OUT OF ACTION
Frank's first proceeding when he awoke next morning was to start
munching one of his loaves; his next, to read the despatch which chance
had thrust upon him. It was addressed to the Anatolian captain. A
battery of heavy guns was to be emplaced on Sari Bair. The convoy,
coming by way of Kumkeni and Boghali, might be expected at Kojadere on
the following morning. The captain was to abandon for the time the
pursuit of the Englishman and to place himself at the disposition of the
officer commanding the battery, to assist in transporting the guns up
the hill.
Frank did not know Kojadere by name, but he knew Boghali, and
conjectured that Kojadere must be the village at the south-east foot of
the hill. It was visible from a spur about half a mile from his
hiding-place. A rough path left the main track between Boghali and
Kojadere at about the same distance from the latter place, and joined a
similar path running direct from Kojadere up the hill. These facts
Frank had learnt in the course of his wanderings, and he determined,
simply from motives of curiosity, to make his way to a spot where he
could see a sight new to him, the placing of a battery of guns. Abdi
had gone, no doubt, to Chanak; the others would not for the present
concern themselves with their elusive quarry; for he assumed that the
contents of the despatch were known to the carrier; so it was with an
easy mind that he betook himself to the elevated spot from which he
could view the Boghali road.
It was chilly in the morning air. The valleys and the lower ground were
blanketed in mist. The heights were clear, and Frank smiled as he saw
in his mind's eye the scene of his night's adventure, invisible to his
bodily eye, over the brow of the hill.
A light breeze was sweeping up through the hills from the sea, causing
the mist to gyrate in swirling eddies, and here and there cutting a path
through it. Gradually more and more of the Boghali road was exposed to
his view. There was nothing moving upon it. He looked up in the
direction of Biyuk Anafarta, towards the quarter in which the Anatolians
should presently appear, in pursuance of their instructions. There was
no sign of them yet; it was possible that the contents of the despatch
were unknown to them after all.
After a time he caught sight of figures beyond Boghali where the road
wound round a low hill to the north of that place. Ere long he was able
to recognise the artillery train--long teams, whether of horses, oxen,
or mules he could not tell even through his field-glasses, dragging
heavy guns and ammunition wagons. The escort numbered, at a guess, some
three hundred men. The train passed through Boghali, and took the
right-hand road towards Sari Bair. A bridge spanned a stream fed by a
number of rivulets rising on the eastern slope of the hill. Here the
train came to a halt. There was a long delay; probably the bridge was
not constructed for heavy traffic. Then one of the guns appeared on the
western side; the others slowly followed.
By this time Frank felt pretty sure that the Anatolians were ignorant of
the orders given in the despatch, otherwise they should long ago have
reached Boghali by the direct road from Biyuk Anafarta. If they had
resumed their hunt for him, it behoved him to be cautious. From the
troops below he had little to fear. They were not looking for him, and
in all likelihood were unaware of his existence. Keeping a careful
look-out above, therefore, he stole down under cover of the scrub, which
was very dense on this side of the hill, to take a nearer view of the
work of the artillerymen.
Several mounted officers had pushed ahead to survey the ground and
choose the easiest route for the guns. Some had taken the first track
on the right of the road, others were riding quickly forward to Kojadere
to examine the track from there. The two parties met at the junction,
and from subsequent operations it appeared that the longer but easier
gradient from Kojadere had been decided upon. Up this track, then, the
officers despatched strong working parties, to clear away obstacles, and
cut down the scrub which here and there encroached at the sides. Two
officers, mounted on mules, slowly rode up to the summit, to select an
emplacement for their battery.
Frank watched all this from a sheltered spot at some distance from the
track. These troops were not looking for him, it was true; but in their
course they must work round his position, and he was careful not to
expose himself.
