On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 18

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 appet.i.te, 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 k.n.o.b 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tins and barbed wire are cut up in the Dardanelles as 'filling' for bombs.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ma.s.ses 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 compa.s.s 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.'