“What is the object of streets?” asked Barker.

“What is the object of supper?” cried Buck, furiously. “Isn’t it obvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of a street is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streets join; therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You advanced into that hive of streets as if you were advancing into an open plain where you could see everything. Instead of that you were advancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you, streets turning on you, streets jumping out at you, and all in the hands of the enemy. Do you know what Portobello Road is? It is the only point on your journey where two side streets run up opposite each other. Wayne massed his men on the two sides, and when he had let enough of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don’t you see what would have saved you?”

Barker shook his head.

“Can’t your ‘atmosphere’ help you?” asked Buck, bitterly. “Must I attempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you were fighting blindly with the red Notting Hillers who imprisoned you on both sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and gold of South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them in their turn and hurling them on to your halberds.”

“If the thing had been possible,” began Barker, cursing.

“The thing would have been as possible,” said Buck, simply; “as simple as arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that lead to Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not nine million. They do not grow in the night. They do not increase like mushrooms. It must be possible with such an overwhelming force as we have to advance by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries, or approaches, we can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into the field altogether. Once do that and we have him to demonstration. It is like a proposition in Euclid.”

“You think that is certain,” said Barker, anxious but dominated delightfully.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Buck, getting up jovially. “I think Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight. And I think I am confoundedly sorry for him.”

“Buck, you are a great man,” cried Barker, rising also. “You’ve knocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was getting romantic. Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, being physical, must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither mathematical nor physical nor anything else...because we deserved to be beaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him. When shall we open the next campaign?”

“Now,” said Buck, and walked out of the bar.

“Now!” cried Barker, following him eagerly. “Do you mean now? It is so late.”

Buck turned on him, stamping.

“Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?” he said. And he called a cab. “Notting Hill Gate Station,” he said, and the two drove off.

A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in the next sixty or eighty minutes showed himself a really great man of action. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King to Wilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if his course was jagged, it had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two things he carried with him, his inevitable cigar and the map of North Kensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and again pointed out, with every variety of persuasion and violence, only nine possible ways of approaching Pump Street within a quarter of a mile around it; three out of Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out of Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two hundred each, stationed at every one of the entrances before the last green of that strange sunset had sunk out of the black sky.

The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one false protest raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of North Kensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense.

“There is no such thing,” he said, “as night in London. You have only to follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundred purple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up Ossington Street, two hundred more under Captain Bruce, of the North Kensington Guard, up Clanricarde Gardens. [Clanricarde Gardens at this time was no longer a cul-de-sac, but was connected by Pump Street to Pembridge Square. See map.] Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons under Provost Swindon attack from Pembridge Road. Two hundred more of my men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen’s Road. Two detachments of yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come down from the North through Ghepstow Place, and two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two moves. The enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces...or they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke Co....and rush on my four hundred...or they must retreat past St. Luke’s Church and rush on the six hundred from the West. Unless we are all mad, it’s plain. Come on. To your quarters and await Captain Brace’s signal to advance. Then you have only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense by pure mathematics. To-morrow we shall be all civilians again.”

His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round the terrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight was already over. One’s man energy for one hour had saved the city from war.

For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside the motionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearance in any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with a revolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly beside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly but richly coloured the black night.

At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was the signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole purple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley. Before it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the dark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine other swords were pointed that night.

A quarter of an hour’s silent marching brought them almost within earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no sound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that they were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the lamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance which Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue alone.

“Halt...point arms!” cried Buck, suddenly, and as he, spoke there came a clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the contingent of the North.

“Victory, Mr. Buck!” he cried, panting, “they are ousted. Provost Wilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street.”

Buck ran forward in his excitement.

“Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke’s to meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to Swindon and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke’s Road. We will hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!”

As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of North Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet scarcely a hundred yards further their halberd points again fell in line gleaming in the gaslight. For again a clatter of feet was heard on the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger.