CHAPTER XVOUT OF ACTIONFrank'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.CHAPTER XVITWO MEN IN A LAUNCHIn the confusion ensuing upon the fall of the gun Frank crept unseen up the gully. He chuckled as he heard the infuriate curses of the German officer. The cause of the disaster would never be known. Whether it were ascribed to the carelessness of the men or to the accidental slipping of a ring mattered nothing: the gun was lying at a spot whence it would be almost impossible to remove it; very likely it was damaged beyond repair. Frank's satisfaction was only alloyed by regret that to attempt the same feat with the other guns of the battery was out of the question."Now what's to be done?" he thought, when, having put a considerable distance between himself and any risk of danger, he stopped to think over his position. One result of the establishment of the battery on the heights must be his abandonment of the sepulchre. Whatever might be the reason for placing the battery just there, if the guns began to play they would draw upon them the shells of the British fleet, and the sepulchre was near enough to be anything but a safe asylum. The troops pursuing him were not far to the north. With no permanent refuge he could not hope to evade them much longer. Sari Bair was becoming too hot to hold him. He must move on.But in what direction? No part of the peninsula was any longer safe. To go southwards was mere folly: he would only come to the forts, about which there was no doubt a strong concentration of troops. And that way there was no outlet but the sea. Northwards, where the peninsula was wider, there would be more room to move; but after what had happened he would be watched for at every little farm, on all the roads, and if he were not actually captured, lack of food would ultimately enforce his surrender. "What an ass I was not to make for the harbour at Gallipoli that night," he thought, "and try to smuggle myself on Kopri's vessel!" But repentance had come too late. Here he was, caged; nothing could now alter that; and if he were caught in the end--well, these last few days had given him an amount of joyous excitement which he could never forget. Even the reflection that he had now lost the privileges of a civilian, and would probably be shot at sight, did not much trouble him. "Kismet!" he thought: "I must have breathed in the fatalistic spirit of the country.""But I'm not done yet," he added to himself. "It's Bulgaria now, I suppose. I'd better get away first to the east, out of the way of those fellows hunting me, and then work round as quickly as I can to the north-west. Lucky I stuffed my pockets pretty full of loaves; but it's quarter rations. I don't know when I'll be able to get more."The booming of guns to the south reminded him that fellow-countrymen were only a few miles away--a galling remembrance. They could do nothing for him. "Alone, alone, all, all alone!"--where had he read those words, and how little he had understood till now what they meant!--"Oh, chuck it, Frank Forester!" he said to himself. "It's no good grousing. Come on!"He struck off across the shoulder of the hill, and made his way down the bed of a stream skirting the western side of Kojadere, and flowing almost due south until with a sharp turn to the left it fell into the Dardanelles a mile or so north of Maidos. For the greater part of the distance it was close to a road, and Frank had to keep a careful look-out. But the country was rugged and desolate: there were no villages and to all appearance no houses; only once did he catch sight of anything on the road--a bullock wagon lumbering slowly in the opposite direction.The ground was for the most part on a low level, and in order to ascertain his distance from the coast he turned off to the left, where there were hills rising nearly two hundred feet. After a long and tiring climb he reached a cliff at the eastern extremity of the Kalkmaz Dagh which, projecting a little into the sea, gave him a direct view downward into Maidos and the strait beyond. A Turkish warship lay just above the Narrows; torpedo boats and vessels which, though he did not know it, were mine-layers, were moored here and there; and crossing the channel from Chanak was the motor launch, with its awning over the fore-deck, which he had noticed once or twice before. "Abdi's on the other side now," he thought.He watched the launch through his glasses as it threaded its way through the congestion of lighters and small cargo vessels lying off Maidos, to a jetty north of the town. A number of passengers came ashore. The launch was tied up and the crew also landed--all but one man, who sat down in the stern and appeared to be eating his dinner. Frank almost unconsciously took out one of his loaves. "Didn't know I was so hungry," he muttered. He ate half the loaf, which was little larger than a scone, put the remainder back, then took it out again for a final mouthful. The man on the launch was still eating. Frank watched him enviously, and almost hated him when he saw him wrap up a portion of his meal and stow it away. "He has too much and I too little," he thought. "I daresay he'd sell what's left. Wish I could get at him!"This started a train of thought, or rather a series of questions. Why not go down to the launch? Why not make use of his military uniform? What chance was there that the man on the launch had heard that an English fugitive was masquerading as a Turkish officer of artillery? Indeed, why not bluff it out, get command of the launch, and run down the strait towards the open sea? British warships were there. Was he prepared to face a twofold risk--run the gauntlet of Turkish vessels and batteries, and also draw fire from a British ship?It was a ticklish problem, that would not wait long for a solution. At any moment the launch might be ordered off. If the attempt was to be made, it must be made at once. "Too risky," he thought. "I might be spotted before I reached it. It's nearly a mile away: might be gone by the time I could get down. It's absurd."Sunk in this pessimism he sat with his chin on his hand, looking at the launch, on which the man now lay stretched on his back, gazing down the strait towards Kilid Bahr, where the shore bent round to the west, and beyond which there were British vessels. It was only four or five miles to Kilid Bahr; in the clear air the distance seemed shorter. He thought of the alternative--further hide-and-seek in the hills, long wanderings, semi-starvation, cold. "Hanged if I don't have a shot," he said to himself.Below him ran the road from Boghali through Maidos, at the edge of the strait. There was no other way of reaching the launch unless he made a long detour round the hills. The afternoon was already far advanced. A detour would take much time, and taking it he would lose sight of the launch. On the road, so far as he could see it, there was no traffic. He rose to his feet, made his way down the hillside, gained the road, and set off quickly southward.In a few minutes, rounding a corner, he overtook a transport wagon drawn by two oxen. It flashed upon him that he would attract less attention if he got a lift on it. Stepping up to the front of the wagon, he hailed the driver."Give me a lift," he said. "I've walked from Sari Bair, where we are placing a battery. It's very tiring, walking over the hills.""That is true, effendim," said the man. "Your excellency may do as he pleases."Frank got up beside the driver. The wagon lumbered on. As it neared Maidos it passed people here and there; they saluted the supposed officer without suspicion. It passed a house ruined by a shell."They said the English were our friends," remarked the wagoner."Time will show who are our true friends," answered Frank.They were now entering the northern outskirts of the town. Frank saw many signs of the havoc wrought by indirect fire from the British fleet. In the distance soldiers were moving about. He thought it time to get down. Tipping the driver, he jumped to the ground, and turned off to the left towards the jetty. The launch was still tied up: he could just see its awning.When he was still some little distance from it he had a shock. From the opposite direction, and nearer to the jetty than himself, a Turkish officer was approaching it. He was bound to get there first. For a moment Frank thought of turning tail; he had not yet been observed; but it occurred to him that the officer might possibly come back in a few minutes: it was worth while waiting to see.Near at hand was a deep hole in the ground, the work of a shell. Beside it was a broken transport wagon. He sat on this, took a cigarette from the case which, with an automatic lighter, he had found in the pocket of the great-coat, and began smoking like any idler. A shed at the shore end of the jetty partly hid him from view.The officer went on board the launch. Frank had a second shock. It was the Kurd Abdi. Apparently he had not been to Chanak after all. Perhaps he had deferred his departure for the sake of making one more attempt to capture the fugitive. It was plain that he was intending to cross the strait now, for the man in charge of the launch was making preparations to start.Frank was as it were paralysed for a few moments. The game was up. But no: while the man was pouring petrol into the tank, Abdi had gone forward and was making himself comfortable under the awning forward. There was just a chance for boldness. Making up his mind instantly, Frank strolled unconcernedly down the jetty. The launch man was bending over his engine; beyond him Abdi was half concealed by the awning.Frank halted a few yards from the launch, where his face could not be seen by the Kurd, and hailed the engine man in a low tone. The man looked up, and Frank beckoned him ashore. He hesitated a moment; then the officer's uniform was effective: he jumped on to the jetty and came to Frank's side. With a show of mystery Frank led him a few yards and said:"His excellency is crossing to Chanak.""The Governor?" asked the man."Yes: you are ordered to wait. Not a word to any one. Go at once to headquarters and ask for Major Ahmed Talik. There will be a valise to carry down. You understand?