On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles by Thomas Charles Bridges (page 2)

As he spoke, he himself dropped behind a boulder which thrust its weather-stained head out of the thin grass. He glanced round and saw that his companions had followed his example.

A bullet struck the stone just above his head and spattered off in a shower of shrieking fragments. The whole air was thick with lead. It was clear that they had run into a very strong enemy force, no doubt the reinforcements which had been brought up from the east.

‘Where are they?’ sang out Dave, who was lying in a little hollow with Roy Horan, a few yards to their left.

‘There’s a ravine ahead. That’s where they are. Look out! Here they come!’

The hill-side opposite seemed suddenly to vomit men. They came sweeping out in masses, hundreds strong.

‘Rapid fire!’ sang out Ken to his squad.

There was no need for his advice. Every man of the Colonials let loose at once, and few fired less than fifteen aimed rounds to the minute. The execution was awful. The attacking force reeled and writhed like a monster in agony.

But the officers behind, in their ugly greenish-gray German uniforms, drove them forward, and though the leading files fell by scores the rest swept onwards. To his dismay, Ken saw more pouring out behind in support. The odds were at least ten to one. It was impossible to withstand such an attack in the open.

Colonel Conway knew it too. Next moment the whistles shrilled again, giving the order to retire.

Slowly the men began to fall back. Their steadiness was wonderful. Raw troops can be trusted to charge, but, as a rule, it takes veterans to retire successfully. These Australians, hardly one of whom had ever been under fire before the previous night, retreated in such magnificent order as made their officers’ hearts thrill with admiration.

Every bit of cover was made full use of, the men dropping and firing, then rising again, and gliding back to the next stone or bush. They lost, of course–lost heavily–but for each Australian who fell, four Turks went down.

Ken, dodging and shooting with the best, still managed to keep an eye on his two friends, and saw with relief that neither was hit. Slowly they worked back until they were within fifty yards of their trench.

Here was open ground with practically no cover at all.

‘Come on!’ shouted Ken. ‘A last sprint.’

He saw Dave spring to his feet and make a dash. Then suddenly he stumbled, flung out his arms and fell flat on his face. At the same moment two Turks, big, black-bearded fellows, came leaping out of a patch of scrub, barely twenty yards behind Dave.

Ken spun round, and taking quick aim at the nearest, pulled the trigger. There was no report. He had finished the last cartridge in his magazine.

There was no time to reload. Dave, hurt but not killed, was trying to crawl away on hands and knees, but it was clear that in another moment he would be a prisoner.

Without an instant’s hesitation, Ken charged straight at the two Turks.

They, intent on their prisoner, failed to see him until he was almost on them. Then one, uttering a hoarse cry, sprang forward, stabbing at him with his bayonet.

Ken’s blade clashed against the other’s as he parried, then side-stepping like a flash, he drove his bayonet into the man’s ribs, and with a choking sob he fell dead.

Something whizzed past Ken’s head, and a heavy blow on the left shoulder brought him to his knees. The second Turk had struck at him with his rifle butt, and missing his head, caught him on the shoulder. He saw a savage grin on the man’s face as he raised his rifle again to finish the job and avenge his comrade. It looked all odds on Ken’s brains being scattered the next instant.

Before the rifle could descend a shadow flashed across, and something crashed upon the Turk’s head with such fearful force as cracked his skull like an egg-shell. For a moment his body remained upright, then it swayed and fell sideways like a log to the ground.

‘Gosh, but I thought I was too late!’ panted Roy Horan. ‘And confound it all, I’ve cracked the stock of my rifle.’

‘You saved my head from being cracked anyhow,’ answered Ken. ‘But Dave’s hit. Give us a hand back with him.’

‘I’ll carry him,’ said Roy quickly, and dropping his useless rifle, he quickly hoisted Burney on his broad back, and set off at a run for the trench. Ken, whose shoulder felt quite numb, followed, and a moment later all three tumbled safely back into the trench.

Roy laid Dave down gently on the ground.

‘Afraid he’s got it bad,’ he whispered, as he pointed to an ugly stain on the back of Dave’s tunic. ‘We must get the doctor as soon as we can.’

‘Let’s see if we can’t stop that bleeding. The doctor’s full up with work.’ As Ken spoke, he bent down and began stripping off Dave’s uniform, so as to get at the wound.

Tunic and shirt were both sodden with blood. Ken’s heart sank. It looked as if his chum must have been shot clean through the body.

‘He’s bleeding like a pig,’ muttered Roy, as he unwound a bandage.

By this time Ken had bared Dave’s back, and with a handkerchief mopped away the blood.

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look at that!’

The two stared, for instead of the blue-edged puncture which a bullet makes as it enters, there was nothing but a shallow cut about three inches long.

‘I see,’ said Ken suddenly. ‘The bullet struck the leather of his braces, and glanced. I say, Dave, old chap, you may thank your stars for those bullock-hide braces of yours. They’ve saved you this time, and no mistake. It’s only a flesh wound which a strip of plaster will put right in a day or two.’

‘Thanks be for that, anyhow,’ said Dave earnestly. ‘It would have broken me all up to lose the rest of the fun. But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I’m sorry my braces are gone up. I’ll never get another pair like ’em.’

Roy burst out laughing.

‘You ungrateful beggar. Here, I’ve got a bit of string, and we’ll soon put ’em to rights. Now Carrington, let’s have a squint at your shoulder.’

Ken’s shoulder was badly bruised, but nothing worse, and he and Dave soon forgot their injuries in the excitement of a big frontal attack by the Turks. For ten minutes they loaded and fired until their rifle barrels were almost red hot; then the survivors of the attacking party took to their heels and ran.

After that there was peace for a little except for shell fire. This, however, grew heavier. Fresh guns had been brought up, and at least three were devoting their whole attention to the trench. They had got the range, too, and the shrapnel was bursting right over the gallant Colonials. Casualties became very heavy, and the doctor and stretcher-bearers were kept busy the whole time.

To make matters worse, another machine gun had been mounted on rising ground to the north and its fire was enfilading the trench. If it had not been for the traverses on which the colonel had insisted, the position would have become untenable.

Ken, flattened against the clay face of the trench, began to feel very uneasy. They had no more reinforcements, and if the Turks got more guns, it began to look as though the whole business would end in failure.

‘About time we did another sally to look for that machine gun,’ said big Roy Horan in his ear.

‘Not in the daylight,’ answered Ken, shaking his head. ‘We shouldn’t have a dog’s chance of reaching it.’

‘Well, something’s got to happen pretty soon,’ answered Roy, ducking, as a shell burst almost overhead. ‘Something’s got to happen, or there won’t be enough of us left to hold this blessed dug-out.’

‘Things don’t look healthy, and that’s a fact,’ allowed Ken. ‘Our only chance is to get some guns to work. And that’s just what we haven’t got.’

‘And can’t get, either, until that path up the cliff is finished.’

At that moment a shell pitched full into the next traverse, blowing its two occupants to fragments, and scattering their torn remains far and wide.

‘That’s poor old Carroll,’ growled Roy. ‘The swine! How I’d like to get back on ’em!’

Ken did not reply. The horror of it had made him feel quite sick.

At that moment the firing burst out more hotly than ever. It seemed as if every gun and rifle in the enemy’s hands spoke at once.

‘What’s up now?’ muttered Roy.

Ken gave a sharp exclamation, and pointed upwards. Looking up, Roy saw a big bi-plane soaring high overhead. It looked like a silver bird as it skimmed across the rich blue of the afternoon sky.

‘Hurrah, a plane at last!’ said Ken joyfully. ‘That means business. She’s spotting for the ships,’ he explained. ‘You’ll see something pretty soon, you chaps, or hear it anyhow.’

All around the plane, the air was full of the white puffs of bursting shrapnel, but the dainty man-bird flirted through them unscathed. The eager Australians, all staring skywards, saw her bank steeply, and at the same time a long white streak shot downwards from her, like a ribbon unrolling in mid air. Then she had turned and was going seawards again at a terrific speed.

‘Now look out!’ cried Ken, and almost as the words left his lips the battleships outside let loose.

A score of 6-inch guns spoke out at once with a ringing clamour which absolutely drowned all other sounds, and their great 100-pound shells came hurtling inland with a series of long-drawn shrieks.

‘Look! Look!’ cried Ken again, as great fountains of earth and gravel spurted from the side of a hill a mile and a half away to the left. That’s plastering them. Now we’re getting a little of our own back.’

There was no doubt about it. The German guns shut up like a knife, but whether they were actually hit or merely silenced, it was, of course, impossible to say.

For twenty solid minutes the grim battleships and cruisers poured forth their storm of shells, until the whole hill-side where the German guns had been posted gaped with brown craters. Then they ceased, and the saucy aeroplane came buzzing inland again to observe and report upon the damage done.

What its extent was the Colonials could not, of course, know, but at any rate the enfilading guns remained silent and the worst danger was at an end.

‘That’s saved our bacon,’ said Ken, with a sigh of relief. ‘We’ll get a little rest now, perhaps.’

‘Maybe ye will, and maybe ye won’t,’ said Sergeant O’Brien, who came past at that moment and overheard Ken’s words. ‘But if ye want forty winks, bhoys, now’s your time to snatch ’em. There’ll be mighty little slape this night for any of us.’

