Strangely enough there came no answer. Dick caught his breath, Alec gasped aloud. The midshipman could hear his breath coming fast and deep within two feet perhaps of where he was sitting. "Wait," he whispered. "He was just to my right. I'll crawl that way and see where he has got to." Getting to his knees, for till now he had been prone beside the friendly wall which had sheltered them from stones and splinters sent hurtling through the air by the shells which had fallen so close to them, Dick made his way along the edge of the wall in search of the Commander. And presently his fingers lit upon his figure. The officer was huddled up against the brickwork; and though Dick pulled his sleeve violently there came no response, not even when he kneeled above him, felt for his head, and spoke sharply into his ear. "Come along and join me," he called gently to Alec. "The Commander's hit; yes, hit in the head. I'm sure of that, for I can feel that his hair is wet; and listen to his breathing." Neither of those two young fellows had had up till then much acquaintance with wounds and injuries. But Dick had once seen a man lying severely stunned, and now he recognized one at least of the symptoms. For the unfortunate Commander was breathing stertorously--positively snoring--while he took not the smallest notice when his junior tugged at his clothing. "Bend over him and strike a light," whispered Dick when Alec had joined him. "We'll have to chance being seen. Got any matches?" Evidently Alec was well provided, for in a moment there came the tell-tale scrape of a lucifer being rubbed against the box. Then a tiny flame blazed out, a flame which Alec shielded with his hand, while he directed a portion of it on to the unconscious Commander. "Yes; hit in the head. See, here's a big scalp wound," whispered Dick, making a rapid examination, and discovering blood welling from a nasty wound just above the Commander's forehead. "I'm not much used to this sort of thing, Alec, but I imagine that he's not very badly hurt. He's stunned, of course, and the thing is to know how to deal with him. First thing, anyway, is to tie a handkerchief round the wound. Get another match ready. Strike when I tell you to. Now. I've got his head lifted on to my knee and my handkerchief unfolded. Strike now." With the help of that feeble glimmer, lasting perhaps for half a minute, they bound up the Commander's wound, and then, finding a raised piece of ground close to the wall, gently lowered his head upon it. "Better than nothing. It'll act like a cushion," said Dick. "Now?" "Ah--a dickens of a business! There's the Commander down and wounded, Major Harvey lost, perhaps dead for all we know, or only a prisoner; and this Charlie, whom we've never seen, and hardly heard of, somewhere in this awful city. What's to be done?"