--Major Ahmed Talik. It is not to be talked about. Make haste!""But my passenger, effendim?""He must wait. I will explain to him.""My orders! I am not to leave the launch.""Do you argue with me?" said Frank sternly. "Go at once."The man hastened to excuse himself, and set off, somewhat bewildered, towards the town."Why keep me waiting, dog of a dog-son?" called Abdi from the launch.The man turned, but Frank signed to him imperatively to go on, then sauntered back along the jetty, one hand holding the cigarette, the other fingering the revolver in his pocket. Abdi had raised himself from his recumbent posture, and in a crouching attitude was peering out from beneath the low awning. The glow of the sun, setting over the hills behind, struck full upon his eyes: Frank's were shadowed. Frank half turned as if watching the retreating launch man, all the time slowly approaching the vessel, thus gaining ground without revealing his face.Then he suddenly swung round, and jumped on board. The launch rocked."Wallahy! Would you upset me?" cried Abdi.Frank stood in front of him, pointing his revolver, but in such a posture that the weapon could not be seen by chance observers on shore. Half under the awning Abdi was at a disadvantage. He was so much taken aback by Frank's sudden movement, and so much overcome with amazement when he at last recognised the features of the newcomer, that he was incapable of shouting an alarm, and the sight of the revolver within a few feet of his head disposed him to listen to what Frank was saying."Salam," said Frank quietly, "we are going for a little trip together. No, no: keep your hands down. Don't move any further from under the awning. You recognise me, I see. I am the Englishman you have been hunting--and this is my revolver. It is loaded.--Do you hear? Keep still.--You have a revolver too, in that belt to which I see your restless hand groping. Well, I collect revolvers. I have two of yours already; the other will be safer with me. No: keep your hands up; if you hurry me I may shoot too soon. On your life don't make a movement!" he ended fiercely.With his right hand holding his revolver at the Kurd's head, he stooped, and with a quick movement of his left hand wrested the revolver from the other's belt."Now get back under the awning to the comfortable place you have arranged for yourself," he said.The Kurd hesitated and flashed a downward glance at the knives in his belt."I will count three," Frank went on. "If you are not comfortable when I come to three ... one ... two----"With a snarling curse Abdi crept backward to the cushions at the further end of the awning, and collapsed there.Transferring the revolver to his left hand, Frank, also moving backward, came to the engine. It was not his first trip in a motor launch, and a rapid examination showed him that the boatman had got everything ready. Nothing remained but to switch on the current, turn the crank and cast off the hawser. These movements he made, his eyes scarcely leaving the discomfited Kurd for a moment. Then he threw the engine into gear and seized the helm, and the little craft sidled from the jetty, and shot away over the dancing wavelets of the Dardanelles.CHAPTER XVIITHROUGH THE NARROWSFrank felt himself go pale under the reaction from the strain of the last few minutes. But he had won the advantage in the opening of the game: he must maintain it to the end.He had so often watched the launch crossing to and fro that he had a pretty good idea of the course. Chanak was a couple of miles down the strait on the opposite shore: it would excite least remark if he steered as for that town. The vessel was too shallow in draught to run much risk from possible mines, and it was so frequently seen that no one on a Turkish ship would pay any attention to it. No doubt an alarm would be raised when the boatman discovered that he had been tricked; but Frank hoped to be several miles on his voyage to safety by that time.When he drew out from under the lee of the hills he found that the wind was in his favour, blowing directly down the Narrows. This should mean at least a three-knot current. The launch was small, and probably incapable of more than seven or eight knots: his utmost speed, then, might rise to ten or eleven. But it was not wholly a question of speed. If the alarm was given before he reached the narrowest part of the channel at Chanak escape would be unlikely if not impossible. The fast-gathering darkness would be no protection. He would be under searchlights from both sides, and a dozen batteries would have him under fire at ranges ascertained to a yard. His nerves, judgment, quickness of decision, would be taxed to the uttermost in this adventurous voyage of a few miles.With the fall of night navigation practically ceased on the strait; therefore he was not very likely to be run down by accident. But he must guard against collision with vessels moored under either shore. Further, there was always a chance that he would be challenged from the deck of one of the stationary vessels, and though he did not doubt his ability to give a reassuring answer, he had always the Kurd to reckon with. It would have been prudent to gag him, but the opportunity for that was past. Shaping his course by the faint twilight, he kept one eye on Abdi, ready to take action instantly if the man showed any disposition to be troublesome.So, in growing darkness, he ran down the strait until he came opposite Chanak, which was distinguishable by a few dim lights and the sounds of bustle on the quays and jetties. The place had suffered considerably by bombardment from the ships of the allied fleet, which had come up to within a few miles of the Narrows; but it was clear that extensive repairs were already in progress. Observing two or three large vessels moored out of the current in the little bay north of the town, Frank as a measure of precaution cut off the engine, and the launch drifted into the neck between Chanak and Kilid Bahr. His ear caught the faint sound of a windlass working in the channel at some unseen point ahead. Clearly a vessel lay out there. He pitched his voice to a low note, and gave Abdi a quiet warning not to speak a word or make any movement of alarm, on pain of receiving the full contents of his revolver. The most dangerous part of his voyage was evidently at hand.In a few minutes he saw, some little distance ahead on the starboard side, a large dark shape moving towards him. Putting the helm over, he crept in more closely to the Asiatic shore, in the hope that the launch, being small and low and travelling silently, would escape observation. But next moment he was startled by the sudden beam of a searchlight playing over the middle of the channel from some point behind him. The darkness on either side was intensified, so that the light, while it swept mid-channel, favoured him; but if it should bend its rays to the left, the launch would be vividly illuminated, and could not fail to be observed by the men on the approaching vessel, who would certainly follow with their eyes the path of light. He watched the beam lengthening its giant stride. It passed over the slowly approaching torpedo boat and illuminated the water beyond. Hugging the shore as closely as he dared, Frank drifted on, resolved, if the light fell on him, to start the engine and make a dash at full speed down the strait.The light took a sudden sweep upwards, swung to the right over the hills and disappeared. Then Frank realised that the current had failed him. The launch was scarcely moving. He steered for the open channel, edging out very gradually. No sooner had the launch come again into the current than the light flashed out, just touching a point of land on his port side, and passing beyond it. It occurred to him that if he could round the point during the interval of darkness before the light again appeared, he would no longer be in its direct path. It was worth the risk of starting the engine and making a dash over the short distance between him and safety. Guided only by the dark outline of the low wooded cliffs on his left hand, he put the engine at full speed while the light was still sweeping the channel. To maintain an even distance from the shore he soon found it necessary to keep the helm well over. He must be rounding the point. And when, a minute or two later, the beam once more flashed out, it passed almost directly over him, leaving him in shadow. With a sense of profound relief he stopped the engine and floated down with the current, more than satisfied for the moment, but wondering how long his luck would hold.The launch was now in pitch darkness. Frank knew that there were shoals along the shore, and he was beset by a double anxiety: he must steer so as to avoid at once the path of the searchlight and the unknown shoals. So fully was his attention occupied that he had almost forgotten the Kurd lying forward. The dark patch which favoured him was favourable also to an expedient which Abdi had been grimly meditating. Suddenly, while Frank was peering into the darkness ahead, he was conscious that a black shape had intervened between him and the scarcely perceptible space of water. He knew instantly what it was, but before he could brace himself for the impending shock the steering-wheel shivered under a sword-cut that missed him by a hairsbreadth, and the Kurd flung himself upon him, at the same time shouting vociferously to attract the attention of any watchers who might be on shore, or on some vessel near by. Taking advantage of Frank's preoccupation and the darkness, Abdi had crawled from under the awning and along the deck under the side of the little craft, springing to his feet within a few inches of Frank's seat.It was the fact of being seated that proved to be Frank's salvation. Abdi lost the advantage of surprise when his sword-cut missed. He fell forward awkwardly. Frank's right hand was pinned beneath the Kurd's body, but his left, with which he had held the wheel, was free. Instantly he gripped Abdi's sword-arm above the wrist, and for a few moments there was a fierce struggle for position between the two men; Frank striving to free his right hand, and when he had done so, to prevent the Kurd from strangling him with his left arm.Frank was soon aware that in mere power of muscle he was no match for his assailant. But he had the firmer position, Abdi being inclined forward and swaying unsteadily with the rocking of the launch. Suddenly dropping his clutch on the Kurd's upper right arm, he seized him by the throat, braced himself against the seat, and pulled