with an imperious gesture stopped the work. The sappers, their faces[Pg 127] shining in the lantern light, at first wondered what it meant. But soon enough they heard and understood. Faintly, as through a massive wall, there came to their ears the fateful sound of tapping—the click, click, click of other pickaxes. It came from below the tunnel they themselves were cutting. One thing, and only one, could explain the sound. The invaders had found out, or someone had betrayed to them, one of the secret tunnels of the hill.
The sappers, pale as death, gazed in each other's faces. In a flash they realised the awful jeopardy in which they stood. The invaders were counter-mining at a lower stratum! beneath their very feet. At any moment—while a breath was drawn or glances were exchanged—they might explode their mine!
There was an awesome pause, then the officer gave a sharp, half-whispered order. Instantly, boldly, the picks were at their work again. It was a desperate race for time—here in this cramped tunnel—in the smothering depths of mother earth; and no man's life was worth a moment's purchase. Yet iron self-discipline prevailed. The sappers worked with almost frenzied haste and vigour. After ten minutes of furious, exhausting labour, they were allowed to pause. The chests of the toilers heaved painfully; some of them tried to hold their breath; others shook their heads impatiently, as if to stop the singing in their ears. They wanted to listen, to hear, and know their fate.
No sound reached them. It was a moment of agonizing tension. Then, nearer than before, they heard the picks again. Suddenly the sound ceased. The invaders had completed their work. There was no time to lose. At a sign from the officer, who brushed a handkerchief across his face and drew a[Pg 128] laboured breadth, a grim-faced s............