They halted at sound of Tom's voice.
Something from the air struck the ground with a thud, and Hippy Wingate toppled over against Elfreda Briggs and sank down, uttering a faint moan.
"Hippy's hurt! Something hit him.

Quick, Tom! Show a light!" cried Miss Briggs.
Tom Gray flashed a ribbon of light from his pocket lamp and sprang to his companion.
"Hippy! Hippy!" he begged.
Nora uttered an anguished wail, and in an instant her arms were about Lieutenant Wingate's neck.
"Let go and give him air," commanded Tom.
Hippy lay as he had fallen, half on his side, one arm doubled under his head.

A red welt across his forehead showed where the blow that felled him had fallen.
The reverberating crashes that had shaken the earth were dying out and now seemed much further away than at first..