‘Why so, sergeant?’ asked Dave.

[Illustration: ‘”Hurrah, a plane at last!” said Ken.’]

‘Because so soon as ever it’s dark we’ll have the Turks buzzing round us like bees. And the ships can’t help us then, remember,’ he added significantly.

CHAPTER VII

‘LIZZIE’ LETS LOOSE

Sergeant O’Brien was soon proved a true prophet. Darkness had hardly fallen before the scrub in front was alive with Turks, who came on with a rush, intent on driving the Colonials out of their position.

‘Steady, boys!’ cried the sergeant. ‘Don’t fire till ye can see them. Let every cartridge tell.’

Every officer and every non-com. down the long length of the trench was giving the same advice, and the Turks were allowed to approach until their squat forms loomed clear in the starlight.

‘Now let ’em have it. Pump it into ’em, lads!’ came O’Brien’s voice again.

With one crash every rifle spoke at once, and at the same time the maxims turned loose their hose-pipe streams of lead. The Turks seemed to melt and vanish under the concentrated storm of fire. Not one reached the trench.

‘Socked ’em that time,’ remarked Dave, with great satisfaction.

‘Sure, that was only the overture!’ answered O’Brien. ‘They were just thrying their luck, so to spake.’

Again he was right. As soon as the survivors of the first attack had retreated the air became thick with the shriek and moan of shrapnel, and the vicious whizz of Mauser bullets. This went on for nearly an hour, then a second attack materialised.

It was in heavier force than the first, and though the steady fire of the Colonials did tremendous execution, some of the Turks actually reached the trench and came plunging in, stabbing wildly with their short bayonets.

Not one of them ever got out again, but they did a good deal of damage, and during the lull that followed the stretcher-bearers were busy. Five separate times during the hours of darkness did fresh masses of Turks sweep down upon the worn and weary Colonials, and twice parties of the latter counter-attacked and drove the survivors helter-skelter before them.

‘Jove, I never was gladder to see daylight,’ said Ken hoarsely, as a pale yellow light began to dim the stars. His eyes stung with powder smoke, his mouth was sour with fatigue, and every muscle in his body ached.

‘Well, lad, we’ve made good, anyway,’ said O’Brien with a smile on his blackened face. ‘Just take a peep over, and see what ye can see.’

Ken raised his head cautiously and peered through the embrasure in front. The sight that met his eyes was a terrible one. The scrub for nearly a hundred yards in front of the trench had almost vanished. It had been literally mown down by the storm of bullets which had raged across it all night long. And all the open space was paved with the bodies of dead and wounded men. There were hundreds of them, some on their faces, some on their backs, most of them still enough, a few trying to crawl away, and others moaning feebly.

It was a horrible sight, and for the moment Ken felt almost sick.

‘They’ll not thry it again just yet,’ said O’Brien quietly. ‘The next attack will be one in force, and for that they’ll need more men than they’ve left here.’

‘And we’ll be ready for them then, eh, sergeant?’ said Roy Horan cheerfully. ‘There’s more than ourselves been busy during the night.’

As he spoke he pointed over in the other direction, and Ken, with difficulty withdrawing his eyes from the scene of slaughter in front, looked back down the cliff.

A cry of delight escaped him. A regular road had been made, curving all the way up the cliff, and two field guns had been brought up, and set in position. In spite of the enemies’ fire, all sorts of stores had come ashore in the night, and the camp cooks were already busy preparing breakfast.

It was the first hot meal that any of the men had had for thirty-six hours, and it did them all the good in the world. When it was over they were told to take what sleep they could.

Ken and his two chums needed no second order. They simply pitched themselves down, and no one ever slept better on a spring mattress than Ken did in the muddy bottom of that trench.

What woke him at last was a crash which made the solid hill-side quiver, and dwarfed to insignificance anything that he had previously heard.

In a flash he was up and on his feet.

‘Go aisy, lad,’ said O’Brien, who was standing up, with a pair of glasses to his eyes and a smile on his lips. Go aisy. ‘Tis only Lizzie opening the ball.’

‘Lizzie?’ muttered Ken, still half dazed with the prodigious explosion.

Again came an enormous roar, followed by a sound like a train rushing through the sky. Then from a hill to the left and a mile or so inland a geyser of rocks and soil spouted, and was followed by the same earth-shaking crash which had wakened him.

Ken looked out to sea. Some three miles off shore lay the biggest battleship he had ever set eyes on. Even at that distance her immense turrets, with their grinning gun muzzles, were clearly visible.

‘The “Queen Elizabeth!”‘ he gasped.

‘That’s what,’ said Roy Horan, who had got up and joined Ken. ‘They’ve sent her along to lend us a hand. Oh, I tell you, she’s no slouch. Watch her now! Gee, but she’s giving Young Turkey something to chew on.’

‘Why, there’s a regular fleet!’ exclaimed Ken, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. ‘This is something like. Some of those sniping gentlemen are going to be sorry for themselves.’

No fewer than seven warships were lying off the coast, every one of them smashing their broadsides into the Turkish positions. The noise was incredible, but every sound was dwarfed when the great super-Dreadnought fired her 15-inch guns. The shells, the length of a tall man and weighing very nearly a ton, were charged with shrapnel, carrying no fewer than twenty thousand bullets apiece. Exploding over the enemy’s position, each deluged a couple of acres of ground with a torrent of lead.

[Illustration: ‘”‘Tis only Lizzie opening the ball.”‘]

It was a most amazing sight. The whole sky was full of the smoke of bursting shells–smoke so heavy that the light breeze could not break it, as it swam in masses that seemed quite solid until they struck against the higher ground far inland.

Hour after hour the tremendous bombardment continued. At first the Turkish field pieces endeavoured to reply, but one by one they were silenced, and when at last, late in the afternoon, the thunder of the guns ceased, the silence was only broken by a faint crackle of musketry.

‘Now’s our chance!’ exclaimed O’Brien, who seemed to have an uncanny faculty for understanding beforehand exactly what was in the colonel’s mind.

‘A charge, you mean?’ said Ken eagerly.

‘That’s it, sonny. Before they’ve got over the effects of that swate little pasting.’

Sure enough, a minute later came the order for advance, and, refreshed by their long rest, the Australians and New Zealanders came pouring over their parapet, and with bayonets flashing in the evening sun, rushed forward through the scrub.

For the first two hundred yards there was hardly a check, then all of a sudden the scattered fire thickened.

‘They’re in the ravine, bhoys,’ shouted O’Brien. ‘Don’t be waiting to shoot. Give thim the steel.’

The firing grew heavier. Many of the gallant Colonials dropped, but the only effect upon the rest was to make them race forward at greater speed.

Ken saw before him a dark line seamed with spits and flashes of flame. A bullet clipped past his ear so close that he felt the wind of it. He never paused. Next moment he was over the lip of the shallow ravine in which the Turks had entrenched themselves.

On the two previous occasions when he and his comrades had attacked Turkish trenches, the enemy had defended themselves bravely. Now they seemed no longer to have any stomach for the fight. As the Colonials poured like an avalanche into the ravine the Turks turned, and scrambling wildly up the far side, bolted for their lives.

But the Colonials, with the bitter memory in their minds of all they had suffered during the previous night and day, were not minded to let them escape so easily. With loud shouts they gave chase. The Turks, good marchers but poor runners, stood no earthly chance in this terrible race, and by scores and hundreds were bayoneted or seized and dragged back as prisoners.

Filled with mad excitement, Ken raced onwards in the forefront of the line. His bayonet was dripping, a red mist clouded his eyes, for the moment he was fighting mad.

He stumbled over a log and nearly fell. He realised that he was in a small wood of low-growing trees with wide spreading branches. To his right he heard shouts and shrieks and the sound of shots, but for the moment there was not another soul in sight.

His throat was like a lime kiln. He stopped a moment to take a swallow of water from his felt-covered flask, then went forward again.

He came to an open space, and as he reached its edge saw four men with a quick-firer hurrying frantically across the open to the trees on the far side.

Three were Turks, but the fourth wore the gray-green of a German officer. The latter was short and–for a German–slight. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar.

At that moment he turned and glanced round, and Ken saw his face. He could hardly believe his eyes. The man was Kemp, ex-steward of the ‘Cardigan Castle.’ There could be no doubt about it. That sallow complexion, the low forehead, and the thick black eyebrows which met above his nose were quite unmistakable.

Without an instant’s hesitation Ken flung up his rifle and fired straight at the man. But blown with long running, his hand shook. At any rate, he missed, and next instant the German, the Turks, and their gun vanished into the trees opposite.

Footsteps came crashing through the dead leaves and dry sticks behind Ken.

‘We’ve got ’em on toast, Carrington,’ came the deep voice of Roy Horan. The big fellow was splashed with blood and dripping with perspiration, but in his eyes was a gleam which told of his delight at the result of the charge.

Ken gave a gasp of joy.

‘The very man, Horan! Kemp and three Turkish gunners have just gone into the trees opposite. They’ve got a quick-firer. Are you game to hunt ’em down?’

‘Kemp?’ exclaimed Roy, who had of course heard the story of the treachery aboard the ‘Cardigan Castle.’ ‘Kemp, that spy scoundrel–are you sure?’