his left arm towards him, exerting all his strength to twist him over. With his free right hand Abdi clutched at the thwart; but Frank's leverage against the seat gave him the mechanical advantage; moreover, the Kurd was expending much energy in trying to free himself from the pressure on his windpipe. Inch by inch he was pressed back against the side of the launch, every moment struggling more feebly under Frank's choking clutch. At last his shoulders were hanging over the water, and his arms were raised as a drowning man throws up his hands. Then suddenly Frank released the Kurd's throat, caught him beneath the right knee, and, pressing heavily on the seat, tilted him overboard. There was a gurgling gasp as the man struck the water, then a brief silence, broken soon by a long yell. It was a cry for help, but not a cry of despair, and Frank, panting from his recent exertions, was aware that Abdi could swim. His cries must be heard on shore and on any vessels that might lie in the neighbourhood or be patrolling the strait. At first their meaning would not be known, but they would give the alarm and put the enemy on the alert, and as soon as Abdi reached the shore the truth would be flashed from fort to fort.The launch, left to itself during the struggle, had drifted inshore and was bumping against the rocks. Frank had just switched on the engine and reversed the screw when an agitated movement of the searchlight and shouts from the cliffs above him showed that an alarm of some sort had been given. The white beam was sweeping the whole breadth of the channel except that black band which was shielded by the cliffs and in which the launch was moving. This band widened as the trend of the shore became more south-westerly, and Frank had good hope of running out of danger. His confidence was rudely shaken when a second searchlight began to play from a point slightly ahead of him. For all he knew there might be others at different points down the channel. It was neck or nothing now. He put the engine at full speed ahead, and the launch throbbed and swished through the water.The coast-line here made a sudden bend inwards. Frank steered accordingly, and was relieved to find that by his change of course he just escaped the searchlight, whose beam flashed almost over his head. The beating of his screw could hardly fail to be heard on shore, no more than a hundred yards away; but the light could evidently not be depressed sufficiently to illuminate this edge of the channel. The launch dashed on; the light was left behind; and steering almost due south Frank once more felt secure.But next moment he was startled by the sudden flashing of a light from the opposite shore. It swept directly across the channel and moved slowly along, lighting up yard after yard of the white cliffs on his left hand. There was no avoiding it, and he felt a strange tingling as he realised that in a few seconds the light would find him, and he would then become the target for the enemy's guns. So it was. The beam suddenly overtook him, the launch was vividly illuminated from stem to stern, and the light kept pace with it in its rush down the channel. Frank tried by zigzag steering to wriggle out of it, but it followed every movement, and he resigned himself to the inevitable.There was a roar and flash from the western shore. A shell splashed into the water close astern, but failed to explode. At that moment Frank felt neither dismay nor fear, but only a strange exhilaration. Shells began to fall fast, now ahead, now astern, and on both sides, some exploding with a terrific noise, others merely splashing into the water. "They haven't had practice on moving targets, like our naval gunners," thought Frank.Since everything now depended on speed, he steered out into the channel, in order to take full advantage of the current. His change of course seemed to baulk the gunners. The light grew dimmer as he drew farther from its source, and the gunners, slow in shortening their range, sent their shells far beyond him. But now a brilliant beam of light struck the launch from the eastern shore. The searchlight which the cliffs had previously intercepted had free play over the part of the channel on which he was now racing. In a few moments shells began to fall more thickly around him. The noise was deafening. Huge waves dashed over the launch, and Frank wondered whether it was to escape a shot only to be swamped and sunk by the water. But he clung firmly to the wheel.Then there was a stunning explosion. The launch staggered as if smitten by a mighty hammer; an immense volume of silvery spray showered upon it. Frank saw that a big gap had been made in the starboard side, a foot or two from the stem. But the engine still throbbed steadily, and the little craft still thrashed her way at full speed seaward. For a little the shelling ceased. The spray had hidden the launch from the view of the gunners, who probably supposed that they had sunk her. But they soon discovered their mistake, and after a ranging shot they started their continuous bombardment again. The brief respite had enabled Frank to gain ground. The launch was less brilliantly illuminated. A light mist was gathering on the water. The wind had changed and was blowing in from the mouth of the channel. In a few minutes the shells ceased to fall. The batteries had given him up.But his satisfaction was short-lived. Above the throbbing of his engine he became aware of a new sound--the deeper-toned throbbing of a much more powerful engine. A new light began to grope through the mist. Frank felt a sinking of heart. Beyond doubt a war vessel of some kind was in pursuit of him. Outmatched in speed, what could he look for now but a sudden end?The light found him. Instantly the torpedo boat astern opened fire: Frank heard the regular rap-rap of a machine gun. The noise of the engines grew louder: the vessel was bearing down upon him relentlessly like a sleuthhound. Bullets whizzed, whistled, splashed, thudded on the woodwork. He felt a burning pang in his right shoulder. Clenching his teeth he held on his course. Despair seized him when another light, this time ahead, mingled its misty beam with that from behind. Between two fires, what could this be but the end? "I'll die game," he muttered, and steered straight for the torpedo boat which was now visible in the lifted light of the vessel behind. In a few seconds his light craft would strike that iron bow, and then----But the shock against which Frank had thus steeled himself never came. With his hand still upon the steering-wheel he swooned away.When Frank opened his eyes again, they lighted upon the ruddy clean-shaven face of a man in a peaked cap and navy blue."Where am I?" he murmured."In a ward of H.M.S.--no, I mustn't tell you the name, bedad: 'tis against the rules, or if it isn't, it might be, so I'll not tell you. But it's a hospital ship, and you've a nice little hole in your shoulder, and here's the bullet that bored it: perhaps you'd like to look at it."Frank took the bullet and looked at it with an air of detachment. It seemed hardly believable that that cone of lead had been in his flesh and was now out of it."But who the deuce are you, in an enemy uniform and all?" the surgeon asked. "No, you haven't it on now, to be sure; but there 'tis, rolled up on the bunk there, and you were in it when they brought you aboard, and you speaking English as well as the rest of us. You can't talk, to be sure; but who are you? Don't try to talk, but tell me that."Frank smiled at the rubicund Irishman."I feel rather groggy," he said faintly."Of course, and who wouldn't? But 'tis a clean wound, and you'll be up and skylarking in a day or two, Mr.----""Frank Forester.""Ah now, that's not a Turk's name, to be sure. Well, don't talk. I can talk enough for both. When Lieutenant-Commander W----no, I won't name him--of H.M.S.--won't nameher--saw a Turkish gunboat firing on a Turk in a neat little cockleshell of a launch, 'Boys,' said he--though I did not hear him, to be sure--'Boys, drop one in the engine-room.' And sure enough, one of her fore six-pounders planted a shell amidships, and crippled the Turk's engines, and a couple more sent her to the bottom. Then they hunted for you, and found your launch bumping on the rocks below Erenkeui, and you as pale as your shirt (where it wasn't red) hugging your wheel as if you loved it. They took you aboard and handed you over to me, and I'm to send in a report when I've got from you who you are, and who's your father, and the way you come to be playing the fool in a Turk's uniform. But there's no hurry for that. You'll take a little food, and sleep, and by and by I'll come and see you again, and then you can give an account of yourself. Now let me have a peep at your shoulder."CHAPTER XVIIITHE LANDING AT ANZACOne bright morning in April, a group of young officers sat smoking on the deck of a British destroyer lying amid a crowd of warships and transport vessels in Mudros harbour, on the southern shore of the Grecian island of Lemnos. They were clad in khaki, with sun helmets, which marked them out as military, not naval officers. Seated in a rough half-circle, some on chairs, some on the spotless deck, they appeared to be specially interested in one of their number, at whom they were throwing questions one after another."What's the Turkish for 'Give me some beer,' anyhow?" one had just asked."Bana bira ver," replied the young subaltern. "But you won't easily get it, you know. Moslems don't drink it.""Do they grow grapes?" asked another."Oh yes;yuzum's the word.""Don't they make 'em into wine, then?""They're not supposed to, but I daresay you might get some if you saidBana sharab ververy politely.""You won't want it, Ted," said a third. "We've plenty of our own stuff. Our Australian wine is as good as any.""Besides," said the man they were questioning, "you won't get many opportunities of making requisitions of that sort. There aren't any inns in Gallipoli, you know.""What's the Turkish forinn?""Khan.""Say 'keep up your pecker' in Turkish: that'll stump you.""Not at all. If you fancy your Turk is downhearted, say to him 'Gheiret ileh.'"A subaltern, who had furtively taken from his pocket a booklet with a buff-coloured paper cover, turned over the pages, replaced the book, and bending forward said:"Here's a poser for you. What's the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'?"There was a gust of laughter."Tomlinson's thinking of the girl he left behind him," said one of his comrades. "Gheiret ileh, Tommy.""Stumped, Forester?""I'm sorry for Tomlinson; he'll have a mouthful to say.Sevderilehmemekmeets the case, I think.""By Jove!" gasped the last speaker. "Sounds like a bird twittering."Tomlinson had taken out his book again."Forester's right," he said, examining a page. "What a language! How in the world did you manage to learn it?""What have you got there?" some one asked."A remarkable production called 'Easy Turkish,'" Tomlinson replied. "If that's easy! ... It's supposed to be a word-book for our chaps in Turkey; but while it gives you the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'--as if any sane person would want to say that!