TACKLING THE TROOPER
'Yes, come in.'
Lieutenant Strang, busy plotting out something on a chart, looked up as
the sentry parted the curtains of his cabin.
'Can Corporal Carrington see you, sir?' asked the man.
'Certainly. Send him in.'
Ken, looking more like himself in his khaki, which was now thoroughly
dried, entered and saluted.
'Well, Carrington, what is it?' The commander's tone was quick, almost
curt, yet there was a smile on his keen face as his eyes fell on Ken's
upright figure.
'I've been talking to Othman Pacha, sir,' began Ken.
'Othman Pacha--who the deuce is he?'
'The Turk we rescued, sir. He's a friend of mine. I mentioned his name to
you this morning. It was he who got me away into Greece when my father was
arrested.'
'Of course. I remember now. But this is a most extraordinary
coincidence--to find him on that tramp.'
'Not so much so as you might think, sir. You see he is known to be no
friend to Enver Bey and the Young Turks. He was in danger of arrest, so he
took the first opportunity of clearing out. He was going over to Adramyti
on the Asiatic side, so as to get out of it all.'
'I see. Well, did he tell you anything useful?'
'He did, sir. You have heard that Enver Bey has informed our Chief Command
that he intends to send French and British subjects to Gallipoli, so that
they will be the first sufferers when we bombard the place.'
'Yes, I've heard that,' Strang answered, staring keenly at Ken.
'Well, sir, the Pacha says that the first lot is to leave Constantinople
to-morrow. They are going with a batch of troops in a transport called the
"Bergaz."'
'And,' he added--'my father will be with them.'
The commander of G2 pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.
'By Jove,' he said slowly, 'this is worth hearing. This is most
interesting.'
He gave a low chuckle. 'Rather a smack in the eye for friend Enver if we
can bring it off. Tell me, Carrington, did the Pacha say whether this
trooper would have an escort?'
'I asked him that, sir, but he did not know. And he said this--That he
would not have told us at all except for the fact that he thinks it brutal
of Enver to send civilians into the firing line, and that he hopes, in
case you find it necessary to sink the trooper, that you will allow the
men to escape with their lives.'
Strang nodded thoughtfully.
'Hm, yes, I suppose I shall have to do that. After all, they won't be much
use without rifles or kit, and the chances are that most of 'em will
desert as soon as they reach the shore.
'But we mustn't count our chickens before they're hatched, eh, Carrington?
We've got to find that transport before we can deal with her.'
He asked a few more questions, then dismissed Ken.
'You can tell the Pacha I shall respect his wishes,' he said, as Ken left
his cabin.
All that night G2 cruised on the surface, going only at half speed so as
to economise petrol, and at the same time re-charge her dynamos. As for
Ken, tired out with his exertions, he lay upon the throbbing steel floor,
wrapped in a blanket, and slept as peacefully as he had ever slept in his
life.
It was broad day when he woke, feeling more refreshed than for days past,
and quite ready for the plain though plentiful breakfast that was served
out.
A glance which Williams allowed him through the periscope showed an
expanse of bright blue sea sparkling under a clear sky and a light breeze,
but with no sail in sight, and shortly afterwards G2 was submerged until
nothing but her periscope remained above the surface.
By this time the rumour of the expected trooper was all through the little
ship, and there was an air of subdued excitement on every face.
'Where are we now?' asked Ken of Williams.
'Somewhere between Marmora Island and Rodosto. Whatever comes out o' the
Bosphorus for the Dardanelles is bound to run past us, and then--' A wink
said more than words.
The hours dragged by, and Roy began to growl again at the tediousness of
life beneath the ocean wave. Dinner time passed and still there was no
sign of the trooper.
'Looks to me as if news had got abroad that we're a waiting for 'em,'
growled Williams at last. 'Them chaps as got to land last night must ha'
wired to headquarters.'
The other coxswain who was at the periscope at the moment, looked up.
'Then the wires must ha' been down, Joe. She's a coming right now.'
'Let's have a look,' exclaimed Williams, springing across.
'Ay, you're right, Bill. There she is. A big un, too!'
'And, lumme,' he added with a growl, 'a blighted torpedo boat a escorting
of her!'
''Tis only one o' them tin Turkish rattle-traps,' said Bill with a pitying
air. 'The old man'll slap a tin fish into her afore she knows what's hit
her.'
