ns. How are they at Eperquerie?"

"We left them at it, but they're scotched there. Will they try here, or go
on?"

"Dixcart, if they know their business. It'll be all hands to the pumps
there, Uncle George. Four of us could hold the tunnel here against fifty."

"Yes, we'll get on by Les Laches and wait there and make sure. Do you stop
here, Phil, with Godfray and De Carteret and Jean Drillot, until you are
sure they have gone on, then come on and join us. Best barricade the tunnel
with some of that timber."

He and the rest went on up the hillside to Les Laches, and we four set to
work hauling and piling, till the seaward mouth of the tunnel leading from
the road to the shore was barred against any possible entrance. And
listening anxiously through our barrier, with the stillness of the tunnel
behind us, we presently heard the sound of the toiling oars pass slowly on
towards Dixcart. We waited till they died away, and then climbed the hill
to Les Laches and sped across by the old ruins, with a wide berth to the
great Creux at the head of Derrible Bay, and down over the Hog's Back into
Dixcart Valley, where we knew, and they knew, their best chances lay. For
in Dixcart the shore shelves gently, and the valley runs wide to the beach;
fifty boats could land there in a line, and their crews could come up the
sloping way by the streamlet ten abreast. It would be no easy place to
defend if the enemy pushed his attack with persistence, and every man we
had would be needed.

We tumbled into our men as they settled their plan of defence. We were
twenty-one all told. Ten were to go along the Hog's Back cliff towards
Pointe Chateau, where they would overlook the point of landing, if the
enemy made straight for the valley. They were to begin firing the moment
the boats touched shore, and then to draw back into the valley. The other
ten were to lie in the bracken on the slope of the opposite hill, just
where it gives on to the bay, and to pour in their fire before the enemy
had recovered from his first dose. Then, if he came on, the two bands would
meet him with volleys from both hillsides as he came into the valley, and
again retiring along the hillsides, would continue to harass him till, at
the head of the valley, if he got that far, the united bands would meet him
hand to hand. We judged he might be about thirty strong, but hoped our
first volleys might bring us about even.

Uncle George asked me to go with himself and the