That letter became our most besetting problem.  How to find a runner who would take it to British East and mail it for us up there without betraying us first to the Germans was something we could not guess.  Even Fred grew gloomy when we realized there was probably not a native on the whole countryside with sufficient manhood left in him to dare make the attempt.  The first overture we might make would almost certainly be reported to the commandant at once.

“What fools we were not to send Kazimoto with it when he begged us to!”

“What worse than fools!”

“What brutes!  Think what we might have saved him!”

We were unanimous as to that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle.  Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open where they could have a full view of our doings.  Assuming the camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they were well within our portion.  We decided their curiosity was insolent, declared inexorable war, and there and then felt better.

Fred went out with a tent-peg and scored in the sand a deep line to denote our boundary, the Greeks watching, all eyes and guesswork.

“Over the other side with you!” Fred ordered when he had finished.

They refused.  He charged at them, and they ran.

“Whichever of you, man or servant, sets foot on our side of that line shall be a dead-sure hospital case!” Fred announced.  “We’ll reciprocate by leaving your side of the camp to you!”

“Who made you men rulers of this rest-camp?” Coutlass demanded.

“We did,” Fred answered.  “We’ve lost our rifles just as you have.  We’ll fight you with bare hands and skin you alive if you trespass!”

“Gassharamminy!” shouted Coutlass.  “By hell and Waterloo, you mistake me for a weakling!  Wait and see!”

We had to wait a very long and weary time, but we did see.  In the days that followed, when my wound festered and I grew too ill to drag myself about, Fred and Will were able to leave me alone in the camp without any fear of a visit from the Greeks.  It was not that there was much left worth stealing, but a mere visit from them might have had consequences we could never have offset.  Alone, unable to rise, I could not have forced them to leave, and their lingering would surely have been interpreted by the guard, who always watched them from the corner of the road, as evidence of collusion of some sort between them and us.

Just at that time Coutlass, as it happened, would have liked nothing better in the world than the chance to persuade the Germans that he was in our councils.  Fred’s mere irritable determination to divide the camp in halves saved us in all human probability from a trap out of which there would have been no escape.

CHAPTER NINE