As he spoke, the engines were already quickening, and G2 had begun to
glide away at the top speed of her powerful electrics. The deep hum of the
dynamos filled the long interior, and on every face was a look of eager
expectancy.
As for Ken, his heart was throbbing like the dynamos themselves. The
feeling that his father, whom he had hardly hoped ever to see again, was
within a mile or so, had plunged him into such a state of tense excitement
that it was all he could do to control it.
He turned to speak to Williams, but the latter had gone forward, and was
standing by the torpedo in the fore tube.
The other coxswain, too, had gone to his place, and Sub-Lieutenant Hotham
had taken his seat at the forward periscope.
For four minutes, which seemed to Ken like four hours, the submarine drove
onwards in silence. Then came a sharp order from the commander, and she
began to rise.
'What's she coming up for?' asked Roy of Ken in a low voice.
'She's got to, so as to fire her torpedo. You can't fire so long as you're
submerged.'
'But if they see us, they'll let loose with their guns.'
'They've only got the periscopes to shoot at. Take more than Turkish
gunners to hit them.'
'Stand by!' came the crisp order from Commander Strang. 'Three points to
port--one more. Don't miss her, whatever you do, Williams. She's got the
legs of us, and we shan't get a second shot.'
'That's right. Steady now. Shut down! Let go!'
Ken heard a sharp hiss as the compressed air drove the long gray Whitehead
out of its tube, and sent it flashing away on its deadly errand. Young
Hotham sat still as a statue, his eyes glued to the periscope. The rest of
the crew seemed hardly to breathe. As for Ken, his mouth was dry. To him,
more than to any one else aboard, the success or failure of the shot meant
much.
Five, ten, fifteen seconds--then Hotham gave a sharp cry.
'Got her. Got her, by the living jingo! Oh, good shot, Williams!'
As he spoke a dull shock made the whole hull of G2 quiver.
'Hurrah!' shouted Ken, and the cheer was echoed by a score of voices.
'Struck her just aft the engines,' exclaimed Hotham jubilantly. 'Settled
her hash all right. Gad, they've got pluck. They're still shooting. Ah,
did you hear that, Carrington?'--as the submarine quivered again slightly.
'That was a shell. It struck the water not ten yards away.'
'But that's the last,' he continued. 'She's cocking her bows up. Phew, the
whole bottom's knocked out of her. There she goes. She's sinking. Poor
beggars, they haven't time to get out a boat, and we'll never reach 'em in
time to save any of them.'
'Her stern's under. Bow's straight up in the air!' He paused a moment.
'All over,' he added quietly. 'She's gone.' Commander Strang's voice rang
out from farther aft. Ken felt the vessel rising, and a few moments later
a slight swaying told that she was on the surface. Up went the hatch, and
the terrible clatter of the petrol engines replaced the deep purr of the
dynamos.
'I'd give a finger to be on deck,' said Ken to Roy, and for once Roy did
not jeer. He merely nodded, for he knew how desperately anxious Ken was
about his father.
Ken had not long to wait. A few minutes later, an order was passed for
Carrington to go up, and Ken darted up the steel ladder like a
lamplighter.
Outside, he found the sun gone, the sky covered with clouds, and a threat
of rain in the cool air. But it was not the weather he thought of. His
eyes were at once fixed upon a large steamer about two miles off to the
southward. Clouds of sooty smoke were pouring from her funnels, and a
yeasty wake trailed away behind her. Taking warning by the fate of her
escort, she was doing all she knew to escape.
'Will she beat us? Will she get away?' Ken asked anxiously of one of the
gun crew.
'Will she spread her little wings an' turn into a waterplane?' replied the
man with a grin. 'Bless you, soldier, she couldn't do more'n fourteen
knots when she come out o' the builder's yard, and that's two more'n she's
going now. You watch an' see how far she gets away.'
A very few moments' watching was enough to convince Ken that G2 was
overhauling her prey hand over fist. Within less than a quarter of an hour
a mile of the steamer's lead had gone. Another five minutes and the
distance between the two was barely twelve hundred yards.
'Hallo, they're getting gay!' remarked the big bluejacket, as rifles began
to spit and bullets to throw up little jets of spray around the rushing
submarine.