‘Dead certain, though I can’t imagine how he got here.’

‘More can I, but by the Lord Harry, we’ll have his scalp all right. Which way did they go?’

Ken pointed and began to run. Roy raced alongside.

It was the maddest enterprise, and if either had stopped to think they would have realised this fact. Two against four, and the latter armed with a quick-firer! And by way of improving matters, the two had outrun all their companions and were far out in a country swarming with enemy troops.

But Ken thought only of vengeance against the traitor Kemp, and as for Roy, he was the sort to fight till he dropped, and laugh at any odds.

‘Where’s Dave?’ asked Ken, as they tore along, side by side.

‘All right when I last saw him about half a mile back,’ was the answer. ‘Which way have those blighters gone?’

Ken, alone, might have been at a loss to follow, but this was where Roy came in. Brought up on a great cattle run, he could track a stray beast over miles of ranges. It was child’s play to him to trace the heavy footmarks over the leaf-strewn floor of the wood.

‘Go as quietly as you can,’ he whispered to Ken. ‘Kemp’s quite cute enough to ambush us if he thinks we’re on his track.’

It was wonderful how quietly the young giant could move, and Ken, naturally light-footed, followed his example easily. The tracks led uphill, and presently the trees began to thin, and the ground to become more stony.

Then the trees gave out altogether, and they found themselves on the side of a great hill seamed with gullies and covered with low scrub and loose stones.

[Illustration: Within No. 1 Fort at Cape Helles in the Dardanelles.]

[Illustration: Tired out, the soldier was sleeping on a bed of live shells.]

‘There they are!’ said Ken in a low voice, pointing to heads just visible over the edge of one of the shallow gullies. ‘I tell you what they’re after. They’re going to emplace that gun somewhere up on the hill-side, and pepper our people on their way back.’

Roy nodded.

‘That’s about the size of it. Well, it’s up to us to spoil their little game. We must work up along the next gully parallel with them and get a slap at ’em over the edge.’

‘That’s the tip,’ said Ken, ‘but mind, we’ve got to bust up the gun itself as well as the men with it.’

Bending double so as not to be seen, the two scurried up the parallel gully until they reckoned that they must be on a level with the gun and its crew.

‘It’s going to be a stalk now,’ whispered Roy, and dropping on hands and knees, crept cautiously over the side of the gully.

On the ridge he stopped.

‘Hang the luck!’ he muttered. ‘They’ve gone a lot farther than I reckoned. They’re a couple of hundred yards away, and still moving. What’s worse, the two gullies bend away from one another, and there’s no cover to speak of.’

Ken crept up alongside, and took a look.

‘It’s a bit awkward,’ he admitted. ‘But they’re taking it easy. We ought to be able to make fair practice from here.’

Roy nodded.

‘All right. You take the left-hand man. I’ll try for the right.’

A couple of seconds pause, then the two rifles spoke at once. Ken’s man went down like a log, but Roy apparently missed his.

Roy gave an angry exclamation and took a rapid second shot.

‘Hurrah–nailed him that time,’ as he saw the man go over like a shot rabbit.

The remaining Turk, seeing his companions down, turned and made a dead bolt. Kemp, with a cry of rage which came plainly to their ears, rushed after him, apparently with the idea of bringing him back.

Ken and Roy both loosed off at once, but without success, and next instant their quarry was out of sight over the far ridge.

‘Rotten luck! It was Kemp we wanted,’ growled Roy.

‘We want the gun worse,’ Ken answered grimly.

Springing up, he dropped into the far gully and began to run towards the gun.

‘Watch out for Kemp,’ sang out Roy, as he followed. ‘He may be laying for us just over the ridge.’

‘I thought of that,’ answered Ken. ‘I’ll slip across and have a look.’

Both crept together over the second ridge, but there was no sign of Kemp or of the third Turk. They might have sunk into the ground for all that could be seen of them.

‘Now for the gun,’ said Ken, as he dropped back into the gully.

They wasted no time at all in reaching it. Beside it lay the two Turks. They were both quite dead.

‘Pity we can’t take the gun back with us,’ said Ken regretfully.

‘Why shouldn’t we? I’ll sling it on my back. It don’t weigh more than sixty pounds.’

Ken shook his head.

‘It’s too far, old chap. We’re all of a mile from our own lines. No, I’ll take the breech block off, and if you can find a good-sized stone we’ll smash the rest of it enough to make it useless.’

Roy at once hove up a rock the size of his head, and raising it high in air brought it down with a shattering crash on the gun. The stout steel barrel twisted under the tremendous shock, the water jacket burst.

‘That suit you?’ he said.

Ken glanced at the ruins, and smiled.

‘Take Krupps all their time to make that serviceable again,’ he remarked, and the words were hardly out of his mouth before there came a sudden rush of feet, and Kemp, accompanied by no fewer than eight sturdy-looking Turks, came scrambling over the ridge from the right.

‘Don’t kill them,’ shouted Kemp in Turkish. ‘Don’t kill them. Take them alive. Ten marks apiece to you if you take them alive.’

The men were on them instantly. There was no time to shoot. Stooping swiftly, Roy swung up the broken barrel of the quick-firer, and with a shout sprang at the Turks, whirling the weighty length of steel around his head.

In his powerful hands it was a fearful weapon. The Turks went down like ninepins. Ken, who grasped his rifle by the barrel was in no way behind his chum. The Turks had not been prepared for such a resistance. Inside ten seconds five of them were down, and the three others had had all they wanted. They ran for their lives.

Kemp had taken no part in the battle. He was standing a little aloof on the upper ground. Roy, having disposed of his assailant, whirled round and made for the man.

Kemp whipped out a repeating pistol and levelled it at his head.

‘Drop that or I shoot,’ he said viciously.

‘No, you don’t,’ cried Ken.

Ken had seen the pistol in Kemp’s hand, and had just had time to get his own rifle to his shoulder, the muzzle levelled full at Kemp’s head.

‘Drop that pistol, or I’ll blow your head off,’ he said curtly.

Kemp’s lips parted in a snarl, showing his white teeth. For a moment it looked as though he would shoot Roy and take his chances.

But his pluck was not quite equal to it, and the grim, determined look on Ken’s face daunted him. With a muttered oath, he dropped the pistol.

‘And a very pretty toy, too!’ said Roy, springing forward and picking it up. ‘A nice new automatic, Roy. We’ll keep that as spoils of war.’

‘Don’t waste time over the pistol,’ said Ken sharply. ‘Collar the chap himself. He’ll be better worth bringing back than a cart load of pistols.’

In an instant Roy’s great arms were round Kemp, and lifting him clean off his feet he popped him down in front of Ken.

‘Tie him,’ said Ken.

‘I am an officer,’ said Kemp haughtily. ‘I will not be bound like a common criminal.’

‘You were an English ship’s steward when I last saw you,’ Ken retorted. ‘And engaged in the charming occupation of signalling out of the bathroom port to an enemy submarine.’

It was evidently no news to Kemp that Kenneth Carrington was his adversary of the bathroom. Dark as it had been, he must somehow have recognised him. He glared back defiantly.

‘I was serving my country,’ he answered with a lofty air.

‘And what do you think would have happened to a Britisher who had been caught on a German ship, engaged in an act of such abominable treachery?’ returned Ken hotly.

Kemp merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, it’s not for me to deal with you,’ said Ken. ‘We’ll take him back, Roy, and he’ll stand a proper court-martial. Still, as he calls himself an officer, I suppose I must take his parole.’

‘Do you give it?’ he demanded of Kemp.

Kemp’s sallow face had gone white, but whether from fear or rage was doubtful. ‘Yes,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I give my parole.’

They turned, and with Kemp between them, set out at a sharp pace in the direction from which they had come.

From the distance rifles still snapped, and a couple of miles away to the south-west field-guns were booming. But all around was strangely quiet. Ken began to feel a trifle uneasy. He realised that they had got a long way ahead of their comrades, and that the latter had already been recalled.

‘Quite nice and peaceful up here, eh, Ken?’ said Roy with his cheerful grin.

Before Ken could reply there came a shot from somewhere quite close at hand, and with a sharp cry Ken dropped his rifle.

‘Winged, old chap?’ said Roy, turning quickly.

As he did so Kemp made a dash, and hurled himself up the slope to the left.

‘Never mind me!’ cried Ken. ‘Catch Kemp. Shoot him. Stop him anyhow.’

Roy flung up his rifle and took a snap shot.

He missed, and before he could pull the trigger a second time, the ex-steward had dived like a weasel into a clump of scrub and was gone.

Roy dashed up the bank in hot pursuit. The moment he showed himself a regular volley of rifle shots rang out, and spinning round he sprang back into the hollow.

‘There’s about twenty Turks coming hard up the next gully,’ he panted. ‘We’ve got to bunk like blazes if we want to save our skins.’

CHAPTER VIII

THE HUNTERS HUNTED

Ken was standing, looking half dazed. His rifle was on the ground, and he was holding his left arm with his right hand.

‘Are you hurt, Ken?’ asked Roy, and there was real concern in his voice. The two had known one another less than a week, yet each had come to respect and like the other.

‘No. I’m not hit. The bullet struck the barrel of my rifle. It numbed my arm for the moment. I’m quite all right, but my rifle’s done for, so far as firing goes. Rotten luck, losing Kemp.’

