THE SWEEPERS
'Hurry!' hissed Roy.
'No use,' was the low-voiced answer. 'He'd get us both before we were out
of range.' As he spoke, Ken turned and stepped swiftly back to the beach.
'Friend,' he answered, speaking in the same language. 'Despatches for
Chanak from Colonel Gratz.'
The sentry, a burly Turk, armed with a Mauser rifle, pulled up opposite
Ken.
'Despatches,' he repeated suspiciously. 'Why are they being sent by boat?
And who gave you leave to use this boat?'
In a flash Roy saw that this was a man of more intelligence than the
average run of Turkish soldiers, and that it would be useless to try and
bluff him. The only chance was to put him out.
'We had our orders,' he said. 'You can look at them if you wish.' He
pretended to take something out of his pocket, at the same time stepping
forward. Then, like a flash, he drove his fist with all his might into the
Turk's face.
The man reeled backwards, but did not fall. Next moment he uttered a shout
that rang through the night.
'We've done it now,' growled Roy, as he leaped past Ken, and caught the
wretched sentry by the throat with a grip that effectually prevented any
further sound.
'Take his rifle, Ken,' he said sharply. 'It's all right. I'll gag him. You
get into the boat.'
How he did it Ken did not know, but within an incredibly short time Roy
had sprung into the water, pushed the boat off, and scrambled aboard.
'I'll take the oars,' he said unceremoniously, and Ken, though himself a
useful man with sculls, made no objection. Roy's strength, he knew, was
greater than his own.
In a trice Roy had flung off his Turkish overcoat and British tunic. The
blades bent as he sent the boat hissing through the water.
There was no tiller, but Ken found a broken scull at the bottom of the
boat with which he contrived to steer. He kept her head due south, but
fairly close in shore, and what between Roy's powerful efforts, and the
strong current which always flows out of the Sea of Marmora into the
Aegean, they were soon going almost as fast as a man could run.
'It'll be Heaven's own luck if no one heard that yell,' muttered Roy, as
he bent all his giant strength to the oars.
'I wish it had been your fist and not mine,' Ken replied with some
bitterness.
'But I couldn't have got near him,' Roy answered simply. 'You see, I don't
speak the lingo.'
The vicious crack of a rifle interrupted the conversation, and a bullet
slapped the water just astern, and went skipping away in a series of ducks
and drakes.
'They're on to us,' muttered Ken between set teeth. Roy said nothing. He
only pulled a little harder. By the way the oars bent, Ken almost feared
they would snap.
Another spit of white flame from the beach, another, and another. Still
they were unhit, and every moment the distance was increasing. They had
got beyond the low beach, and were under the cliffs to the southward.
'We may do it yet,' muttered Ken. 'They can't see us in this light. And
there are not more than two chaps firing.'
There was a moment's pause in the firing. Ken's spirits rose. He
thought--hoped that the Turks had given it up as a bad job. Then, just as
it seemed as though they were really out of range, there rang out a
regular volley, and all around them the water splashed in little jets of
pale foam. There came a thud, the boat quivered slightly, and white
splinters flew near Ken's feet, one cutting him slightly on the shin.
'Hit?' panted Roy, as he saw Ken wince.
'Nothing. It's the boat,' answered Ken briefly, as he bent to examine the
damage.
A few seconds later, and they had rounded the projecting point of rock on
which stands the old lighthouse. The firing ceased.
Roy slackened a little.
'Much damage?' he asked curtly.
'Holed her badly,' Ken answered. 'She's leaking like a sieve.'
'Rotten luck!' growled Roy. 'And just as we'd dodged the blighters. Can
you do anything with it?'
'Ram a handkerchief in--that's all. Of course, I can bale.'
'Well, keep her afloat as long as you can. It won't be exactly healthy if
we have to land anywhere here. All forts, isn't it?'
'Yes, down as far as Tekeh. Not that the forts will do us any harm, even
if they're warned. We're too small and too close in for gun fire. But
there's no place to land for nearly two miles--not until you get to what
they call the Fountain.'
