On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 27

Hastily Ken translated what he had heard for Roy.

'They are sentries,' he said, 'and I suppose there is some underground work here which they have been set to guard.'

'And by the looks of it, they are the only men there,' Roy replied eagerly. 'Ken, I think I see those coats materialising.'

'It might be done,' said Ken. 'As you say, they are probably the only men in the place, whatever it is. And clearly they take their job pretty easily. If we can catch them napping we ought to be able to polish them off.'

'We will catch them napping, and we will polish them off,' Roy said grimly. 'Mind you, Ken, they mustn't shoot.'

He began to creep forward on hands and knees. Ken kept abreast. A minute later, they found themselves at the sloping entrance of what was evidently a communication trench.

'We'd best keep on top,' whispered Roy. 'You go one side, I'll take the other. When we get above them, we must both drop together. Jump right on them, and put 'em out before they know what's up.'

There was no doubt about this being the best plan, and they started at once. Roy went off with his usual confidence, but Ken, more highly strung, felt his heart thumping as he crawled along the rough edge of the deep, dark ditch.

It seemed to him that they went a very long way before he saw Roy stop and lift one hand. He himself peered over cautiously. The stars gave just enough light to see the two Turkish sentries.

They were leaning carelessly against the wall of the trench. One was smoking, the other apparently rolling a cigarette. They were chatting in low voices, and so far as Ken could make out, neither held his rifle.

Roy pointed to the one nearest Ken. Ken nodded, and rose very quietly to his feet.

The Turk firmly believes that certain places, bare hill-sides especially, are haunted by unpleasant bogies which he calls Djinns and Afrits. If ever any Turk was fully convinced that a Djinn had him, it must have been the sentry that Ken jumped on.

He landed absolutely straight on the man's shoulders, and down he went flat on his face, with Ken on top of him. His forehead struck the opposite wall of the trench, and though Ken wasted no time at all in getting hold of his throat, this was quite unnecessary. The wretched Turk was limp as a wet dish-rag and quite insensible.

'Good business, Ken!' said Roy, and glancing round Ken saw his chum kneeling on the chest of the second man, one big hand compressing his wind-pipe. 'Good business! We've got them both, and no fuss about it.

Confound it! These fellows don't run to handkerchiefs. Wait a jiffy. I must get his belt off.'

Neither of the Turks was in condition to put up any resistance, and in a very few moments they were stripped of overcoats, shakos, and haversacks.

They were then tied and carefully gagged.

Roy pulled on the overcoat of the bigger man.

'I've seen better fits,' he remarked. 'But it will do in this light. Now for that boat.'

'One minute!' said Ken, 'let's just see what they were guarding.'

He slipped along the trench, Roy after him, and a few yards farther on it sloped downwards, then widened into a deepish semicircular excavation. In the middle of this was a great lump of something which, as they came nearer, resolved itself into a gun of some sort. It was very thick, very short, it stood on a concrete platform, and its squat muzzle pointed almost straight up into the air.

'It's a howitzer,' said Ken.

'Rummiest looking howitzer I ever saw,' Roy answered. 'Looks as if it came out of the Ark.'

'Came out of the Crimea, I expect. They used this kind of thing sixty years ago. It's a muzzle loader, you see.'

'And shoots real cannon b.a.l.l.s,' said Roy, pointing to a pyramid of huge iron globes, each about fourteen inches in diameter.

'I wonder where the powder is,' said Ken with sudden eagerness.

'What's up now?' demanded Roy.

'I've got it,' said Ken quickly, as he began pulling a tarpaulin off a pile of canvas bags. 'A rare lot of it too!'

'You're not thinking by any chance of lobbing shot into Maidos, are you?'

asked Roy sarcastically.

'Not that,' said Ken. 'Hardly that. But what about setting off this little lot? My notion is this. If we could put a slow match to the powder and then clear out and get down to the mouth of the water-course before it goes off, I believe those loafers down on the beach would all come running up here to see what had happened. That would give us our chance to collar a boat and clear.'

Roy gave a low chuckle.

'Not a bad notion, old son. Not half a bad idea. Yes, it certainly would wake some of 'em up. But what about the slow match? We've got no fuse.'

Ken held out an old-fashioned candle lantern.

'I bagged this from the sentry. There's just half an inch of candle in it.

We've nothing to do but lay a train of loose powder up to it.'

Roy chuckled again.

'You're a bad 'un to beat, Ken. Yes, that ought to work. Let's get at it.'

The powder was just as old-fashioned as the rest of the outfit. Common black stuff, large grained, coa.r.s.er even than blasting powder. Once they got a bag open it did not take them long to lay the train to the lantern, which Ken placed in a little excavation kicked out right under the front wall of the earthwork.

'Don't think any one will see it there,' he said, as he cut the candle down a trifle and lit it cautiously with a sputtering sulphur match, part of the spoil from the Turkish sentry.

'I suppose those sentries are far enough off to be all right,' he added, as he rose hastily to his feet.

'Bless you, yes. This stuff isn't like high explosive. It'll only go up with a bang and a fizz like a big firework. Skip. We've got to be at the beach by the time she goes off.'

They knew their way by now, and in spite of the darkness, wasted very little time in reaching the ravine. All was very quiet. The Turkish guns, which had been firing probably at some mine-sweeper, were silent again.

The only sounds of war were an occasional boom far to the south where the British and French faced the Turks entrenched on the heights of Achi Baba.

Bent double, the two scurried across the waste of cracked clay and loose stones, and in less than half the time they had taken for their first journey, reached the point where it debouched upon the open beach.

Ken dropped, panting slightly, and Roy slipping down beside him, caught a glint of dark water rippling under the starlight.

From somewhere to the left came a murmur of voices, and the breeze brought to his nostrils a faint odour of tobacco smoke.

Seconds dragged like minutes as they lay waiting. The suspense was very hard to bear.

Roy put his mouth close to Ken's ear.

'Afraid your contraption's gone wrong, old son. Don't seem to hear that bust up you promised.'

'Unless the powder was damp--' began Ken. His sentence was cut short by a thunderous boom. The earth quivered beneath them, and sky, sea, even the tall cliffs opposite flared crimson.

The great glow pa.s.sed as swiftly as it had come, there followed a rattle of falling rubbish, then silence dropped. Silence, however, which lasted no longer than the flash. Almost instantly burst out a hubbub of excited voices, there was a rattle of sandalled feet on shingle and a sound of men running hard.