‘Never mind Kemp,’ said Roy, serious for once. ‘These Turkish Johnnies are between us and home. And they’re after us. It’ll take us all our time to get clear. Which way are we to go?’

As he spoke a shout came from the next gully. It was Kemp’s voice, and he was evidently calling his men up to pursue the two Britishers.

Ken glanced round quickly. He saw at once that it was out of the question to make straight back for their own lines. They would be cut off for a dead certainty. The two other alternatives were to make off to the right or to go straight back up the gully.

But going to the right meant that they would have to climb the right-hand wall of the gully, which was much steeper and higher than that to the left. The result would be that they would be exposed against the sky line to the enemy’s fire.

All this flashed through his mind in a couple of seconds, and he instantly took his decision.

‘We must go back up the gully, Roy,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s absolutely our only chance.’

‘Any way, so long as we don’t drop into the clutches of that swine Kemp,’ said Roy. ‘I fancy I see him giving us any parole.’

He whipped round as he spoke, and the two set to running steadily up the gully. As they passed the scene of their late encounter where the bodies of the dead Turks lay by the broken machine gun, Ken stooped quickly and picked up one of their rifles, and helped himself also to a bandolier of cartridges.

This caused only a few seconds delay, yet before they were under way again, there came a crackle of shots from below, and bullets whizzed uncomfortably close about their ears.

Luckily for them, a few yards farther up was a bend in the course of the ravine, and once round that they were safe for the moment.

Safe for the moment–yes–but the prospect before them was not exactly inviting, and Ken’s lips tightened as he and Roy strained onwards up the hill-side, which grew steeper with every yard.

They were going straight away from their own people, right into the heart of the enemy country, and rack his brains as he might, Ken could see no plan for getting back. There was nothing for it but to try to shake off their pursuers and trust to chance for the rest.

Neither of them was very fresh, for they had been fighting and running for the better part of two hours. Even so, they managed to keep ahead of the Turks, and though every now and then a few shots came rattling up from below they had got far enough ahead to be out of easy range.

They were now at a considerable height, but still a long way from the top of the hill. The scrub was thinning out and the ground becoming more and more stony. The worst of it was that the ravine up which they were travelling was getting steadily more shallow. A very little farther, and it ended altogether. Beyond, was nothing but bare hill-side, where they would–barring the scattered rocks–be in full view of the enemy.

Ken dropped to a walk.

‘This won’t do, Roy. Once we’re out in the open, we shall be the very finest kind of targets.’

Roy shrugged his great shoulders.

‘There’s nothing else for it. We can’t make a ravine. What price taking up a position here behind these rocks and trying to fight ’em off? We’ve got plenty of cartridges.’

Ken shook his head.

‘No earthly use. They could get round above us. We shouldn’t have a dog’s chance.’

‘Then we’d best shift on topside,’ replied Roy coolly. ‘They can’t get above us there unless they raise a balloon. Come on, old man, we can dodge in and out among these rocks.’

Ken glanced back down the hill. Already the first of their pursuers were in sight round the curve of the ravine, barely three hundred yards away. They were jogging along quite steadily. It was clear that they felt absolutely sure of their men–so sure that there was no need to hurry. Kemp, conspicuous in his ugly German khaki, was shepherding them upwards.

Ken bit his lip. Inwardly he vowed that he would never be taken alive by the ex-steward. He had a pretty shrewd idea of what his fate and Roy’s would be if they fell into Kemp’s clutches.

‘Come on, then,’ he said desperately, and springing up over the shallow bank of the ravine made a rush for the spot where the rocks seemed to be thickest.

A shout from below told them that their manoeuvre was observed.

‘They’re spreading out,’ said Roy, looking back over his shoulder.

‘They’re not shooting, anyhow,’ answered Ken, as, bent double, he ran hard alongside his companion.

‘I suppose they think they’ve got us anyhow,’ said Roy. ‘Ken, I’d give a lot to disappoint the dear Kemp.’

Up and up they went, bearing a little to the right because it was on that side that the stones lay thickest. They were still both going strong, and were, if anything, increasing the distance between themselves and their pursuers. A little spark of hope began to dawn in Ken’s breast. It seemed just possible that they might still outrun the slower-going Turks, and crossing the ridge, find shelter in the valley below. There was one point in their favour. The sun was dropping low in the west. It would be dark in little more than an hour.

Roy seemed to guess his thoughts.

‘We’ll do ’em down yet, Ken,’ he said.

Almost as he spoke he pulled up short, and flung out his arm just in time to stop Ken from plunging right over the sheer edge of a tremendous gorge that gashed the face of the mountain like a slice from a giant’s knife.

For an instant both stood breathing hard, staring down into the darksome depths below. Then Ken turned to Roy.

‘That’s why they weren’t hurrying,’ he said bitterly.

For once Roy seemed cooler than Ken. Throwing himself flat on his face, he wriggled forward till nearly half his body was over the edge.

‘Hold my legs,’ he said, and Ken, horrified at the other’s rashness, obeyed.

A moment later he was on his feet again. There was a queer glimmer in his eyes.

‘There’s a chance yet. I’ve spotted a ledge. Don’t count on it. I don’t know whether we can reach it. But it’s worth trying. Come on.’

He hurried back down the edge of the cliff for about thirty paces, then looked over again.

‘Here it is. It’s a goodish way down. But I’ve tackled places as bad in the North Island mountains. Will you risk it?’

‘I’d risk anything rather than Kemp,’ Ken answered curtly.

‘Then I’ll go first. Lie down on your face, and give me your hands. Quickly. Those beggars mustn’t see us.’

Ken obeyed instantly. He knew nothing of mountaineering himself, but realised that Roy did. Without a moment’s hesitation Roy turned round with his back to the ravine, and catching Ken’s hands, let himself drop quietly till his long body dangled at full length against the face of the cliff.

[Illustration: ‘The strain on Ken’s arms was awful.’]

The strain on Ken’s arms was awful. The depths below made his head swim. But he set his teeth, dug his toes into the earth, and held on like grim death.

‘Let go,’ said Roy briefly.

To Ken it seemed as though he were dropping his friend into the awful abyss. But he obeyed without hesitation.

There was a second of ghastly suspense. Then Roy was standing on the almost invisible ledge, balancing himself, spreadeagled against the face of the rock.

His hands moved slowly, the fingers groping for a hold. He found it, and clutching tightly with his left, raised his right hand.

‘My bayonet,’ he said quickly.

Ken slipped it out of its socket and gave it him.

Roy took it and carefully and deliberately drove it into a crevice in the rock on a level with his head.

‘Chuck the rifles over,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t leave them.’

Ken obeyed. A hollow crash came up from the black depths.

‘Now I’m ready for you,’ said Roy. His voice was so cool and steady that it gave Ken some confidence. ‘Get as good a grip as you can and let go when I tell you.’

For a moment it seemed to Ken that he could not do what was asked. In any matter of fighting he was Roy’s equal–indeed his superior, for he was better able to keep his head in the thick of it.

But he had had no experience of heights, and the blood ran cold in his veins at the idea of dropping over this terrific precipice. It seemed to him the only possible result must be that he would knock Roy off his narrow perch, and that they would go crashing together into the yawning depths of the abyss.

‘You’re not scared, are you?’

The contempt in Roy’s tones stung Ken to the quick. He hesitated no longer. Turning quickly, he clutched the rocky ledge and recklessly swung himself down.

‘Good man! I knew you could do it. Steady now! I’ve got you. Let go!’

Once more Ken obeyed. He fully believed that he was going to his doom. Instead, to his intense surprise, he found himself balancing on the ledge beside Roy.

Roy gave a low laugh.

‘Sorry I insulted you, old man. I just had to. I know the sort of funk that takes you the first time you try this kind of game. And I give you my word there are precious few chaps would have stuck it at all.’

‘Now I’ll tell you something to console you,’ he continued. ‘The ledge widens to my right, and runs in under a big overhang. Once we’re under that, we’re as safe as rats in a granary. No one can see us from up above or from anywhere else, so far as that goes.’

Ken hardly heard. It seemed as if every energy he possessed was needed just to cling where he was, flattened like a dead mole nailed on a keeper’s gibbet.

Roy went on talking in a low quiet voice, which gradually brought back Ken’s confidence, and though his heart was thumping, and he felt as though it was impossible to draw a full breath, he presently managed to follow his companion along the ledge.

As Roy had said, it gradually widened, and after going very carefully for a matter of twenty feet it grew broad enough to walk on with some degree of safety.

A minute later, and they were in a deep hollow–almost a cave and absolutely hidden from all inquisitive eyes.

Roy laughed softly as he dropped to a sitting position.

‘Gosh, I’d love to see Kemp’s face this minute,’ he remarked in a low voice. ‘He’ll be just about fit to tie.’

Ken did not answer. He had dropped down and sat with his back against the river side of the cavity, breathing hard. His face was very white, and big drops of perspiration beaded his forehead.

Roy glanced at him with some anxiety. Then he fumbled in the pocket of his tunic and brought out a small leather-covered flask.

‘I’ve carried this ever since I left home,’ he said. ‘I reckoned it would come in useful some time. Take a sip of it.’