Apparently the forts were not warned. As the 'Triumph' had been slamming
12-inch shells into them only the previous night, the chances were that
the telephone wires were cut. Roy kept going with long steady strokes,
while Ken, working even harder, baled frantically the whole time.
So they drove on without speaking for about a quarter of an hour.
At last Ken straightened his aching back. 'It's no use, Roy. The water's
gaining. I can't keep it down.'
'You needn't tell me that. I've been over my ankles the last five minutes,
and she's pulling like a sunk log.'
'What are we going to do?' said Ken--'Try for the Fountain landing?'
'Might as well, I suppose. Any chance of picking up another boat, d'ye
think?'
'Pretty slim, I fancy,' answered Ken. 'There are sure to be sentries
there. You see, it's the sort of place where our people might attempt a
landing.'
[Illustration: '"She's leaking like a sieve."']
'Could we try for the other side?' suggested Roy.
'Out of the question,' said Ken. 'We're opposite Sari Siglar Bay. The
Straits are nearly three miles wide here.'
Roy gave a short laugh. 'Looks as if we should have to swim for it after
all,' he said. 'Well, the only thing is to keep going until she sinks
under us. Then we must scramble ashore and take our chances.'
He pulled on again, and Ken betook himself to his everlasting task of
baling. He was mortally tired and desperately sleepy. His eyes almost
closed as he dipped and dipped in the salt water which, in spite of all
his efforts, grew steadily deeper in the bottom of the boat. The lower she
sank, the more quickly the water spurted in. Each minute that passed
brought the inevitable end closer.
Once he glanced up to see, if possible, where they were. To the right tall
black cliffs towered against the night sky, to the left the stars twinkled
in the ripples of the deep and wide Straits.
Roy pulled like a machine, but the weight of water made his efforts almost
useless. The boat sogged slowly forward like a dead thing.
'She won't last another five minutes,' said Ken.
'And there's no landing place, old chap. We're right up against it.'
'Tell you what there is, though,' said Ken keenly. 'There's a craft of
some sort out there. Don't you hear her engines?'
Roy stopped pulling a moment. In the silence a faint chug, chug reached
their ears.
'What do you think she is--one of our warships?' he asked in a whisper.
'Haven't a notion. But she's probably British or French. The Turks haven't
got much in the way of craft--at least not this side of Gallipoli.'
'Then I vote for trying to make her,' said Roy. 'Right you are,' Ken
answered, and began baling harder than ever Roy, pulling on his left-hand
oar, got the boat round, and made a last spurt in the direction of the
sound.
It seemed a very forlorn hope. They could not even see the craft--whatever
she was--and their boat manifestly had but a short time to live. If she
sank out in mid-straits there was no earthly chance of reaching the shore.
Drowning was certain.
Three minutes passed. The water in the boat was nearly knee deep. Pull as
he might, Roy could hardly keep her moving. Ken raised his head and peered
out through the gloom.
'I see her,' he said with sudden eagerness. He pointed as he spoke to a
dim shape not more than a couple of hundred yards away.
Roy glanced back over his shoulder. 'She's very small,' he said, 'and
she's working upstream. Hallo, there's another just beyond her--a pair of
'em.'
'Two, are there? Then I tell you what they are--trawlers.'
'Trawlers!' echoed Roy. 'What--catching herrings for the Admiral's
breakfast?'
'No, you ass--mines. They're mine-sweepers of course.' Roy gave a low
whistle.
'I'd sooner catch herrings,' he said. 'But never mind. So long as they're
British, that's all that matters.' And he set to pulling again with all
the energy left him.
The trawlers were creeping along at very slow speed, and without a light
of any sort showing. There was not even the usual glow from the funnel
top. Lucky it was for Roy and Ken that they were going so slowly, for they
were still some little distance from the nearest trawler when the ripples
began to wash over the gunwale of the water-logged boat.
'Help!' shouted Roy hoarsely. 'Help!'
'Pull on!' said Ken, as he still baled frantically. 'Pull on! They can't
come round if they've got their sweeping cable out.'