--it doesn't tell you how to say you're hungry or thirsty. Poof!"He flung the book overboard."Bang goes sixpence!" he remarked. "You'd better compile something decent, Forester.""It's too late now," said Frank, smiling. "Pity; I might have made a few honest pennies if I had started in time."Frank had been taken in the hospital ship to Malta, where he found his father. As he made a swift recovery from his wound, he grew more and more eager to join the fighting forces, and was on the point of applying for a commission when news came that a military expedition in Gallipoli had been decided on, to retrieve the failure of the naval operations which had been in progress for several months. With his father's approval he hastened to Alexandria and applied for work in connection with the expedition. His knowledge of Turkish and his recent experiences in Gallipoli served him well. Interpreters were much needed. He was attached as interpreter to the Australian contingent with the rank of lieutenant, and accompanied the troops when they sailed for the base in Mudros Bay."What sort of a place is this Gallipoli?" asked one of the young Australians, who had heard something of Frank's adventures."A very hard nut to crack," Frank replied. "I don't know much about the coast, which is mainly cliffs with very narrow beaches; but the interior is all rocky hills and ravines, covered with scrub and dwarf oaks. You couldn't imagine finer country for defence, and the Turks are best on the defensive. They've had time for preparation, too. A couple of months ago I saw them dragging a battery up the sides of Sari Bair, a hill nearly 1000 feet high, and since then no doubt they've planted guns all over the place.""We're in for a hot time, then," remarked Tomlinson. "Well, I was fed up with Egypt. That attack on the canal was a futile bit of stupidity, and I was afraid they'd keep us there on the watch for another attack which not even the Turks would be asses enough to make. If we're in for the real thing now--well, I for one am delighted, I assure you."At two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 24, the flagship took up her position at the head of the line, and the warships passed down among the slowly moving transports amid cheers from the men on the crowded decks. Two hours later the troops were lined up with the ships' companies to hear the captains read Admiral de Robeck's final order of the day, and to join in the last solemn service conducted by the chaplains. Then the vessels steamed slowly northward, towards the scene of what was to be the most heroic enterprise in the long annals of our history.All night the fleet made its slow way. On Frank's destroyer the naval officers entertained the troops with their traditional hospitality, and then the men--such of them as excitement did not keep awake--slept through the remaining hours of darkness.At one in the morning of Sunday the ships hove to, five miles from the fatal shore. The men were aroused and served with a hot meal. The stillness of night brooded over the decks, and the young soldiers, browned, stalwart, eager, chatted in subdued tones. Twenty minutes later came the signal from the flagship for lowering the boats, which had been swinging all night from the davits. Silently the men moved to their appointed places; the boats dropped gently to the water, and out of the darkness glided the steam pinnaces that were to take them in tow. Frank and his new acquaintances were to remain on the destroyer, which would go close inshore and land them in boats after those towed by the pinnaces had reached the beach.It was still dark when the boats, each in charge of a young midshipman, moved slowly and silently shoreward. The group of officers on the deck of the destroyer followed them with their eyes until they were swallowed up in the darkness. Their hearts were beating fast with suppressed excitement. What was to be the fate of this great adventure? Could their approach have been heard? Would the enemy be taken by surprise? Had the shore at this spot been fortified in anticipation of attack? Nothing was known. The dawn would show.Three battleships had taken up position in line abreast to cover the landing. The boats stole past them. Through the gloom the outline of the cliffs was just faintly discernible. Frank gazed breathlessly ahead. He could barely distinguish the foremost boats creeping in towards the shore. All was silent; the brooding hush seemed ominous. Suddenly a searchlight flashed from a point on the cliffs, showing up the boats as it moved slowly over the water. Still not a shot was fired. The destroyer, one of seven, began to move. It had barely got under way when there was a long line of flashes at the level of the beach, followed in a few seconds by a sharp crackle. The Turks had opened rifle fire. Then came the faint sounds of a British cheer. The first boats had reached the beach: dark forms could be seen leaping forwards into a blaze of fire. Frank watched them with a quivering impatience. His general instructions were to go ashore when the landing had been made good and to hold himself in readiness to interpret so soon as the first prisoners were brought in. But in his heart he longed to be among the gallant fellows who were braving the perils of the assault; why should he be passive when they were daring so much?A light mist crept over the sea, almost blotting out the cliffs. Presently the destroyer moved slowly shorewards; it stopped again, and at the moment when rifle fire burst forth with greater intensity the boats were lowered over the side. Frank sprang into the first, throbbing with exultation as it pulled in. The rosy dawn was just creeping over the hill-tops, the mist was dispersing, and he could now clearly see the khaki figures swarming like cats up the shrub-covered almost perpendicular face of the cliffs.The boat touched shoal water. Frank leapt overboard with its company, and rushed up the beach, strewn with prostrate forms and discarded packs. Just as he reached the first trench, from which the Turks had been hurled at the point of the bayonet, the man beside him reeled, gasped, and fell against him. Frank laid him gently down; then, losing all sense of his non-combatant capacity, he seized the man's rifle and bandolier and sprinted after the others.For a few moments he ran forward in a blind confusion of the senses. The yellow sandstone crumbled beneath his feet: in front was what appeared to be a green wall streaked with yellow. Bullets whistled around. Here and there men lay huddled in extraordinary attitudes on the slope; now and then he caught sight of a figure clambering up. On he went, through shrubs that grew higher than his head, conscious only of continuous flashes, until suddenly he came face to face with a dark figure that seemed to have sprung up out of the earth. Instinctively he thrust forward his rifle with a fierce lunge, and the next thing he knew was that the Turk had sunk down before him, and that he was leaping into a trench.Close to his right he heard the murderous rattle of a machine gun. He stumbled along the trench for a few yards, shouting he knew not what, tripped over a man prone in the bottom of the trench, and before he could pick himself up was kicked and trodden by a number of Australians who had followed him. Struggling to his feet, he hurried on, to find himself in a furious mêlée about the emplacement of the machine gun. Two of the Australians were down, a third was at deadly grips with three big bearded Turks. Frank rushed at the nearest of them, and disposed of him with his bayonet. At the same moment the second fell to the bayonet of the Australian, and the third turned, scrambled out of the trench, and plunging into the scrub disappeared up the hill."Got the gun, sir," cried the Australian with a happy grin.Frank, gasping, trembling, leant against the side of the trench."Take it down," he replied.Another boat's load of men came rushing along the trench. There was no officer among them. Gathering himself together, Frank put himself at their head, and leapt up the hill, in pursuit of the Turks who had been driven from the trench. The ground was broken by ridges, gullies, and sand-pits, and the scrub grew so thickly that they could scarcely see a yard in front of them. To keep a regular alignment was impossible. The men separated, each forcing his own way. None of them had yet so much as charged their magazines. The work had all been done with the cold steel. Here one plunged his bayonet into the back of a fleeing Turk: there another shouted with delight as he discovered that a swaying bush was really a sniper who had tied branches about his body for concealment. As they mounted, friend and foe became hopelessly intermingled. Frank caught sight occasionally of a knot of Turks, then of a group of Australians; next moment nothing was to be seen but scrub and creeper intermingled with bright flowers of varied hue as in a rock garden. Foot by foot he climbed up until presently he found himself at the crest of the hill, and saw the Australians busy with their trenching tools amid a furious rifle fire from the Turks in their main position. His eye marked a steep gully which formed an almost perfect natural trench. Shouting to the men nearest him, he was joined by a score or so, who leapt into the gully beside him. And as the sun rose over the hills on that Sunday morning, Frank, without being aware of it, was within a few hundred yards of his old hiding-place, the sepulchre on Sari Bair.
CHAPTER XV
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.