It was fine old Australian brandy, and although Ken took no more than a mouthful the effects were immediate. A tinge of colour came back to his cheeks, and his heart steadied at once.

‘Proper stuff, eh?’ smiled Roy, as Ken handed back the flask.

Ken held up his hand sharply. ‘Listen!’ he whispered.

Above their heads they heard heavy footsteps. Then came Kemp’s voice.

‘What’s he saying?’ whispered Roy.

‘He’s telling ’em to hunt among the rocks,’ answered Ken in an equally low voice. ‘He seems to be annoyed. He’s using all the bad language he knows, and chucking in German swears where he can’t remember the Turkish ones.’

‘Must be a bit of a facer for him,’ chuckled Roy.

‘There’s one of the Turks answering him,’ said Ken. ‘Says we must have jumped over to escape them.’

‘Oh, that’s Kemp again,’ continued Ken. ‘He’s telling ’em to go down and see.’

‘And what’s the Turk say?’ Roy asked eagerly.

‘He says no one has ever been to the bottom, and couldn’t get there if they wanted to. He calls it the ditch of Shaitan–in other words, the Devil’s Dyke. By Jove, he’s started Kemp cursing again. Wonderful flow of language the chap’s got.’

Presently the voices above died away.

‘So far as I can make out, they’re going to have a try farther up the hill,’ said Ken. ‘It’s lucky they didn’t think of looking for our tracks. If they’d used their eyes they must have seen the place where we got over. I know I dug my toes in a good two inches when I was hanging on to you.’

Roy grinned.

‘Thank goodness, tracking is about the last thing that would occur to a German. All the same, Kemp is quite cute enough to leave a guard posted here to watch for us.’

Ken looked rather startled.

‘I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s very likely. Then it looks as if we should have to stay here all night.’

‘I’d made up my mind to that already,’ Roy answered. ‘But it might be worse. We’ve got shelter and we’re absolutely safe. Also we have our emergency rations, so we shan’t starve. We ought to get a decent sleep for once in a way.’

‘What–sleep on the edge of this precipice!’

‘Why not? I’ve slept in worse places before now.’

‘Supposing one rolled over in one’s sleep?’ said Ken with a slight shiver as he peered over into the awesome depths below.

Roy laughed softly.

‘Don’t worry. You shall sleep between me and the rock. It’ll take you all your time to roll over me.’

The sun was down, darkness was already shrouding the depths of space beneath them. The Turks seemed to have left. At any rate, Ken and Roy could hear no more of them. The evening silence was broken only by the mysterious whisper of the evening breeze as it stole down the canon, and by a faint and distant popping of rifle shots.

Roy stretched his long legs and yawned.

‘I’m for supper,’ he observed, as he took his iron ration out of his haversack. ‘We’ll share this to-night, Ken, and breakfast off yours in the morning. Luckily I’ve still got some water in my bottle.’

The emergency or iron ration consists mainly of concentrated beef, biscuit, and chocolate. There is not much of it, so far as bulk goes, but it is very sustaining. Roy carefully divided his into two lots, and they ate slowly, and finished their slim repast with a drink of water.

Then, after chatting a while, they stretched themselves out to sleep. Roy, according to his promise, made Ken take the inner side, and in spite of his nervousness, he slept like a log.

Ken roused at earliest dawn. A thin mist floated beneath them, hiding the depths of the ravine. Musketry still crackled in the distance, but all around was very still.

Ken shivered slightly, for the morning air bit chill. He sat up and shook Roy, who was still sleeping peacefully.

‘Daylight,’ said Ken briefly. ‘Time to get out of this.’

Roy sat up and stretched his great frame.

‘What a life!’ he said with a laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose we’d best be shifting.’

‘Shall we breakfast now, or wait till we get up topside?’ asked Ken.

Roy gave him a quick look.

‘It might be as well to feed now,’ he said quietly. ‘You see, I haven’t a notion how we’re going to get out of this.’

Ken stared. Such a point of view had never occurred to him. He had such implicit faith in Roy’s mountaineering capacity that he had taken it absolutely for granted that Roy could find a way back to firm ground.

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE BY ROCKS

Roy saw Ken’s dismay.

‘Sorry, old chap,’ he said simply. ‘I thought you understood.’

Ken smiled back.

‘I’m afraid I took it for granted that you had it all pat. You see, I don’t know the first thing about mountaineering myself. Can’t we get back the same way we came?’

Roy shook his head.

‘It’s too big a reach. But don’t worry. We’ll find some way out. Stop here a minute and I’ll go and have a squint round.’

Ken looked at him.

‘You’ll be careful, Roy? Hadn’t I better come and give you a hand?’

‘I’ll call you if I want you,’ said Roy. ‘I’m going to see where this ledge leads.’

He strolled off as calmly as though walking along a twelve-inch ledge over a two hundred foot drop was as simple as a promenade down the sunny side of Piccadilly. Ken, feeling anything but happy, watched him until he was hidden behind a shoulder of rock.

It was quite five minutes before he came back.

‘It’s all right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘True, we can’t get up, but I think we can get down. This ledge drops a long way, and there seems to be another below it. Let’s have our grub and go along.’

He ate his share of Ken’s rations with evident appetite, and Ken did his best to follow his example. But it would be idle to say that Ken felt happy. Glancing down into the tremendous depths that yawned below, he felt that he would infinitely rather charge a score of Turks, single-handed, than try to make his way down the face of the gigantic wall of rock.

Roy finished his food, brushed the crumbs from his tunic, and taking the bayonet which–with the automatic pistol captured from Kemp–were the only weapons they had, walked off along the ledge.

Ken set his teeth and followed.

‘Look up, not down,’ said Roy quietly, and Ken did his best to obey.

The ledge, though narrow, did not really present any particular difficulties. As Roy said, ‘If it wasn’t for the big drop below, you wouldn’t think twice about it.’

Ken knew this was true, and tried hard to keep it in his mind.

Presently, however, the ledge began to narrow again, and the only way to tackle it was to flatten themselves, limpet-like, against the cliff face, and claw their way onwards, gripping every possible little projection which gave any sort of hand hold.

At last Roy pulled up.

‘Capital!’ he said. ‘You’re doing first-rate, Ken. That’s as far as we can go on this ledge. We’ve got to drop to the lower one now. Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as that first drop we had to do last night.’

As he spoke, he stooped, gripped the edge of the ledge with his hands, and let himself down gently. There was a knob of rock about seven feet down. He got his feet on this, then reached up for the bayonet which Ken held.

As before, he jammed this into a crevice so as to give himself something to hold by, then signalled Ken to follow.

Ken’s heart was in his mouth. The projection seemed hardly large enough for one pair of feet, let alone two. But when he reached it he found that Roy had left it all for him. He himself had stepped off, driving his toes into a mere crevice alongside.

‘Keep hold of the bayonet till I tell you to move,’ came Roy’s quiet voice. ‘Afraid we’ll have to leave it where it is. We can’t shift it again. That’s right.’

‘Now get your fingers into that crack to the right. I’m going to move your feet for you.’

What Roy was doing Ken could not tell, and he dared not look. But a moment later he felt the big fellow’s hands shifting his feet.

There came a sharp rattle of falling stones, a quick gasp.

A spasm of fright clutched him. For the moment he fully believed that Roy had fallen.

‘Roy! he cried sharply. ‘Roy!’

‘All right, old man. It’s quite all right. Just a chunk of rock broken out. The stuff’s a bit rotten, but I’ve got good hand hold.’

A pause. Then, ‘Now you can move.’

Again Roy’s strong hands shifted his feet. Twice more this happened; then just as he began to feel that he could stand the strain no longer, he heard Roy’s jolly laugh.

‘We’ve done it. One step more, and you’re on the ledge.’

A moment later, and they stood together on a ledge nearly a yard wide. It seemed like a turnpike road compared to the one above.

[Illustration: Tins and barbed wire are cut up in the Dardanelles as ‘filling’ for bombs.]

[Illustration: Our gallant bluejackets cheered the return of the triumphant submarine after her wonderful achievement.]

Roy drew a long breath.

‘That was a bad bit,’ he said. ‘As bad as anything I ever struck. Don’t mind telling you now, Ken, that I was in a blue funk.’

‘You didn’t show it,’ Ken answered rather breathlessly. ‘If you had, I believe I should have crocked.’

‘You didn’t, anyhow. That’s the main thing. And I wouldn’t ask a better man to go climbing with. You kept your head, and did what you were told. Well, now I think the worst is over. This looks like a regular fault in the strata, and it ought to take us to the bottom.

Roy’s judgment was correct. There were still some nasty places, but nothing like what they had already tackled, and within another quarter of an hour they had reached the bottom of the gorge.

A little stream ran down the centre, finding its way among piled masses of fallen rock. On each side the cliffs towered so high that only a mere slit of sky was visible. It was as wild and gloomy a spot as Ken had ever seen.

‘I’ve seen better walking,’ observed Roy, as a flat stone slipped under his foot, and nearly pitched him over into the bed of the brook.

‘It’s better than that abominable cliff, anyhow,’ returned Ken. ‘But I’d give something to know where we’re going.’

‘I can tell you. The sea. If we follow the stream we’re bound to reach salt water.’