Roy made a last effort, and whether it was Roy's shout or the sound of the
oars, some one aboard the trawler heard them.
'Who are you?' came a gruff voice, half-muffled, as though afraid of being
overheard on shore.
'Friends--British,' answered Ken. 'Our boat's sinking.'
There came a sharp order echoed from the farther ship. The trawlers both
slackened speed.
'Come alongside, if you can. We can't pull out to you,' called the same
voice that Ken had heard previously.
A few more strokes, then just as the boat was actually sinking under them,
a rope came whizzing across. Roy caught it and a moment later, wet and
draggled, they were standing on the deck of the trawler.
'Well, I'll be everlastingly jiggered,' exclaimed a gruff voice. 'Where in
all that's wonderful did you fellers spring from?' The speaker was a
short, square man, but it was so dark that all they could see of his face
was that it was round and clean-shaven.
'Out of the Dardanelles last, and before that from Kilid Bahr,' Ken
answered. 'We're escaped prisoners.'
'Gosh, you've been in warm places, young fellers,' said the other, 'but I
kind o' think it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.'
'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,'
said Roy with a shiver.
'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both
o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot
cocoa.'
'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.
The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise
whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he
asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put
away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted
anything so good in all their lives.
Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic
sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these
also the hungry youngsters did justice.
'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been
satisfied.
'"Maid o' Sker." Mine--sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief
answer. Then, after a pause, 'Where did you blokes come from?'
Ken told him, or rather began to, for before he had finished, the steady
beat of the engines suddenly slackened.
'Cotched one, I reckon,' remarked Gill briefly, and hurried on deck
followed by the two boys.
The 'Maid of Sker' was the ordinary type of North Sea trawler, and so far
as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the
'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a
distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin
steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of
the mines which were plentifully strewn in the channel.
'Caught one, you say?' whispered Ken in Gill's ear. 'A mine, you mean?'
'Ay. Look at the cable. She's foul of it all right.'
Certainly the cable was sagging in a curious fashion.
'What do you do with them?' asked Roy.
But Gill had already run aft to assist. Low-voiced orders were heard, and
the 'Maid of Sker' began to forge slowly ahead.
'I think they're going to tow it out of the channel,' Ken said to Roy.
'That's what I believe they do.'
'But I thought the beastly things exploded when you touched 'em,' said
Roy.
'Some do. That's the sort with steel whiskers on them. The others are what
they call tilting mines. They blow up when their balance is upset.'
'And which is this?'
'I don't know any more than you, and I don't suppose the skipper does,
either. All these mines swim some way under the surface.'
'What's the betting on her going off?' said the irrepressible Roy.
'She won't,' said Ken confidently. 'These chaps know how to handle her.
She--'
He stopped short, and involuntarily flung up his hands before his eyes. A
cone of blinding white light had sprouted suddenly from the Asiatic shore,
and in its cold brilliance the outlines of the two trawlers, the people on
their decks, the cable towing between them, and a wide patch of rippling
water stood out as clearly as in the broadest daylight. It was a
searchlight from Kephez Point at the southern angle of Sari Siglar Bay.
'Haul up there. Haul on that cable. Sharp now!' bellowed Captain Grimball,
and his men sprang to obey. He himself dashed into the little deckhouse
and was out again in an instant with a rifle in his hand.
In the dazzling glare a great bulbous mass of dark-coloured metal heaved
slowly up out of the water midway between the two trawlers. It was hardly
in sight before Grimball had flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired.
Followed instantly an explosion so terrific that Ken distinctly felt the
deck of the trawler lift under his feet. A cloud of thick black smoke shot
high into the air, and as it rose a very waterspout descended upon the
little ship.
Roy and Ken staggered back, half deafened by the appalling concussion.
'Got that one, anyway,' they heard Grimball exclaim, as he dashed back to
the bridge and rang the engine bell for full steam. 'Got him all right.
Next question is whether the blighters will get us.'