Presently one clanged against the conning tower itself. Commander Strang
gave an order, and a little row of bunting ran up on the tiny mast of the
submarine.
'"Heave to, or I'll sink you," that means,' observed Ken's friend.
The only response was a thicker hail of bullets. But the low deck of G2,
flying onwards as she was at about twenty-two land miles an hour, made a
poor target, and the Turks failed to do any damage beyond knocking a
little paint off.
'Confound 'em!' growled Strang. 'They haven't got sense enough to come in
out of the rain. Give 'em a shell, Watson.'
The long gray 12-pounder was ready. Her vicious-looking muzzle swung
round. There was a ringing bang, and the shell, small but charged with
deadly lyddite, spun away on its errand.
[Illustration: 'A black-browed officer came to the rail.']
Ken, watching eagerly, saw a bright flash light the side of the steamer,
close under her stern, and as a cloud of smoke floated up, the crash of
the explosion came back to his ears.
The big steamer staggered and yawed right out of her course.
'Capital!' said Strang with strong approval. 'That's hashed her steering.
Signal 'em to heave to, or the next will be in their engine-room.'
There were a few more scattering rifle shots, but the officers on the
transport soon stopped that. The transport herself, with her rudder in
rags, was out of all control. Her engines were stopped, and she lay
sullenly waiting for her saucy little enemy.
Strang gave a sigh of relief.
'Glad they had the sense to shut up,' he said to Ken. 'If they'd gone on
shooting I should have had to sock it into them, and I didn't want to
break my promise to your old Pacha.'
The submarine, smartly handled as usual, glided up close under the tall
side of the transport, and Strang hailed her in French.
A black-browed officer, with angry eyes, came to the rail, and answered in
the same language.
'You have British and French prisoners aboard,' said Strang sharply. 'You
will be good enough to put them all into a boat and send them across.'
'And if I refuse?' retorted the other.
'I shall shell you until you think better of it,' was the calm reply.
The other bit his lips. 'Very well,' he said sullenly. 'I have no choice.'
'Look out for treachery, sir,' said Ken in a low voice. 'That man means
mischief, I believe.'
'He is an ugly looking beggar. But what can he do?'
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the black-browed officer
flung up his arm, with a pistol gripped in his fist, and fired straight at
Commander Strang's head.
Quick as he was, Ken was quicker. As the man's arm came up, so did Ken's,
and seizing Strang by the wrist, he jerked him back.
Before the man could fire a second time, one of the bluejackets had raised
his rifle and shot him through the body.
'Thank you, Carrington,' said the commander, glancing at the gray splash
of lead on the deck, just where he had been standing the previous moment,
'You were right, and I was wrong.
'Speak to them in their own language,' he continued coolly. 'Tell them
I'll blow them out of the water if they try any more tricks of that sort.'
Ken's announcement was followed by dead silence aboard the steamer. Then a
second officer appeared at the rail. He had both hands up.
'We surrender,' he said.
''Bout time, too,' growled the big bluejacket.
Strang repeated his former orders, and this time they were obeyed without
hesitation. Ken's heart beat thickly as he watched the prisoners hurrying
into the boat which had been lowered from her davits to a level with the
deck.
'Do you see your father yet?' Strang asked.
'Not yet, sir,' Ken answered, with his eyes fixed on the fast-filling
boat.
'Sixteen--seventeen--eighteen,' he counted mechanically. Suddenly a slight
cry escaped his lips, and he started forward.
'Father!' he shouted loudly.
An upright man with keen blue eyes, a man of about fifty, but whose hair
and moustache were almost white, was in the act of getting to the boat. At
Ken's cry, he started violently, stopped short and stared incredulously in
the direction of the sound.
'Father!' shouted Ken again.
'You, Ken?' The tone was one of utter amazement.
'It's me all right, dad,' Ken answered in a voice which shook a little in
spite of himself.
Before their eyes the other seemed to shake off ten years of age. He
sprang into the boat as lightly as a boy. Three more followed, making
twenty-two in all. Then the blocks creaked, and the boat was rapidly
lowered to the water.
Oars began to ply vigorously, and she shot across the intervening space,
and a minute later was alongside the submarine.
'You must wait there, please, gentlemen,' said Strang courteously. 'I have
to deal with the troops at once. Keep well astern.'