‘But where?’ said Ken–‘where? I don’t know that I’ve got the points of the compass very clear in my head, and there’s no sun visible yet, but if I’m not mistaken, this brook runs east, not west.’

Roy pulled up with a puzzled expression on his face.

‘Pon my Sam, I believe you’re right. In that case, this is the head waters of some stream that runs out into the Straits.’

‘That’s my notion, and consequently we’re still going plumb in the wrong direction.’

‘We can’t help it,’ said Roy. ‘It’s no use trying to climb up the far side over the top of the hill.’

‘Not a bit. The first thing to do is to get out of this gorge. After that we must see if we can’t skirt round the base of the hill, and get back somehow.’

Roy nodded, and for some distance they continued on their uncomfortable way in silence.

‘Not much more of it,’ said Roy at last. ‘We’re getting near the mouth now.’

‘And that’s where our troubles are going to begin,’ said Ken with a smile. ‘It looks to me as if we were the best part of three miles inland.’

‘Which means that we’ve got to get through the whole bunch of the Turks,’ answered Roy. ‘I say, don’t you wish we’d got our whole crowd up here? We’d take the enemy in the rear and play old Harry with them.’

‘No use wishing that. But I’ll tell you what, Roy. If we ever do get back we’ll have some useful information for the colonel.’

Roy nodded, as he scrambled on to the top of a big rock.

‘I can see out of the mouth of the gorge from here,’ he said, as he stood on the summit, ‘and by the look of the country you’re about right as to the course of this brook. We’re the other side of the water-shed altogether.’

Ken clambered up beside him. A couple of hundred yards farther down the gorge ended, or rather turned into a shallow ravine, down which the stream found its way into a broad valley below. A rough track crossed this valley, and Ken pointed to figures looking no bigger than dolls in the distance, which moved along it.

‘Reinforcements coming up,’ he said. ‘They’ll be from Kojadere. We must keep clear of that road. Seems to me the best thing we can do is to swing to the right and work round the shoulder of the hill.’

‘Yes, if we can find cover. Well, there’s nothing to stop us from climbing up here. The bank don’t amount to anything.’

He was right, and turning at once they scrambled up the steep rocky slope. It was broken with projecting crags, and almost covered with brush, which gave them ample cover. Reaching the top, they got a sight of the sun, and found that they were facing almost due east. The guns were still thundering behind them, but their sound was deadened by the great mass of hill which lay between them and the sea.

The hill-side was thick with scrub and there was no difficulty about getting forward. They went on steadily, and had travelled about half a mile when they entered a little wood. Passing through this, they were dismayed to find themselves on the edge of a steep bank about sixty feet high, with the track running at the bottom of it, and, beyond, a wide space of open valley rising again to a hill opposite.

‘This is no use,’ said Roy. ‘We’re bound to be spotted if we try to cross that open.’

‘No, we must keep on this side for the present,’ answered Ken, as he turned back into the trees.

Presently they heard a tramping of feet, and peering through the leaves saw a body of Turkish troops, about a hundred strong, marching stolidly along beneath them.

‘My word, if we only had a maxim!’ muttered Roy, as he stared at the closely-formed column. ‘Couldn’t we make hay of ’em?’

Ken did not answer. He watched the men pass on until they were out of sight around a curve in the track. Then he and Roy moved on again.

Round the next bend, they found themselves at the end of the friendly wood, and the ground beyond was a deal more open than seemed healthy.

‘We’ll have to wait until those chaps are well out of the way,’ said Ken, and calmly sat himself down on a big stone, one of many which lay among the tree trunks.

‘Hope they’ll hurry,’ said Roy rather viciously. ‘I’m infernally hungry. I want to get back to my dinner.’

While Ken rested Roy stood staring out through the tree trunks.

Presently he turned to Ken. ‘Tell you what, Ken, I believe there’s a chance for us now. There’s another patch of wood less than a quarter of a mile away, and if we watched our chance we might slip across without being spotted. Beyond it, the ground rises again, with a lot of rocks and scrub. Plenty of cover at any rate. What do you think?’

Ken got up and took a long and careful survey.

‘It looks all right,’ he said at last. ‘I’m game to try it anyhow.’

‘Then the sooner the better. Those Turks have topped the rise.’

They were on the point of starting when Ken heard a sound which made him seize Roy’s arm.

‘Steady a minute! There’s something else coming up the track.’

They dropped flat and lay waiting. Sure enough, there was a low rumble of wheels, and after a few minutes a team of mules came into sight around the left-hand curve, dragging a field-piece, and accompanied by about a dozen Turkish gunners.

‘Just as well we waited,’ whispered Roy. ‘We shouldn’t have stood much show if we’d dropped down under their noses, eh?’

Ken did not answer. He was staring fixedly at the gun. His eyes were very bright.

He turned to Roy.

‘That’s going to be used to smash our chaps, Roy. Jove, if we could only stop it!’

‘Stop it?’ repeated Roy in amazement. ‘My dear chap, we haven’t even got our rifles. They’re lying smashed up at the bottom of the gorge. The only weapon we’ve got left is this automatic.’

‘We’ve got something better than bullets,’ Ken answered very quietly. He laid his hand as he spoke upon one of the big loose boulders which lay in front of him.

‘See here,’ he went on, ‘they’ll come right underneath us. If we could get this rock down on the team, it would probably stampede the mules. Then before the men have recovered from their confusion, we ought to be able to give them a couple more. If we could land one on top of the gun itself, it would damage it pretty badly, even if it doesn’t smash the mountings and make it useless. What do you say?’

‘Say–why that it’s the greatest scheme ever hatched, and I’m with you every time,’ Roy answered, his face glowing with excitement. ‘And, by Jingo,’ he added, ‘if we’d picked the spot for bringing it off, we couldn’t have done better.’

This was true enough. The spot where they were perched was fully sixty feet above the road, and the slope below was next door to perpendicular. For another thing, the supply of boulders was unlimited.

The one to which Ken had pointed weighed perhaps a quarter of a ton and was shaped rather like a gigantic egg. He put his weight against it, and found that it rocked, but even so, he could not be quite certain that their combined efforts could start it over the edge.

‘Wait!’ whispered Roy, and turning slipped away into the thick of the trees. He was back in a minute, carrying a heavy piece of dead timber.

‘This ought to do the trick,’ he said softly. Ken nodded.

Meantime the Turks below, all unsuspicious of what was brewing, came slowly and steadily along the road. Slowly, because not only is a 77-millimetre gun with its caisson a heavy weight, but also because the road was merely an apology for one. It was nothing but a deeply rutted track thick with sand and loose stones.

The men were in charge of a non-commissioned officer, a Turk like themselves, and consequently were taking it very easy, strolling along, smoking and chatting.

Roy drove his stake deep under the big rock, and gave a slight heave.

‘She’ll shift all right,’ he whispered in a tone of quiet satisfaction.

‘All right. Wait till I give the word,’ said Ken, with his eyes fixed upon the long gray gun which came jogging slowly onwards, its grim muzzle swaying and lurching as the wheels took the ruts in the road.

It seemed a long time before it came opposite. Then at last Ken gave one word.

‘Now!’

In an instant they were both on their feet, Roy tugging on the lever, Ken bracing all his weight on the big rock.

It moved, it rolled slowly over, seemed to pause a moment on the edge of the bank, then suddenly shot forward. Ten feet below, it alighted on the slope, rebounded, and at the same time started half a dozen other stones. In a moment a rock avalanche was roaring down the steep. The great stone led the way. In a series of gigantic leaps, each longer than the last, it thundered downwards, at each jump starting fresh tons of the loose shale which covered the bank.

A cloud of dust rose like smoke, and hid all below. Then from out the cloud came squeals and shrieks.

In their excitement, Ken and Roy actually forgot to send fresh stones to follow the first. There was no need. When the dust cloud cleared, one mule which had broken loose was galloping madly across country, the rest were down and dead.

The gun, dismounted, was half buried in a pile of shale which lay feet deep across the road. Of the men, not one remained. Most were not only dead, but buried. Two only lay clear, and to all appearance they were as dead as their companions.

Roy looked at Ken.

‘What you might call a clean bit of work,’ he said, but though he tried to smile, there was something like awe in his voice.

‘Yes. A ten-inch shell could hardly have done more,’ Ken answered. ‘Poor beggars! It’s rather ghastly wiping ’em out like that, but one has got to remember that that gun would have probably finished ten times the number of our chaps if they’d got it into position.

‘We’d better go down,’ he added. ‘We may find a couple of rifles, and I’ll lay we shall need them before we reach our own lines.’

It was an awkward job to get down the bank, for the shale was so loose it kept breaking away under their feet. They had to go quickly, too, for there was every chance of fresh reinforcements or more guns coming up the road.

Fortunately no one else appeared, and in a very few minutes they were busy hunting among the pile of rocks for rifles that had escaped injury. They found three, but only one was serviceable. The sights of the others were damaged. They also found food. It was bread, dark-looking and very stale, and goats’ milk cheese.

But they were far too hungry to be particular. They stuffed it into their pockets.

At that moment came a deep groan from among the rocks.

Ken swung round sharply.

‘There’s one of ’em alive in there,’ he said quickly, ‘we can’t leave the poor beggar to die by inches.’

[Illustration: ‘A rock avalanche was roaring down the steep.’]