Both trawlers seemed actuated by the same impulse. Both at the same time
surged ahead, while the sweeping cable was either cut or cast loose.
But the searchlight's brilliant beam followed relentlessly, and as the two
smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there
came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of
a heavy shell.
'Rotten shot!' snapped Grimball, as the shell, sailing well over the mast
top, plunged into the sea two hundred yards or more beyond.
'Hard aport!' he shouted, and the 'Maid' came spinning round almost as
smartly as a sailing dinghy. Next minute she and her consort were legging
it southwards at the very top of their speed.
For a moment they were clear of the dazzling radiance of the searchlight,
but only for a moment. Then the long pencil of glaring whiteness found
them again, and now the guns began to bark in earnest.
The 'Maid' seemed to know her peril. She squattered down into the water,
and the foaming wake lengthened, trailing far behind her. Forgetful of
their own danger, Roy and Ken watched breathless while the trawlers ran
the gauntlet of the forts.
A shell struck the water right under the bows of the 'Maid,' flinging up a
fountain which rose as high as the mainmast, and deluging the decks for a
second time.
'Mighty wet job this,' said Roy, shaking himself like a great dog. 'Rotten
luck we can't shoot back, eh, Ken?'
'Can't even do much running,' said Ken. 'Twelve knots is about our top
speed. 'Pon my soul, these chaps have got pluck.'
'The "Swan's" drawing ahead,' said Roy.
Almost as the words left his lips there came a shattering crash and a
sheet of flame leapt up from the other trawler. A shell had pitched full
upon her armoured wheel-house, and exploding had not only blown it away,
with the steersman, but opened up the whole deck. The poor little trawler,
with her steering gear smashed, swung round to starboard, and it was only
by the smartest seamanship that the 'Maid' avoided running her down.
'She's done,' said Roy, as he ran forward. 'She's sinking!'
He was right. The big shell had knocked her all to pieces. Grimball saw
this too, and in response to his rapid order, the 'Maid's' engines
stopped, and four stalwart fellows ran to the dinghy which lay in chocks
on her deck.
In a trice they had flung her over the low rail into the sea; two sprang
in and pulled hard for the rapidly sinking 'Swan.'
All the time the guns ashore were rapping and roaring. The sea was thick
with spouts of foam as shells big and little struck the surface.
'This infernal searchlight!' growled Roy. 'They're rotten shots, but
they're getting the range now.'
They were. Just as the dinghy drew alongside the 'Swan,' another 6-inch
plunged straight into her, amidships. It must have exploded in the
engine-room. The 'Swan' and all in her vanished from the face of the
waters, and when the smoke cloud lifted, the dinghy, upside down, with one
man clinging to it, was all that was left.
'A rope. Give us a rope!' shouted Roy. Some one ran forward, but even as
they did so a smaller shell caught the funnel of the 'Maid' and carried
two thirds of it away. With it went the man with the rope.
At the same moment the survivor who was clinging to the dinghy let go his
hold. Stunned by the concussion of the previous shell, he was sinking into
the depths.
'I can't stand that,' cried Roy, and with one spring was overboard and
striking out hard for the drowning man.
The racket and roar were appalling. Some field batteries behind Kephez had
joined in, and the whole night echoed with the quick crashes of the guns,
while the air was full of the train-like rattle of flying shells.
But in all the confusion Ken kept his head. Catching sight of a coil of
line on the deck close by the forward hatch, he sprang for it, made one
end fast to a bollard, and with a shout flung the other towards Roy.
It fell short, but Roy saw it and with a great effort reached it.
'Hang on!' roared Ken at the top of his voice. 'I'll pull you in.'
[Illustration: When the men return from the trenches, they find
sea-bathing most pleasant.]
[Illustration: French and British sailors are friends in play-time as in
war-time.]
He had hardly began to haul when the end came. A shell bigger than any yet
took the 'Maid of Sker' amidships. There was a fearful explosion, Ken felt
himself hurled forward, and next moment the chill waters of the
Dardanelles closed over his head.