Ken was aching to greet his father, but there was plenty for him to do for
the moment. He had to translate the commander's orders, which were that
all those aboard the steamer should get away at once in the boats. He gave
them twenty minutes for the operation.
They were the longest twenty minutes Ken every knew, but they were over at
last. The crowded boats pulled slowly away in a northerly direction, the
big steamer floated empty and helpless.
'Do we board her, sir?' asked young Hotham of Strang.
'Yes, I'll save my torpedoes while I can. Put a good charge of gun-cotton
in her hold. Quick as you can, Hotham. We may have a destroyer down on us
any minute. You may be sure they had plenty of time to use their
wireless.'
He turned to the boatful of released prisoners. They were of every sort,
young and old--French, English, with even one or two Russians and
Belgians.
'Gentlemen,' he said briefly, 'I can't ask you all aboard. The reason is
obvious. In a submarine there is only room for a certain number, and I am
already three beyond my proper complement. The question is, what I am to
do with you for your safety, and I should be obliged if two of you would
come aboard to discuss matters with me. One whom I will specially ask is
Captain Carrington.'
Ken's breath came quickly as he watched his father step across out of the
boat on to the steel deck of G2, but like the trained soldier that he was,
he did not move. Strang, however, had not forgotten him.
'You shall have your father to yourself as soon as we have settled
things,' he said, as he passed him.
Mr Ramsay, who had been manager of a British bank at Constantinople, was
the other delegate from the boat. He and Ken's father both shook hands
with Strang.
'We are most deeply indebted to you, Commander Strang,' said Captain
Carrington.' We never hoped for such luck as to find a British vessel
already in the Marmora.
'Ours is unfortunately the only sort that can get through at present,
sir,' said Strang with a smile.' And after all, I don't know that you have
much cause for gratitude. I can't ferry you home through the Straits, for
in the first place I can't carry you, and in the second I have my job to
do up here. There is only one thing I can think of.' Here he lowered his
voice, so that Ken could hear no more. But presently he saw the others
nod, evidently agreeing to the proposal, whatever it was.
[Illustration: 'Ken's hand gripped that of father.']
Mr Ramsay went back to the boat, and she was at once taken in tow. The
screws began to revolve again, and G2 swung round in a half circle, and
headed due east, running on the surface.
Next minute Ken's hand gripped that of his father.
For a moment neither of them could speak. They had not seen one another
for two long years, and both had so much to say that they did not know
where to begin.
Strang, with his usual kindly tact, touched Ken on the shoulder.
'Take your father for'ard of the conning tower. You can talk there without
interruption. We shall be on the surface for the present.'
Ken thanked him gratefully, and they both went forward, and there, leaning
against the gray steel of the little turret, with the small waves lapping
over the turtle-back forward, Ken told his father how their strange
meeting had come about.
Then Captain Carrington gave his son a brief sketch of his two years'
imprisonment. It had not been as bad as it might, for the kindly Othman
Pacha had used what interest he possessed to get his friend shut up in a
fortress instead of the usual horrible Turkish jail. Still it had been bad
enough, and the worst of it, the deep anxiety he had felt for Ken.
'Well, that's all over, dad, thank goodness,' said Ken. 'Everything will
be all right now. It's only a matter of time before we force the
Dardanelles, and--'
'A matter of time,' broke in the other with the quizzical smile that Ken
remembered so well. 'Just so, my boy, but I'm afraid you are forgetting
something. What are we to do meanwhile? Here we are, in the heart of
Turkish territory, and no way out. It's rather early to say that our
troubles are all over, isn't it?'
Ken's face fell. In his delight at meeting his father again, he had quite
forgotten the difficulties still before them.
'But--but I thought that Lieutenant Strang had a plan,' he stammered.
'He's towing the boat somewhere.'
His father nodded.
'Yes, I suppose it need be no secret from you. He is taking us, or trying
to take us, to a certain cave on the south shore of the sea. It is one of
the hidden petrol bases which are supplied by friendly Armenians. But,
even if we get there safely, there is always the risk of discovery by the
enemy, as well as difficulties of provisioning so many of us. And we may
not even get there. Supposing that an enemy ship appears in chase, and the
submarine has to submerge, what then?'
Ken gazed at his father blankly. Before he could speak again a sharp hail
came from the look-out in the conning tower.
'Ship in sight, sir!'