He began rolling the stones aside, and guided by the groans he and Roy soon pulled out a youngish Turk and laid him on the side of the road.

Ken examined him quickly.

‘He’s got off cheaply,’ he said. ‘Nothing broken–nothing the matter, so far as I can see, except bruises and a cut on the head. Give him a drop of your brandy, Roy.’

As Roy unscrewed the stopper, the Turk’s eyes opened, and he stared up at his rescuers in blank amazement.

‘Englishmen!’ he muttered.

Roy put the flask to his lips, but he shook his head.

‘Water,’ he said in Turkish.

‘It’s against his religion to drink wine or spirits,’ Ken explained to Roy, and put his own water-bottle to the man’s lips.

‘I thank you,’ said the Turk with grave courtesy. He sat up and looked round at the ruin on the road.

‘We did not know that your guns were near enough to drop shell upon us,’ he said. ‘Nor had we any notion that your troops had advanced so far inland.

‘Well, it is Allah’s will,’ he continued resignedly. ‘And our fate for being driven into an unjust war. I am your prisoner.’

‘We don’t want any prisoners,’ Ken answered with a smile, and at his fluent Turkish the man’s dark eyes opened in evident surprise. ‘You are free.’

The Turk stared.

‘Then you are separated from your own regiment,’ he said keenly, and by his accent and language, Ken realised that he was a man of some education.

Ken did not answer.

‘Your pardon, effendi,’ said the Turk. ‘I did not mean to ask idle questions. I thank you for your kindness, and I wish you happiness.’

‘Come on, Ken,’ broke in Roy, who was scanning the country uneasily. ‘We are right out in the open here. That chap will be all right. Let’s get into that wood as sharp as we can.’

‘One moment,’ said Roy, and turned to the Turk.

‘If you care to do us a good turn, tell us the nearest way back to Gaba Tepe.’

The Turk pointed up the road.

‘That is the nearest way, but, I need not tell you, the most dangerous. Our lines lie between here and the British. You must wait for the darkness of the night or you will for a certainty be captured. My advice to you is to conceal yourselves among the trees in the wood, and wait until the sun shall have set.’

‘I thank you,’ said Ken courteously. ‘Is there anything else in which we can assist you?’

‘There is nothing, I thank you. I will rest a while, then move onwards. In the name of the Prophet, I wish you a safe journey.’

‘What tale was he pitching you?’ said Roy impatiently, as he set off at a great rate for the wood opposite.

‘He advised us to lie up for the rest of the day, and try to slip through their lines at night.’

Roy grunted. ‘And I suppose he’ll watch where we go and set his pals on us as soon as they come along.’

‘He will do nothing of the sort,’ Ken answered rather hotly. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t go judging the Turk by the German, Roy. That fellow considers that we have done him a favour, and nothing would induce him to betray us.’

‘Sorry I spoke,’ said Roy briefly, ‘but you were so long I was getting into a horrid stew. Even now, one can’t tell whether we’ve been spotted, and it isn’t likely that the next German who comes along is going to be kind to us when he sees what we’ve done to his nice new gun.’

No more was said until they reached the wood and flung themselves panting under the shade of a scrubby live oak.

‘Now we can take a bit of a breather,’ said Roy. ‘And a bit of lunch, too. Here, catch!’ He flung a chunk of bread across to Ken.

But Ken had sprung up. He was listening keenly.

‘Bunk!’ he muttered. ‘There’s cavalry coming.’

CHAPTER X

PRISONERS

Roy was on his feet like a flash, for he too had caught the thud of horses’ hoofs and the jingle of stirrups. For a moment the two stood, side by side, behind the trunk of the live oak, peering out over the sunbaked plain. Across it a patrol of cavalry, smart in a gray-blue uniform, were cantering sharply.

‘They’re making straight for the wood,’ said Ken quickly. ‘They must be after us. Come!’

They both set off at a run, dodging and ducking under the low-growing trees. For a moment they thought they were unobserved, but next instant a shout rudely shattered that illusion. They scurried on as hard as they could go, but the wood was so open and the trees so far apart that it gave mighty little shelter. The patrol had broken into a gallop. The thud of the horses’ hoofs grew nearer every moment.

‘That thicket over there,’ panted Ken breathlessly. ‘We’ll dodge them yet if we can reach it.’

But between them and it was a good hundred yards of almost open ground, and the leader of the patrol saw their manoeuvre, and shouted an order. His men split out fan-wise and before Ken and Roy were half way across the open, came a thunder of hoofs, and half a dozen of the troopers came galloping upon them from the left.

Ken flung up his captured rifle, and fired slap at the first. The bullet caught the horse between the eyes and down he came with a crash, flinging his rider far over his head.

But the next was too close to dodge. Ken caught the flash of sun on a lancehead bearing straight down upon him. He sprang aside, the lancehead missed him by inches, then the shoulder of the horse caught him with stunning force and hurled him to the ground.

Before he could pick himself up, three of the troopers were off their horses, and had flung themselves upon him. He was hauled roughly to his feet, his rifle snatched from his hand, and his cartridge-pouch torn away. A few yards away, Roy, his face bleeding, was the centre of another group who were disarming him in spite of his struggles.

Ken glanced at his captors. He saw that they were Turkish constabulary, and his heart sank. These men, trained by Germans, paid by them, and soaked in their brutal tenets, were among the small minority of Turks who had really come to share the German hatred of the British.

They glared fiercely at their prisoners.

‘British swine!’ growled one, and spat in contempt.

‘They are spies,’ said another. ‘We find them three miles behind our lines. Why do we waste time taking them prisoners? Let us hang them and be done with them.’

‘Why not let them run and ride them down?’ suggested another. ‘Sticking with a lance is a fit fate for hogs.’

But the sergeant, a tall, swarthy faced man with a pair of fierce black eyes, pushed his way forward.

‘Fools, these are the men who escaped last night from Captain Hartmann. We have his orders to bring them before him. It will go hard with you if you disobey. Shackle them both, and send them to him under guard.’

He flung down two pairs of handcuffs, and one of the men who was holding Ken picked them up, while another seized his wrists.

It was on the tip of Ken’s tongue to protest fiercely against this indignity, but he checked himself. It would be better, he remembered, that these men should not know that he spoke their language.

Roy was fighting like a fury. Three of the troopers had their work cut out to hold him. As it was, he managed to get one hand loose, and before the others could seize it again one of their number lay insensible on the ground with his nose broken and flattened against his face.

‘Steady, Roy!’ cried Ken. ‘These swabs are no better than Germans. They’ll only frog-march us or something equally beastly if we resist.’

‘But handcuffs!’ roared Roy in a fury. ‘D’ye think I’m going to be handcuffed like a common criminal?’

‘They think we’re spies,’ Ken answered. ‘They’re going to take us to headquarters. It’s no use resisting. We must wait our chance.’

Sullenly Roy ceased struggling, and the handcuffs were snapped on his wrists. The sergeant who seemed in a hurry, gave brief orders, and galloped on with most of his patrol, leaving a lower grade officer, probably a corporal, with half a dozen men.

These mounted.

‘March!’ ordered the corporal, an undersized, vicious-looking fellow, giving Ken a prick with his lance. ‘And keep going, or, by Allah, it will be more than a prick you will get next time.’

Side by side, Ken and Roy stumbled forward, while their captors cursed or jeered them in language which Roy fortunately could not understand, although to Ken every word of it was only too plain. From something the corporal let drop, he learnt that they were being taken, not to Kojadere, but to Eski Keni, which lies in the middle of the peninsula, about half-way between Gaba Tepe and Maidos.

He told this to Roy, speaking in an undertone, as they tramped rapidly onwards under the threat of the lance-points behind them.

‘And the man they are taking us before seems to be Kemp,’ said Ken. ‘Only they call him Hartmann. It appears he was cute enough to suspect that we had hidden ourselves somewhere last night, and these fellows were sent out to look for us.’

‘And I wish we had both gone over the cliff before they found us,’ Roy answered, gritting his teeth. The disgrace of the handcuffs was biting deep into his soul. Ken had never seen him in such a mood before.

Ken himself was none too happy. It took all his pluck and philosophy to keep going at all. He was aching in every bone, his mouth and throat were parched, and his tongue like a dry stick in his mouth. The dust rose around them in choking clouds, flies bit and stung, yet he could not lift a hand to brush them from his face. What was hardest of all to bear were the jeers and insults flung at them by their captors.

But they trudged on doggedly, refusing to pay the slightest attention to the taunts or blows showered upon them, and in spite of everything, Ken used his eyes to take in every feature of the country through which they travelled. Small hope as he had of ever seeing again his own lines, yet he missed nothing of importance, storing up each hill, valley, clump of trees, and track in his tenacious memory.

At last they came within sight of a group of squalid hovels in a valley.

‘That’s Keni,’ Ken told Roy.

The brutal corporal caught the word.

‘That’s Keni,’ he repeated in his own language, ‘and, by the beard of the Prophet, you shall soon see how spies are dealt with.’

The village swarmed with soldiers, many of them wounded, who stared at the two British prisoners with lack-lustre eyes. The narrow street of the place reeked with filth and foul odours, and swarmed with a pestilence of flies. The two youngsters were thrust roughly into a dirty hovel, and with a final jeer from their brutal jailer, the door was locked behind them.

