The elated feeling of the earlier siege had departed. But in its place we were conscious of a kind of proven and almost apathetic courage. We might be called upon by any peril, and we knew now that we could do what should be required of us. I lived altogether with the gang now, only occasionally (by Jack Jaikes' permission) running in to take a meal with the Deventers and to sun myself in the approval of Rhoda Polly. Of course, I saw her often. She had taken strongly to Allerdyce's gang, and, I think, cherished a hope that Jack Jaikes might one day allow her to command it. But, fond of Rhoda Polly as he was, Jack Jaikes had no idea of the equality of the sexes when it came to a battery of machine guns. So he gave the captaincy to Penman, a tall, thoughtful fellow of a dusky skin, from the south, a good mechanician and a man dependable on all occasions. Rhoda Polly sulked a little and confided in me. I pointed out to her that nothing more delicate than a mitrailleuse had yet been invented. They jammed. They jibbed. They refused to fire when they ought, but let go a shot or two without the least excuse, when they might place those who served them in the greatest danger. What could she, Rhoda Polly, do to remedy these ills? Nothing--whereas Penman had been reared in the factory where they were made, and had long been a foreman "assembler." "Yes, but," she said, "I could tell him to do all that, and I am sure that I could direct the fighting better. I have been a lot with my father and I have kept my eyes open." I told her to take her complaints to Jack Jaikes, but she knew better than that. This is how she explained the apparent contempt of the second in command. "He has seen us sitting sleeping on the roof, hand in hand, when the sunlight was two hours old, and you will see that neither you nor I will ever get farther than we are at present under the consulship of Jack Jaikes. He considers us in the light of a good joke, all because of that unhappy rencontre!" I was not ambitious like Rhoda Polly, and my position as confidential lieutenant to Jack Jaikes suited me exactly. I do not mean that he ever consulted me, or asked for my opinion on matters of business. But he liked a listener and he loved to thresh out every question immediately and to put down the contradictor. I must have been an immense comfort to him, for I contradicted regularly, with or without conviction, and as regularly allowed myself to be beaten down. That was what I was there _for_! Dennis Deventer had placed Jack Jaikes over the whole of the Works, as distinct from the defences of the Chateau--which, as the less defensible and the more likely to be attacked, he kept in his own hand. He strengthened the wall of the orchard with palisades, and established posts at either end with a machine gun to sweep its length. In spite of all, the Old Orchard remained the weak spot in our defences, and the sight of it with the enemy's posts so near put an idea into my head.