The way having been prepared, the men in charge of the first gun whipped
up their team, which hauled the heavy weapon about a third of the
distance up the track. Then there was a check. The slope was very
irregular. For some yards its angle was low; then it would suddenly
make a sharp rise. It was at one of these abrupt acclivities that the
gun had now arrived. The ascent seemed an impossible one, and the
track, with on one side the rocky hill and on the other a steep incline,
hazardous in the extreme. The team attached to the second gun was
unhitched and brought up to assist the first. Urged by vociferous
shouts and much cracking of whips, the united teams, straining and
hauling, managed to draw the gun up a few feet at a time, large blocks
of wood being placed behind the wheels at each stoppage to prevent it
from slipping back.
Frank looked on at all this with interest, and a certain sympathy for
man and beast, which was increased when one of the officers, a German,
rode down the hill and vented his irritation at the delays in foul abuse
and violent threats. "They are working jolly hard," was his inward
protest. The gun moved on again, and a turn in the track hid it from
his view. He looked around to make sure that he was in no danger of
being seen from the rear, then crept up through the scrub to reach a
spot where he could again follow the operations.
"I wonder what they are going to all this trouble for?" he thought.
"Those guns aren't a match for our naval guns, and in any case they are
no good here as a defence of the forts."
A little way further up the hill he came upon a gully scarcely three
feet wide, much overgrown with bushes. It appeared to lead down towards
the track, on which, to judge by the renewed shouts of the men and the
cessation of the rumbling of the wheels, the gun had again been brought
to a halt. Frank crept down this gully stealthily foot by foot, and
presently discovered the cause of this new check. The gully intersected
the track and fell down the slope beyond. Though it was now dry, at
some time it had evidently been a watercourse, and the water had scored
a deep channel across the track, an effectual obstacle to heavy traffic.
At this moment the men were toiling with pick and spade to fill up the
channel, a task that would clearly occupy some time.
Frank looked on for a few minutes. Then his eyes strayed down the
track. The mules were stationary in a long line, quite unattended. The
team hauling the second gun lower down was out of sight. "Pity I can't
spike the gun," Frank thought, "though to be sure spiking is impossible
in these days. But a slip would send it crashing down the track, or over
the slope. I wish----" And then an idea flashed into his mind. The
gun was hauled, not by leather traces, but by heavy chains. Quickly
raising his field-glasses, he levelled them at the attachments of the
chains to the gun-carriage. Each one ended in a massive iron ring,
which was looped over a long hook. Now that the gun was halted, and the
wheels stopped by blocks of wood, the chains were hanging slack.
Replacing his glasses, he crept down under cover of the scrub until he
came opposite the gun. All the men were still engaged above. He looked
up, down, around. No one was in sight, except the men working with
their backs towards him a hundred yards up the hill. Inch by inch he
stole nearer to the track; paused a moment to collect himself; then
darted rapidly from cover, lifted the ring from the hook on the side
nearest him, hitched the chain so that it appeared to be in place, and
slipped back breathlessly into the scrub. It had taken him no more than
a quarter of a minute.
"Will it work?" he asked himself as he lurked in his hiding-place a few
yards above the track. All depended on whether the drivers examined the
attachments before they moved on again. There seemed no reason why they
should do so; hitherto the drivers had walked at the head of their
teams; but there was a chance that when they came down to lift the
blocks of wood one of them might happen to notice that something was
wrong.
He waited in feverish impatience. How slowly the men were working!
What a bully that German officer was! If the trick succeeded, these
patient long-suffering Turks would have had their labour for nothing:
the German would make them pay for it. Well, they must pay for allowing
themselves to be fooled by the Germans.
At last came the word of command. The drivers hastened to the heads of
the mules; two men hurried down to lift the blocks of wood when the gun
had started. There were loud shouts and cracking of whips; the mules
strained at their collars; the heavy gun lurched forward. And then
Frank thrilled with delight. Secured only on one side, the gun skewed
round with a jerk. For a brief moment it hung over the edge of the
slope. The mules slipped backward; the sudden slackening of the chains
released the second ring from its hook; and to the sound of startled
yells and frantic invocations of Allah the gun hurtled down the slope
and crashed into a ravine two or three hundred feet below.