For a moment Roy stood straight, towering in the centre of the low-roofed room. There was a very ugly light in his eyes.

‘Wait, my friend, wait!’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be even with you before I’ve finished.’

‘Steady, old chap!’ said Ken quietly. ‘Steady! Take it easy while you can. Remember, we’ve got that little interview with Kemp before us.’

Roy flung himself down with a gasp.

‘It’s all right, Ken. I’ll calm down after a bit. But heaven pity that black-moustached blighter if I ever get my hands on him.’

Ken tried to answer, but suddenly dropped flat on the bare earthen floor. His eyes closed. Instantly he was sound asleep. Roy stared at him vaguely, yawned, and before he knew it had slipped down and followed his example.

So they lay, happily oblivious of their troubles, all through the blazing afternoon. The sun was setting when the door was flung open and the sharp-faced corporal strode in.

He roused them with a kick apiece.

‘Get up, British dogs,’ he ordered. ‘Captain Hartmann awaits you.’

The sleep had refreshed them, and though stiff and sore they were both in condition so fit and hard that they were little the worse for their trying experiences of the night and morning.

Under charge of a guard, they were marched rapidly up the street to where a few larger flat-topped houses stood on slightly higher ground. Through an open door they were driven along a passage and out into a courtyard open to the sky, with a fountain in the centre.

At a table, under the shade of a grape arbour, sat two German officers, one of whom was a typical Prussian, fair, with hard blue eyes and close cropped hair, while the other was their old friend, the ex-steward Kemp, otherwise Hartmann.

An ugly light shone in his deep-set, narrow eyes as they fell on the two prisoners.

‘Soh!’ he said, with a evil smile, ‘my young friends, the spies! Achmet’–this to the corporal–‘you have done well. I will see that your conduct and that of your sergeant is recommended in the proper quarter.’

He turned to his companion.

‘Ober-lieutenant von Steegman,’ he said formally. ‘The prisoners are those of whom I spoke last night to Colonel Henkel. Disguised in the overcoats of Turkish soldiers, they contrived to destroy one of our quick-firers, and to-day they were discovered hiding in a wood behind our lines. They had, it appears, been plundering our wounded, for food and a Turkish rifle were found in their possession.’

Ken could not speak German, but he knew enough of the language to gather the meaning of the man’s infamous accusations. ‘Liar!’ he burst in. ‘We were never in Turkish uniform. As for the gun, we took it in fair fight, and as–‘

At a sign from Hartmann, Achmet, the corporal, struck Ken across the mouth.

[Illustration: ‘Roy brought them down on the man’s head.’]

It was probably the last thing he ever did in his life, for Roy, raising his shackled hands, brought them down upon the man’s head with such fearful force that he dropped like a log, the blood gushing from his mouth and ears.

Instantly all was confusion. Hartmann sprang to his feet, shouting out furious orders. Two of the guard seized Roy and flung him to the ground, two more laid hands on Ken. Another drew his bayonet, and Ken saw it flash in the evening sunlight before his very eyes.

It was Von Steegman who sprang forward and seized the man’s arm just in time.

‘No. Leave him alone,’ he cried harshly. ‘The colonel has left express orders that he wishes to see these men before they are executed. Stand aside! It is only a short delay. They will both be shot at sundown.’

Von Steegman, if a brute, had ten times the physical power and moral force of Hartmann. The man obeyed at once, and in a few moments order was restored. Two men carried away the insensible form of Achmet, Roy watching with a grim smile.

Ken had hardly thought of his own danger. His lips were bleeding, and the foul blow had for the moment rendered him perfectly reckless.

‘Is this the way you treat prisoners? he thundered, his eyes blazing. ‘Small wonder a people who do such things are despised by every other nation on earth!’

‘Himmel, you dare to talk like that?’ snarled back Hartmann. ‘You, a private soldier, venture such insolence to an officer?’

Ken was already ashamed of his outburst.

‘An officer!’ he said with bitter contempt, ‘or do you mean a bathroom steward?’

Hartmann’s sallow face went livid with excess of rage. He bit his lip till the blood showed upon it in a thin red line.

‘You will sing a different song when you stand before the muzzles of the firing party,’ he said in a grating voice.

Von Steegman, who seemed to be the only man among them to remain quite unmoved, raised his hand.

‘All this is highly irregular,’ he said harshly. ‘Captain Hartmann, it is our duty to interrogate these prisoners.’

‘What’s the use of interrogating us if you have already made up your mind to shoot us?’ retorted Ken.

Von Steegman glared at him.

‘Because,’ he answered in his harsh German English, ‘it is bossible that, by giving us certain information, you may yed save der lives which you haf justly forfeited.’

Ken stared back, and there was something in his face which made even the German’s bold eyes drop.

‘I don’t advise you to say any more,’ he answered grimly. ‘You’d better proceed at once with your firing party, you miserable German murderer.’

Von Steegman’s hand dropped to his sword hilt, his face went the colour of a ripe plum, for a moment Ken thought–hoped that he was going to have a fit.

Before he could speak there came a stir behind, the door leading from the house to the yard opened sharply, and a stout, coarse-looking man in the uniform of a colonel in the Prussian Army, strode heavily in.

Hartmann and Von Steegman rose like two ramrods, and saluted him. They stood at the salute while he came across to the table.

‘So these are the two prisoners,’ he said in a thick guttural voice, as he seated himself, ‘the two who were captured spying behind our lines.’

He stared first at Roy, then at Ken. As his bloodshot eyes fell upon the latter he started ever so slightly. At the same moment Ken seemed to recognise him, for a look of disgust crossed his face.

CHAPTER XI

THE FIRING PARTY

Hartmann spoke.

‘These are the spies, Herr Colonel,’ he said with an air of deference. ‘They were captured more than two miles behind our lines. We have interrogated them, but they refuse information.’

The colonel looked at Ken.

‘Have you nothing to say for yourselves?’ he demanded.

‘Plenty, but not to you, Colonel Henkel,’ replied Ken with a sarcasm he did not trouble to conceal.

Henkel, however, did not lose his temper as Von Steegman had done. He turned to Hartmann and Von Steegman and spoke to them both in a low voice.

‘As you wish, Herr Colonel,’ said Hartmann presently, but there was an air of distinct disappointment about him.

‘Corporal,’ said Henkel to the non-com, who had taken the place of the brute whom Roy had finished, ‘take the prisoners back and lock them up securely. Set a guard over them.’

‘Mind this–that you are responsible for them,’ he added harshly.

The man saluted, and Ken and Roy, who had hardly expected to leave the place alive, found themselves marched back down the evil-smelling street and shut up once more in the same hovel as before.

Roy turned to Ken as the key clicked in the lock behind them.

‘This is a rum go,’ he said in great astonishment. ‘What’s it mean? Who is the Johnny with the fat tummy and the bloodshot eyes? Why was he so quiet with you? What–?’

‘Steady, old man!’ cut in Ken. ‘One question at a time. Didn’t you hear his name?’

‘What–Henkel? Yes.’

He broke off with a gasp.

‘You don’t mean to say he is the sweep that tried to swindle your father out of his coal mine?’

‘You’ve hit it, Roy–hit it in once. That’s the very same chap, though I never knew before that he was a colonel. He recognised me as soon as I spotted him.’

‘But what’s his game?’ demanded Roy. ‘I should have thought he would have been only too pleased to get you shot out of hand. If your father is dead, you’re next heir to the coal.’

‘I’m not very clear what he is after,’ Ken answered in a puzzled voice. ‘But it’s something to do with our property, you may be sure of that. This much I do know–that Henkel was awfully in debt when I last saw him. And I know this, too–that our friend, old Othman Pacha, who is Bey in that part of the country, would refuse to let the property pass without proper title deeds.’

‘Then it’s clear as mud,’ said Roy quickly. ‘Henkel wants to get the deeds out of you.’

‘That may be it. But anyhow I’m not of age. I couldn’t sign anything.’

‘Don’t, anyhow,’ said Roy. ‘He can’t do worse than shoot us.’

But Ken looked very grave. Inwardly, he was thinking that, if Henkel did actually mean to make terms, he had no right to sacrifice Roy’s life as well as his own.

At this moment the corporal came in with a platter of food and a pitcher of water. He planked them down without a word, and went out again.

‘No use starving ourselves,’ said Roy with his usual cheeriness. ‘It’s a case of “let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die.”‘

His pluck was wonderful, and they set to as well as their manacled hands permitted, on the coarse barley-meal bread and goats’ milk cheese. They had had nothing since their ’emergency’ breakfast and they finished the food to the last crumb.

‘That’s better,’ said Roy. ‘Now I’m ready for anything.’ As he spoke the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and in stumped Henkel. He closed the door behind him, and stood facing the two young fellows.

‘So we meet again, Kenneth Carrington,’ he said. Like most German officers, he spoke excellent English, though with a thick, unpleasant accent.

Ken did not answer. It did not seem worth while. He stood facing the other, watching him with a slightly contemptuous expression in his clear blue eyes.

‘We meet under different conditions from the last time,’ continued Henkel. ‘There is now no Othman Pacha to protect you from your just fate.’

Ken shrugged his shoulders.

‘Why talk that sort of rot? You know just as well as I do that the last