CHAPTER XVI
TWO MEN IN A LAUNCH
In the confusion ensuing upon the fall of the gun Frank crept unseen up the gully. He chuckled as he heard the infuriate curses of the German officer. The cause of the disaster would never be known. Whether it were ascribed to the carelessness of the men or to the accidental slipping of a ring mattered nothing: the gun was lying at a spot whence it would be almost impossible to remove it; very likely it was damaged beyond repair. Frank's satisfaction was only alloyed by regret that to attempt the same feat with the other guns of the battery was out of the question.
"Now what's to be done?" he thought, when, having put a considerable distance between himself and any risk of danger, he stopped to think over his position. One result of the establishment of the battery on the heights must be his abandonment of the sepulchre. Whatever might be the reason for placing the battery just there, if the guns began to play they would draw upon them the shells of the British fleet, and the sepulchre was near enough to be anything but a safe asylum. The troops pursuing him were not far to the north. With no permanent refuge he could not hope to evade them much longer. Sari Bair was becoming too hot to hold him. He must move on.
But in what direction? No part of the peninsula was any longer safe. To go southwards was mere folly: he would only come to the forts, about which there was no doubt a strong concentration of troops. And that way there was no outlet but the sea. Northwards, where the peninsula was wider, there would be more room to move; but after what had happened he would be watched for at every little farm, on all the roads, and if he were not actually captured, lack of food would ultimately enforce his surrender. "What an ass I was not to make for the harbour at Gallipoli that night," he thought, "and try to smuggle myself on Kopri's vessel!" But repentance had come too late. Here he was, caged; nothing could now alter that; and if he were caught in the end--well, these last few days had given him an amount of joyous excitement which he could never forget. Even the reflection that he had now lost the privileges of a civilian, and would probably be shot at sight, did not much trouble him. "Kismet!" he thought: "I must have breathed in the fatalistic spirit of the country."
"But I'm not done yet," he added to himself. "It's Bulgaria now, I suppose. I'd better get away first to the east, out of the way of those fellows hunting me, and then work round as quickly as I can to the north-west. Lucky I stuffed my pockets pretty full of loaves; but it's quarter rations. I don't know when I'll be able to get more."
The booming of guns to the south reminded him that fellow-countrymen were only a few miles away--a galling remembrance. They could do nothing for him. "Alone, alone, all, all alone!"--where had he read those words, and how little he had understood till now what they meant!--"Oh, chuck it, Frank Forester!" he said to himself. "It's no good grousing. Come on!"
He struck off across the shoulder of the hill, and made his way down the bed of a stream skirting the western side of Kojadere, and flowing almost due south until with a sharp turn to the left it fell into the Dardanelles a mile or so north of Maidos. For the greater part of the distance it was close to a road, and Frank had to keep a careful look-out. But the country was rugged and desolate: there were no villages and to all appearance no houses; only once did he catch sight of anything on the road--a bullock wagon lumbering slowly in the opposite direction.
The ground was for the most part on a low level, and in order to ascertain his distance from the coast he turned off to the left, where there were hills rising nearly two hundred feet. After a long and tiring climb he reached a cliff at the eastern extremity of the Kalkmaz Dagh which, projecting a little into the sea, gave him a direct view downward into Maidos and the strait beyond. A Turkish warship lay just above the Narrows; torpedo boats and vessels which, though he did not know it, were mine-layers, were moored here and there; and crossing the channel from Chanak was the motor launch, with its awning over the fore-deck, which he had noticed once or twice before. "Abdi's on the other side now," he thought.
He watched the launch through his glasses as it threaded its way through the congestion of lighters and small cargo vessels lying off Maidos, to a jetty north of the town. A number of passengers came ashore. The launch was tied up and the crew also landed--all but one man, who sat down in the stern and appeared to be eating his dinner. Frank almost unconsciously took out one of his loaves. "Didn't know I was so hungry," he muttered. He ate half the loaf, which was little larger than a scone, put the remainder back, then took it out again for a final mouthful. The man on the launch was still eating. Frank watched him enviously, and almost hated him when he saw him wrap up a portion of his meal and stow it away. "He has too much and I too little," he thought. "I daresay he'd sell what's left. Wish I could get at him!"
This started a train of thought, or rather a series of questions. Why not go down to the launch? Why not make use of his military uniform? What chance was there that the man on the launch had heard that an English fugitive was masquerading as a Turkish officer of artillery? Indeed, why not bluff it out, get command of the launch, and run down the strait towards the open sea? British warships were there. Was he prepared to face a twofold risk--run the gauntlet of Turkish vessels and batteries, and also draw fire from a British ship?
It was a ticklish problem, that would not wait long for a solution. At any moment the launch might be ordered off. If the attempt was to be made, it must be made at once. "Too risky," he thought. "I might be spotted before I reached it. It's nearly a mile away: might be gone by the time I could get down. It's absurd."
Sunk in this pessimism he sat with his chin on his hand, looking at the launch, on which the man now lay stretched on his back, gazing down the strait towards Kilid Bahr, where the shore bent round to the west, and beyond which there were British vessels. It was only four or five miles to Kilid Bahr; in the clear air the distance seemed shorter. He thought of the alternative--further hide-and-seek in the hills, long wanderings, semi-starvation, cold. "Hanged if I don't have a shot," he said to himself.
Below him ran the road from Boghali through Maidos, at the edge of the strait. There was no other way of reaching the launch unless he made a long detour round the hills. The afternoon was already far advanced. A detour would take much time, and taking it he would lose sight of the launch. On the road, so far as he could see it, there was no traffic. He rose to his feet, made his way down the hillside, gained the road, and set off quickly southward.
In a few minutes, rounding a corner, he overtook a transport wagon drawn by two oxen. It flashed upon him that he would attract less attention if he got a lift on it. Stepping up to the front of the wagon, he hailed the driver.
"Give me a lift," he said. "I've walked from Sari Bair, where we are placing a battery. It's very tiring, walking over the hills."
"That is true, effendim," said the man. "Your excellency may do as he pleases."
Frank got up beside the driver. The wagon lumbered on. As it neared Maidos it passed people here and there; they saluted the supposed officer without suspicion. It passed a house ruined by a shell.
"They said the English were our friends," remarked the wagoner.
"Time will show who are our true friends," answered Frank.
They were now entering the northern outskirts of the town. Frank saw many signs of the havoc wrought by indirect fire from the British fleet. In the distance soldiers were moving about. He thought it time to get down. Tipping the driver, he jumped to the ground, and turned off to the left towards the jetty. The launch was still tied up: he could just see its awning.
When he was still some little distance from it he had a shock. From the opposite direction, and nearer to the jetty than himself, a Turkish officer was approaching it. He was bound to get there first. For a moment Frank thought of turning tail; he had not yet been observed; but it occurred to him that the officer might possibly come back in a few minutes: it was worth while waiting to see.
Near at hand was a deep hole in the ground, the work of a shell. Beside it was a broken transport wagon. He sat on this, took a cigarette from the case which, with an automatic lighter, he had found in the pocket of the great-coat, and began smoking like any idler. A shed at the shore end of the jetty partly hid him from view.
The officer went on board the launch. Frank had a second shock. It was the Kurd Abdi. Apparently he had not been to Chanak after all. Perhaps he had deferred his departure for the sake of making one more attempt to capture the fugitive. It was plain that he was intending to cross the strait now, for the man in charge of the launch was making preparations to start.
Frank was as it were paralysed for a few moments. The game was up. But no: while the man was pouring petrol into the tank, Abdi had gone forward and was making himself comfortable under the awning forward. There was just a chance for boldness. Making up his mind instantly, Frank strolled unconcernedly down the jetty. The launch man was bending over his engine; beyond him Abdi was half concealed by the awning.
Frank halted a few yards from the launch, where his face could not be seen by the Kurd, and hailed the engine man in a low tone. The man looked up, and Frank beckoned him ashore. He hesitated a moment; then the officer's uniform was effective: he jumped on to the jetty and came to Frank's side. With a show of mystery Frank led him a few yards and said:
"His excellency is crossing to Chanak."
"The Governor?" asked the man.
"Yes: you are ordered to wait. Not a word to any one. Go at once to headquarters and ask for Major Ahmed Talik. There will be a valise to carry down. You understand?--Major Ahmed Talik. It is not to be talked about. Make haste!"
"But my passenger, effendim?"
"He must wait. I will explain to him."
"My orders! I am not to leave the launch."
"Do you argue with me?" said Frank sternly. "Go at once."
The man hastened to excuse himself, and set off, somewhat bewildered, towards the town.
