On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 25

Only just in time. Next second a black streak darted from the plane and shot earthwards. Followed an earth-shaking roar, and a blinding flash of flame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'All, even Henkel, glanced upwards.']

Ken, flat on his face, felt the blast of it, and covered his head with his arms. Earth, small stones, debris of all kinds rained upon him, then followed silence, broken only by the rapidly diminishing roar of the engine exhaust.

Ken ventured to roll over. This is what he saw.

Between him and the spot where the firing party had stood, but nearer to the latter, was a great cavity in the ground, a hole ten feet across and perhaps a yard deep. Beyond, half buried in the ma.s.s of rubbish flung up by the explosion, were the broken remains of the firing party. All but one were dead, and most were blasted to fragments. The one survivor lay helpless and groaning.

Farther away the three officers were p.r.o.ne and still upon the ground, but whether dead or merely damaged, Ken could not tell. He hoped the former.

Farther still, half a dozen other Turkish soldiers lay, twisted in ugly fashion, covered with blood. They had been badly cut by the jagged fragments of stone flung up by the bursting bomb. The survivors, a score or so in number, were running in blind panic towards the village.

'Roy, Roy! Quickly! We've a chance still,' cried Ken, his voice tense with excitement.

He sprang up as he spoke, and Roy staggered dazedly to his feet.

'This way!' said Ken, and in spite of the hampering handcuffs he managed to scramble over the low wall into the vineyard.

Roy followed.

'It's no use, Ken,' he said. 'We can't run with these beastly handcuffs, and they'll be after us in two twos.'

'Not they! Look!'

He pointed to the plane. It had circled wide over the town and was now coming back. The faint popping of rifles was followed by another terrific crash. A second bomb had dropped clean upon one of the larger houses, and exploding on the flat roof had scattered the whole building as a man's foot might scatter an ant's nest. With a roar half the house toppled outwards into the street, blocking it completely.

'Fine! Oh, fine!' cried Roy. 'That chap knows his business. Gee, but I wish we were alongside him.'

'Much use that would be! A plane can't carry four. But don't you see? He has spotted us. Those bombs are meant to give us our chance. It's up to us to take it. Hurry, Roy! If we can reach that wood yonder, we may be able to hide till dark.'

To run at all with tied hands is no easy matter. To make any sort of pace over rough ground, in such condition, is well-nigh impossible. Yet Ken and Roy, knowing absolutely that their lives depended on reaching that wood before their disappearance was realised, did manage to run and to run pretty fast.

Once more they heard the crashing explosion of a bomb, then suddenly the sound of the plane grew louder until the engine rattled almost overhead.

Ken stopped and looked up. The plane was pa.s.sing no more than two hundred feet above them.

Over the edge of the fuselage a face appeared, a white dot framed in a khaki flying hood. An arm was thrust out, something dropped from it. There was a quick wave of a hand, then with the speed of a frightened wild duck, the plane shot away, came round in a finely banked curve, and disappeared in a south-easterly direction.

'Roy!' gasped Ken, breathless. 'Did you see that?'

'I saw him drop something--I saw it fall. There--there it is.'

Hurrying on for about fifty yards, he stooped swiftly and picked up something small but heavy.

'The daisy! Oh, the daisy!' panted Roy. 'I'll love that fellow to the end of my life.'

He held up the object which the airman had flung down. It was a hammer and a cold chisel tied together, with a leaf from a notebook under the string.

There was an ancient olive tree against the far wall of the vineyard.

Cowering under its shelter, Roy tore the string off with his strong white teeth, then picked up the paper. These were the hurried words scrawled in pencil:-- 'Sorry! All we can do for you. Make east. Your only chance.'

'East? That means the Straits. Why is that our only chance?' muttered Ken.

'Never mind that now,' Roy answered hastily. 'We must get our hands free.

Confound it! We can't use the chisel. But here's a stone with a sharp edge. Try what you can do with the hammer, Ken.'

Ken took one quick glance in the direction of the village, but there was no one in sight. He caught hold of the hammer in both hands and brought it down with all his force on the link between Roy's handcuffs.

More by chance than skill the blow fell absolutely true, and the steel, either flawed or over-tempered, snapped.

Roy gave a cry of delight, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the hammer from Ken took up the chisel and set to work on his bonds. His powerful hands made short work of the link, and within less than three minutes from the time the man in the plane had dropped the tools, they were both free.

With a deep sigh of relief, Roy sprang to his feet. 'We're our own men again, Ken. Come on.' He leaped lightly over the wall and raced away towards the trees. Ken followed.

They had no food, no weapons, they were miles from their own people, in the heart of the enemy country. Yet, for all that, there were not at that moment two lighter hearts in the whole of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

CHAPTER XII

ABOVE THE NARROWS

An intermittent thunder of guns had been growing heavier for the past hour. Now, as the two fugitives crouched on the eastern side of a steeply sloping hill, they were so near that they could distinctly see the flashes from the muzzles through the darkness of the night.

'That's either Fort Degetman or Kilid Bahr,' said Ken in a low voice. 'Ah, there are two. The right-hand one--the one to the south--is Kilid Bahr.'

"Then we're opposite the Narrows," Roy answered breathlessly.

"Just so," said Ken, but though he spoke quietly enough, he, too, felt a thrill. For five long hours they had been pushing east, or rather south-eastwards. They had crossed the main road leading to Great Maidos, they had had hairbreadth escapes sufficient to last most folk for a lifetime, and now at a little after one in the morning, they had crossed the whole peninsula, and were facing the famous Narrows, with their double cordon of forts on both sides of the Straits, the nut which for so many weeks all the Powers of the British and French combined had been engaged in trying to crack.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "That's either Fort Degetman or Kalis Bahr."]

Opposite, a few scattered lights showed where lay the town of Chanak on the Asiatic side of the Narrows. From forts along that coast also, there now and then darted a spit of flame, while half a minute or so later the dull roar of the report would reverberate through the night.

"We've gone east," said Roy slowly. "We've done what that chap in the plane told us to do. But I'm hanged if I can see how we're to go any farther."

'Unless,' he added thoughtfully, 'we are going to swim for it.'

'A bit far for that,' said Ken. 'We are just thirteen miles from the mouth of the Straits, and though they say the current runs down at four miles an hour, I don't think either of us could stand three hours in the water.'

'Not me!' replied Roy with a shiver. 'Too jolly cold!'

'We must get hold of a boat,' said Ken with decision. 'That's our only chance.'

'Lead on, sonny,' said Roy--'that is, if you know where to find one.'

'I haven't much more notion than you, Roy. But there's just this in our favour--that I know there's a little cove south of Kilid Bahr. And as all the coast on either side is cliffs, the chances are that boats, if there are any, will be lying in that cove.'