We laid them on the ground in a little roadside banana patch. We
were no more than a quarter of a mile from the enemy now; the glow
of their green beams standing up into the air showed on the
ridge-top ahead of us.
"We'll take the uproad," Don whispered. "Shall we? And when we get
to the top, follow some path, instead of a road."
"All right," I agreed.
We started on foot up the steep side road which led from the bay
shore to the summit of the ridge. The houses here were all dark and
deserted, their occupants long since having fled to Hamilton. It was
enemy country here now.
We reached the summit and plunged into a cedar grove which had a
footpath through it. The green light-beams seemed very close; we
could see them in a little group standing motionless up into the
darkness of the sky.
"Can't plan," Don whispered. "But we must keep together. Get up as
close as we can and see what conditions are."
And see if Jane were here.... It echoed through my head, and I knew
it was also Don's guiding thought.
* * * * *
Another ten minutes. We were advancing with the utmost caution. The
cedar grove was almost black. Then we came to the end of it. There
was a winding road and two white houses a hundred feet or so apart.
And beyond the houses was a stretch of open field, strangely denuded
of vegetation.
"There they are, Bob!" Don sank to the ground with me beside him. We
crouched, revolvers in hand, gazing at the strange scene. The field
had been a cedar grove, but all the vegetation now was gone, leaving
only the thin layer of soil and the outcropping patches of Bermuda's
famous blue-gray rock. The houses, too, had been blasted. One was on
this side of the field, quite near us. Its walls and roof had
partially fallen; its windows and door rectangles yawned black and
empty, with the hurricane shutters and the wooden window casements
gone and the panes shattered into a litter of broken glass.
But the house held our attention only a moment. Across the
two-hundred-foot field we could plainly see the invaders--forty or
fifty men's figures dispersed in a little group. It seemed a sort of
encampment. The green light beams seemed emanating from small hand
projectors resting now on the ground. The sheen from them gave a
dull lurid-green cast to the scene. The men were sitting about in
small groups. And some were moving around, seemingly assembling
larger apparatus. We saw a projector, a cylindrical affair, which
half a dozen of them were dragging.
"Bob! Can you make out--back by the banana grove--captives? Look!"
* * * * *
The encampment was at the further corner of the naked field. A
little banana grove joined it. We could see where the enemy light
had struck, partially melting off some of the trees so that now they
stood leprous. In the grove were other figures of men, and it seemed
that among them were some girls. Was Jane there among those
captives?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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