"Why keep me waiting, dog of a dog-son?" called Abdi from the launch.
The man turned, but Frank signed to him imperatively to go on, then sauntered back along the jetty, one hand holding the cigarette, the other fingering the revolver in his pocket. Abdi had raised himself from his recumbent posture, and in a crouching attitude was peering out from beneath the low awning. The glow of the sun, setting over the hills behind, struck full upon his eyes: Frank's were shadowed. Frank half turned as if watching the retreating launch man, all the time slowly approaching the vessel, thus gaining ground without revealing his face.
Then he suddenly swung round, and jumped on board. The launch rocked.
"Wallahy! Would you upset me?" cried Abdi.
Frank stood in front of him, pointing his revolver, but in such a posture that the weapon could not be seen by chance observers on shore. Half under the awning Abdi was at a disadvantage. He was so much taken aback by Frank's sudden movement, and so much overcome with amazement when he at last recognised the features of the newcomer, that he was incapable of shouting an alarm, and the sight of the revolver within a few feet of his head disposed him to listen to what Frank was saying.
"Salam," said Frank quietly, "we are going for a little trip together. No, no: keep your hands down. Don't move any further from under the awning. You recognise me, I see. I am the Englishman you have been hunting--and this is my revolver. It is loaded.--Do you hear? Keep still.--You have a revolver too, in that belt to which I see your restless hand groping. Well, I collect revolvers. I have two of yours already; the other will be safer with me. No: keep your hands up; if you hurry me I may shoot too soon. On your life don't make a movement!" he ended fiercely.
With his right hand holding his revolver at the Kurd's head, he stooped, and with a quick movement of his left hand wrested the revolver from the other's belt.
"Now get back under the awning to the comfortable place you have arranged for yourself," he said.
The Kurd hesitated and flashed a downward glance at the knives in his belt.
"I will count three," Frank went on. "If you are not comfortable when I come to three ... one ... two----"
With a snarling curse Abdi crept backward to the cushions at the further end of the awning, and collapsed there.
Transferring the revolver to his left hand, Frank, also moving backward, came to the engine. It was not his first trip in a motor launch, and a rapid examination showed him that the boatman had got everything ready. Nothing remained but to switch on the current, turn the crank and cast off the hawser. These movements he made, his eyes scarcely leaving the discomfited Kurd for a moment. Then he threw the engine into gear and seized the helm, and the little craft sidled from the jetty, and shot away over the dancing wavelets of the Dardanelles.
CHAPTER XVII
THROUGH THE NARROWS
Frank felt himself go pale under the reaction from the strain of the last few minutes. But he had won the advantage in the opening of the game: he must maintain it to the end.
He had so often watched the launch crossing to and fro that he had a pretty good idea of the course. Chanak was a couple of miles down the strait on the opposite shore: it would excite least remark if he steered as for that town. The vessel was too shallow in draught to run much risk from possible mines, and it was so frequently seen that no one on a Turkish ship would pay any attention to it. No doubt an alarm would be raised when the boatman discovered that he had been tricked; but Frank hoped to be several miles on his voyage to safety by that time.
When he drew out from under the lee of the hills he found that the wind was in his favour, blowing directly down the Narrows. This should mean at least a three-knot current. The launch was small, and probably incapable of more than seven or eight knots: his utmost speed, then, might rise to ten or eleven. But it was not wholly a question of speed. If the alarm was given before he reached the narrowest part of the channel at Chanak escape would be unlikely if not impossible. The fast-gathering darkness would be no protection. He would be under searchlights from both sides, and a dozen batteries would have him under fire at ranges ascertained to a yard. His nerves, judgment, quickness of decision, would be taxed to the uttermost in this adventurous voyage of a few miles.
With the fall of night navigation practically ceased on the strait; therefore he was not very likely to be run down by accident. But he must guard against collision with vessels moored under either shore. Further, there was always a chance that he would be challenged from the deck of one of the stationary vessels, and though he did not doubt his ability to give a reassuring answer, he had always the Kurd to reckon with. It would have been prudent to gag him, but the opportunity for that was past. Shaping his course by the faint twilight, he kept one eye on Abdi, ready to take action instantly if the man showed any disposition to be troublesome.
So, in growing darkness, he ran down the strait until he came opposite Chanak, which was distinguishable by a few dim lights and the sounds of bustle on the quays and jetties. The place had suffered considerably by bombardment from the ships of the allied fleet, which had come up to within a few miles of the Narrows; but it was clear that extensive repairs were already in progress. Observing two or three large vessels moored out of the current in the little bay north of the town, Frank as a measure of precaution cut off the engine, and the launch drifted into the neck between Chanak and Kilid Bahr. His ear caught the faint sound of a windlass working in the channel at some unseen point ahead. Clearly a vessel lay out there. He pitched his voice to a low note, and gave Abdi a quiet warning not to speak a word or make any movement of alarm, on pain of receiving the full contents of his revolver. The most dangerous part of his voyage was evidently at hand.
In a few minutes he saw, some little distance ahead on the starboard side, a large dark shape moving towards him. Putting the helm over, he crept in more closely to the Asiatic shore, in the hope that the launch, being small and low and travelling silently, would escape observation. But next moment he was startled by the sudden beam of a searchlight playing over the middle of the channel from some point behind him. The darkness on either side was intensified, so that the light, while it swept mid-channel, favoured him; but if it should bend its rays to the left, the launch would be vividly illuminated, and could not fail to be observed by the men on the approaching vessel, who would certainly follow with their eyes the path of light. He watched the beam lengthening its giant stride. It passed over the slowly approaching torpedo boat and illuminated the water beyond. Hugging the shore as closely as he dared, Frank drifted on, resolved, if the light fell on him, to start the engine and make a dash at full speed down the strait.
The light took a sudden sweep upwards, swung to the right over the hills and disappeared. Then Frank realised that the current had failed him. The launch was scarcely moving. He steered for the open channel, edging out very gradually. No sooner had the launch come again into the current than the light flashed out, just touching a point of land on his port side, and passing beyond it. It occurred to him that if he could round the point during the interval of darkness before the light again appeared, he would no longer be in its direct path. It was worth the risk of starting the engine and making a dash over the short distance between him and safety. Guided only by the dark outline of the low wooded cliffs on his left hand, he put the engine at full speed while the light was still sweeping the channel. To maintain an even distance from the shore he soon found it necessary to keep the helm well over. He must be rounding the point. And when, a minute or two later, the beam once more flashed out, it passed almost directly over him, leaving him in shadow. With a sense of profound relief he stopped the engine and floated down with the current, more than satisfied for the moment, but wondering how long his luck would hold.
The launch was now in pitch darkness. Frank knew that there were shoals along the shore, and he was beset by a double anxiety: he must steer so as to avoid at once the path of the searchlight and the unknown shoals. So fully was his attention occupied that he had almost forgotten the Kurd lying forward. The dark patch which favoured him was favourable also to an expedient which Abdi had been grimly meditating. Suddenly, while Frank was peering into the darkness ahead, he was conscious that a black shape had intervened between him and the scarcely perceptible space of water. He knew instantly what it was, but before he could brace himself for the impending shock the steering-wheel shivered under a sword-cut that missed him by a hairsbreadth, and the Kurd flung himself upon him, at the same time shouting vociferously to attract the attention of any watchers who might be on shore, or on some vessel near by. Taking advantage of Frank's preoccupation and the darkness, Abdi had crawled from under the awning and along the deck under the side of the little craft, springing to his feet within a few inches of Frank's seat.
It was the fact of being seated that proved to be Frank's salvation. Abdi lost the advantage of surprise when his sword-cut missed. He fell forward awkwardly. Frank's right hand was pinned beneath the Kurd's body, but his left, with which he had held the wheel, was free. Instantly he gripped Abdi's sword-arm above the wrist, and for a few moments there was a fierce struggle for position between the two men; Frank striving to free his right hand, and when he had done so, to prevent the Kurd from strangling him with his left arm.
