ard gas. Smoke 'em out,"
said Goodenough.

"Might kill 'em," Grim objected.

"That'd be too bad, wouldn't it!"

"We could starve 'em out, for that matter," said Grim. "But
they've probably got water down there, and perhaps food. Every
hour of delay adds to the risk of rioting. We've got to get this
hole sealed up permanently, and deny that it was ever opened."

"We could do that at once! But I won't be a party to sealing 'em
up alive."

"Besides, sir, they've certainly got firearms, and they might
just possible have one can of TNT down there."

"All right," said Goodenough. "I'll lead the way down."

"I've a plan," said Grim.

He took one of the fruit-baskets and began breaking it up.

"Who has a white shirt?" he asked.

I was the haberdasher. The others, Sikhs included, were all
clothed in khaki from coat to skin. Grim's Bedouin array was
dark-brown. I peeled the shirt off, and Grim rigged it on a
frame of basket-work, with a clumsy pitch-forked arrangement of
withes at the bottom. The idea was not obvious until he twisted
the withes about his waist; then, when he bent down, the shirt
stood up erect above him.

"If you don't mind, sir, we'll have two or three Sikhs go first.
Have them take their boots off and crawl quietly as flat down as
they can keep. I'll follow 'em with this contraption. They'll
be able to see the white shirt dimly against the tunnel, and if
they do any shooting they'll aim at that. Then if the rest of
you keep low behind me we've a good chance to rush them before
they can do any damage."

I never met a commanding officer more free from personal conceit
than Goodenough, and as I came to know more of him later on that
characteristic stood out increasingly. He was not so much a man
of ideas as one who could recognize them. That done, he made use
of his authority to back up his subordinates, claiming no credit
for himself but always seeing to it that they got theirs.

The result was that he was simultaneously despised and loved--
despised by the self-advertising school, of which there are
plenty in every army, and loved--with something like fanaticism
by his junior officers and men.

"I agree to that," he said simply, screwing in his monocle. Then
he turned and instructed the Sikhs in their own language.

"You follow last," he said to me. "Now--all ready?"

He had a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, but
had to stow them both away again in order