Frank was soon aware that in mere power of muscle he was no match for his assailant. But he had the firmer position, Abdi being inclined forward and swaying unsteadily with the rocking of the launch. Suddenly dropping his clutch on the Kurd's upper right arm, he seized him by the throat, braced himself against the seat, and pulled his left arm towards him, exerting all his strength to twist him over. With his free right hand Abdi clutched at the thwart; but Frank's leverage against the seat gave him the mechanical advantage; moreover, the Kurd was expending much energy in trying to free himself from the pressure on his windpipe. Inch by inch he was pressed back against the side of the launch, every moment struggling more feebly under Frank's choking clutch. At last his shoulders were hanging over the water, and his arms were raised as a drowning man throws up his hands. Then suddenly Frank released the Kurd's throat, caught him beneath the right knee, and, pressing heavily on the seat, tilted him overboard. There was a gurgling gasp as the man struck the water, then a brief silence, broken soon by a long yell. It was a cry for help, but not a cry of despair, and Frank, panting from his recent exertions, was aware that Abdi could swim. His cries must be heard on shore and on any vessels that might lie in the neighbourhood or be patrolling the strait. At first their meaning would not be known, but they would give the alarm and put the enemy on the alert, and as soon as Abdi reached the shore the truth would be flashed from fort to fort.
The launch, left to itself during the struggle, had drifted inshore and was bumping against the rocks. Frank had just switched on the engine and reversed the screw when an agitated movement of the searchlight and shouts from the cliffs above him showed that an alarm of some sort had been given. The white beam was sweeping the whole breadth of the channel except that black band which was shielded by the cliffs and in which the launch was moving. This band widened as the trend of the shore became more south-westerly, and Frank had good hope of running out of danger. His confidence was rudely shaken when a second searchlight began to play from a point slightly ahead of him. For all he knew there might be others at different points down the channel. It was neck or nothing now. He put the engine at full speed ahead, and the launch throbbed and swished through the water.
The coast-line here made a sudden bend inwards. Frank steered accordingly, and was relieved to find that by his change of course he just escaped the searchlight, whose beam flashed almost over his head. The beating of his screw could hardly fail to be heard on shore, no more than a hundred yards away; but the light could evidently not be depressed sufficiently to illuminate this edge of the channel. The launch dashed on; the light was left behind; and steering almost due south Frank once more felt secure.
But next moment he was startled by the sudden flashing of a light from the opposite shore. It swept directly across the channel and moved slowly along, lighting up yard after yard of the white cliffs on his left hand. There was no avoiding it, and he felt a strange tingling as he realised that in a few seconds the light would find him, and he would then become the target for the enemy's guns. So it was. The beam suddenly overtook him, the launch was vividly illuminated from stem to stern, and the light kept pace with it in its rush down the channel. Frank tried by zigzag steering to wriggle out of it, but it followed every movement, and he resigned himself to the inevitable.
There was a roar and flash from the western shore. A shell splashed into the water close astern, but failed to explode. At that moment Frank felt neither dismay nor fear, but only a strange exhilaration. Shells began to fall fast, now ahead, now astern, and on both sides, some exploding with a terrific noise, others merely splashing into the water. "They haven't had practice on moving targets, like our naval gunners," thought Frank.
Since everything now depended on speed, he steered out into the channel, in order to take full advantage of the current. His change of course seemed to baulk the gunners. The light grew dimmer as he drew farther from its source, and the gunners, slow in shortening their range, sent their shells far beyond him. But now a brilliant beam of light struck the launch from the eastern shore. The searchlight which the cliffs had previously intercepted had free play over the part of the channel on which he was now racing. In a few moments shells began to fall more thickly around him. The noise was deafening. Huge waves dashed over the launch, and Frank wondered whether it was to escape a shot only to be swamped and sunk by the water. But he clung firmly to the wheel.
Then there was a stunning explosion. The launch staggered as if smitten by a mighty hammer; an immense volume of silvery spray showered upon it. Frank saw that a big gap had been made in the starboard side, a foot or two from the stem. But the engine still throbbed steadily, and the little craft still thrashed her way at full speed seaward. For a little the shelling ceased. The spray had hidden the launch from the view of the gunners, who probably supposed that they had sunk her. But they soon discovered their mistake, and after a ranging shot they started their continuous bombardment again. The brief respite had enabled Frank to gain ground. The launch was less brilliantly illuminated. A light mist was gathering on the water. The wind had changed and was blowing in from the mouth of the channel. In a few minutes the shells ceased to fall. The batteries had given him up.
But his satisfaction was short-lived. Above the throbbing of his engine he became aware of a new sound--the deeper-toned throbbing of a much more powerful engine. A new light began to grope through the mist. Frank felt a sinking of heart. Beyond doubt a war vessel of some kind was in pursuit of him. Outmatched in speed, what could he look for now but a sudden end?
The light found him. Instantly the torpedo boat astern opened fire: Frank heard the regular rap-rap of a machine gun. The noise of the engines grew louder: the vessel was bearing down upon him relentlessly like a sleuthhound. Bullets whizzed, whistled, splashed, thudded on the woodwork. He felt a burning pang in his right shoulder. Clenching his teeth he held on his course. Despair seized him when another light, this time ahead, mingled its misty beam with that from behind. Between two fires, what could this be but the end? "I'll die game," he muttered, and steered straight for the torpedo boat which was now visible in the lifted light of the vessel behind. In a few seconds his light craft would strike that iron bow, and then----
But the shock against which Frank had thus steeled himself never came. With his hand still upon the steering-wheel he swooned away.
When Frank opened his eyes again, they lighted upon the ruddy clean-shaven face of a man in a peaked cap and navy blue.
"Where am I?" he murmured.
"In a ward of H.M.S.--no, I mustn't tell you the name, bedad: 'tis against the rules, or if it isn't, it might be, so I'll not tell you. But it's a hospital ship, and you've a nice little hole in your shoulder, and here's the bullet that bored it: perhaps you'd like to look at it."
Frank took the bullet and looked at it with an air of detachment. It seemed hardly believable that that cone of lead had been in his flesh and was now out of it.
"But who the deuce are you, in an enemy uniform and all?" the surgeon asked. "No, you haven't it on now, to be sure; but there 'tis, rolled up on the bunk there, and you were in it when they brought you aboard, and you speaking English as well as the rest of us. You can't talk, to be sure; but who are you? Don't try to talk, but tell me that."
Frank smiled at the rubicund Irishman.
"I feel rather groggy," he said faintly.
"Of course, and who wouldn't? But 'tis a clean wound, and you'll be up and skylarking in a day or two, Mr.----"
"Frank Forester."
"Ah now, that's not a Turk's name, to be sure. Well, don't talk. I can talk enough for both. When Lieutenant-Commander W----no, I won't name him--of H.M.S.--won't nameher--saw a Turkish gunboat firing on a Turk in a neat little cockleshell of a launch, 'Boys,' said he--though I did not hear him, to be sure--'Boys, drop one in the engine-room.' And sure enough, one of her fore six-pounders planted a shell amidships, and crippled the Turk's engines, and a couple more sent her to the bottom. Then they hunted for you, and found your launch bumping on the rocks below Erenkeui, and you as pale as your shirt (where it wasn't red) hugging your wheel as if you loved it. They took you aboard and handed you over to me, and I'm to send in a report when I've got from you who you are, and who's your father, and the way you come to be playing the fool in a Turk's uniform. But there's no hurry for that. You'll take a little food, and sleep, and by and by I'll come and see you again, and then you can give an account of yourself. Now let me have a peep at your shoulder."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LANDING AT ANZAC
One bright morning in April, a group of young officers sat smoking on the deck of a British destroyer lying amid a crowd of warships and transport vessels in Mudros harbour, on the southern shore of the Grecian island of Lemnos. They were clad in khaki, with sun helmets, which marked them out as military, not naval officers. Seated in a rough half-circle, some on chairs, some on the spotless deck, they appeared to be specially interested in one of their number, at whom they were throwing questions one after another.
"What's the Turkish for 'Give me some beer,' anyhow?" one had just asked.
"Bana bira ver," replied the young subaltern. "But you won't easily get it, you know. Moslems don't drink it."
"Do they grow grapes?" asked another.
"Oh yes;yuzum's the word."
"Don't they make 'em into wine, then?"
"They're not supposed to, but I daresay you might get some if you saidBana sharab ververy politely."
"You won't want it, Ted," said a third. "We've plenty of our own stuff. Our Australian wine is as good as any."
"Besides," said the man they were questioning, "you won't get many opportunities of making requisitions of that sort. There aren't any inns in Gallipoli, you know."
"What's the Turkish forinn?"
"Khan."
"Say 'keep up your pecker' in Turkish: that'll stump you."
"Not at all. If you fancy your Turk is downhearted, say to him 'Gheiret ileh.'"
A subaltern, who had furtively taken from his pocket a booklet with a buff-coloured paper cover, turned over the pages, replaced the book, and bending forward said:
"Here's a poser for you. What's the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'?"
There was a gust of laughter.
"Tomlinson's thinking of the girl he left behind him," said one of his comrades. "Gheiret ileh, Tommy."
"Stumped, Forester?"
"I'm sorry for Tomlinson; he'll have a mouthful to say.Sevderilehmemekmeets the case, I think."
"By Jove!" gasped the last speaker. "Sounds like a bird twittering."
Tomlinson had taken out his book again.
"Forester's right," he said, examining a page. "What a language! How in the world did you manage to learn it?"
"What have you got there?" some one asked.
"A remarkable production called 'Easy Turkish,'" Tomlinson replied. "If that's easy! ... It's supposed to be a word-book for our chaps in Turkey; but while it gives you the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'--as if any sane person would want to say that!--it doesn't tell you how to say you're hungry or thirsty. Poof!"
He flung the book overboard.
"Bang goes sixpence!" he remarked. "You'd better compile something decent, Forester."
"It's too late now," said Frank, smiling. "Pity; I might have made a few honest pennies if I had started in time."
Frank had been taken in the hospital ship to Malta, where he found his father. As he made a swift recovery from his wound, he grew more and more eager to join the fighting forces, and was on the point of applying for a commission when news came that a military expedition in Gallipoli had been decided on, to retrieve the failure of the naval operations which had been in progress for several months. With his father's approval he hastened to Alexandria and applied for work in connection with the expedition. His knowledge of Turkish and his recent experiences in Gallipoli served him well. Interpreters were much needed. He was attached as interpreter to the Australian contingent with the rank of lieutenant, and accompanied the troops when they sailed for the base in Mudros Bay.
"What sort of a place is this Gallipoli?" asked one of the young Australians, who had heard something of Frank's adventures.
"A very hard nut to crack," Frank replied. "I don't know much about the coast, which is mainly cliffs with very narrow beaches; but the interior is all rocky hills and ravines, covered with scrub and dwarf oaks. You couldn't imagine finer country for defence, and the Turks are best on the defensive. They've had time for preparation, too. A couple of months ago I saw them dragging a battery up the sides of Sari Bair, a hill nearly 1000 feet high, and since then no doubt they've planted guns all over the place."
"We're in for a hot time, then," remarked Tomlinson. "Well, I was fed up with Egypt. That attack on the canal was a futile bit of stupidity, and I was afraid they'd keep us there on the watch for another attack which not even the Turks would be asses enough to make. If we're in for the real thing now--well, I for one am delighted, I assure you."
At two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 24, the flagship took up her position at the head of the line, and the warships passed down among the slowly moving transports amid cheers from the men on the crowded decks. Two hours later the troops were lined up with the ships' companies to hear the captains read Admiral de Robeck's final order of the day, and to join in the last solemn service conducted by the chaplains. Then the vessels steamed slowly northward, towards the scene of what was to be the most heroic enterprise in the long annals of our history.
All night the fleet made its slow way. On Frank's destroyer the naval officers entertained the troops with their traditional hospitality, and then the men--such of them as excitement did not keep awake--slept through the remaining hours of darkness.
At one in the morning of Sunday the ships hove to, five miles from the fatal shore. The men were aroused and served with a hot meal. The stillness of night brooded over the decks, and the young soldiers, browned, stalwart, eager, chatted in subdued tones. Twenty minutes later came the signal from the flagship for lowering the boats, which had been swinging all night from the davits. Silently the men moved to their appointed places; the boats dropped gently to the water, and out of the darkness glided the steam pinnaces that were to take them in tow. Frank and his new acquaintances were to remain on the destroyer, which would go close inshore and land them in boats after those towed by the pinnaces had reached the beach.
It was still dark when the boats, each in charge of a young midshipman, moved slowly and silently shoreward. The group of officers on the deck of the destroyer followed them with their eyes until they were swallowed up in the darkness. Their hearts were beating fast with suppressed excitement. What was to be the fate of this great adventure? Could their approach have been heard? Would the enemy be taken by surprise? Had the shore at this spot been fortified in anticipation of attack? Nothing was known. The dawn would show.
Three battleships had taken up position in line abreast to cover the landing. The boats stole past them. Through the gloom the outline of the cliffs was just faintly discernible. Frank gazed breathlessly ahead. He could barely distinguish the foremost boats creeping in towards the shore. All was silent; the brooding hush seemed ominous. Suddenly a searchlight flashed from a point on the cliffs, showing up the boats as it moved slowly over the water. Still not a shot was fired. The destroyer, one of seven, began to move. It had barely got under way when there was a long line of flashes at the level of the beach, followed in a few seconds by a sharp crackle. The Turks had opened rifle fire. Then came the faint sounds of a British cheer. The first boats had reached the beach: dark forms could be seen leaping forwards into a blaze of fire. Frank watched them with a quivering impatience. His general instructions were to go ashore when the landing had been made good and to hold himself in readiness to interpret so soon as the first prisoners were brought in. But in his heart he longed to be among the gallant fellows who were braving the perils of the assault; why should he be passive when they were daring so much?
A light mist crept over the sea, almost blotting out the cliffs. Presently the destroyer moved slowly shorewards; it stopped again, and at the moment when rifle fire burst forth with greater intensity the boats were lowered over the side. Frank sprang into the first, throbbing with exultation as it pulled in. The rosy dawn was just creeping over the hill-tops, the mist was dispersing, and he could now clearly see the khaki figures swarming like cats up the shrub-covered almost perpendicular face of the cliffs.
The boat touched shoal water. Frank leapt overboard with its company, and rushed up the beach, strewn with prostrate forms and discarded packs. Just as he reached the first trench, from which the Turks had been hurled at the point of the bayonet, the man beside him reeled, gasped, and fell against him. Frank laid him gently down; then, losing all sense of his non-combatant capacity, he seized the man's rifle and bandolier and sprinted after the others.
For a few moments he ran forward in a blind confusion of the senses. The yellow sandstone crumbled beneath his feet: in front was what appeared to be a green wall streaked with yellow. Bullets whistled around. Here and there men lay huddled in extraordinary attitudes on the slope; now and then he caught sight of a figure clambering up. On he went, through shrubs that grew higher than his head, conscious only of continuous flashes, until suddenly he came face to face with a dark figure that seemed to have sprung up out of the earth. Instinctively he thrust forward his rifle with a fierce lunge, and the next thing he knew was that the Turk had sunk down before him, and that he was leaping into a trench.
Close to his right he heard the murderous rattle of a machine gun. He stumbled along the trench for a few yards, shouting he knew not what, tripped over a man prone in the bottom of the trench, and before he could pick himself up was kicked and trodden by a number of Australians who had followed him. Struggling to his feet, he hurried on, to find himself in a furious mêlée about the emplacement of the machine gun. Two of the Australians were down, a third was at deadly grips with three big bearded Turks. Frank rushed at the nearest of them, and disposed of him with his bayonet. At the same moment the second fell to the bayonet of the Australian, and the third turned, scrambled out of the trench, and plunging into the scrub disappeared up the hill.
"Got the gun, sir," cried the Australian with a happy grin.
Frank, gasping, trembling, leant against the side of the trench.
"Take it down," he replied.
Another boat's load of men came rushing along the trench. There was no officer among them. Gathering himself together, Frank put himself at their head, and leapt up the hill, in pursuit of the Turks who had been driven from the trench. The ground was broken by ridges, gullies, and sand-pits, and the scrub grew so thickly that they could scarcely see a yard in front of them. To keep a regular alignment was impossible. The men separated, each forcing his own way. None of them had yet so much as charged their magazines. The work had all been done with the cold steel. Here one plunged his bayonet into the back of a fleeing Turk: there another shouted with delight as he discovered that a swaying bush was really a sniper who had tied branches about his body for concealment. As they mounted, friend and foe became hopelessly intermingled. Frank caught sight occasionally of a knot of Turks, then of a group of Australians; next moment nothing was to be seen but scrub and creeper intermingled with bright flowers of varied hue as in a rock garden. Foot by foot he climbed up until presently he found himself at the crest of the hill, and saw the Australians busy with their trenching tools amid a furious rifle fire from the Turks in their main position. His eye marked a steep gully which formed an almost perfect natural trench. Shouting to the men nearest him, he was joined by a score or so, who leapt into the gully beside him. And as the sun rose over the hills on that Sunday morning, Frank, without being aware of it, was within a few hundred yards of his old hiding-place, the sepulchre on Sari Bair.