On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 29

At last Ken straightened his aching back. 'It's no use, Roy. The water's gaining. I can't keep it down.'

'You needn't tell me that. I've been over my ankles the last five minutes, and she's pulling like a sunk log.'

'What are we going to do?' said Ken--'Try for the Fountain landing?'

'Might as well, I suppose. Any chance of picking up another boat, d'ye think?'

'Pretty slim, I fancy,' answered Ken. 'There are sure to be sentries there. You see, it's the sort of place where our people might attempt a landing.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: '"She's leaking like a sieve."']

'Could we try for the other side?' suggested Roy.

'Out of the question,' said Ken. 'We're opposite Sari Siglar Bay. The Straits are nearly three miles wide here.'

Roy gave a short laugh. 'Looks as if we should have to swim for it after all,' he said. 'Well, the only thing is to keep going until she sinks under us. Then we must scramble ash.o.r.e and take our chances.'

He pulled on again, and Ken betook himself to his everlasting task of baling. He was mortally tired and desperately sleepy. His eyes almost closed as he dipped and dipped in the salt water which, in spite of all his efforts, grew steadily deeper in the bottom of the boat. The lower she sank, the more quickly the water spurted in. Each minute that pa.s.sed brought the inevitable end closer.

Once he glanced up to see, if possible, where they were. To the right tall black cliffs towered against the night sky, to the left the stars twinkled in the ripples of the deep and wide Straits.

Roy pulled like a machine, but the weight of water made his efforts almost useless. The boat sogged slowly forward like a dead thing.

'She won't last another five minutes,' said Ken.

'And there's no landing place, old chap. We're right up against it.'

'Tell you what there is, though,' said Ken keenly. 'There's a craft of some sort out there. Don't you hear her engines?'

Roy stopped pulling a moment. In the silence a faint chug, chug reached their ears.

'What do you think she is--one of our warships?' he asked in a whisper.

'Haven't a notion. But she's probably British or French. The Turks haven't got much in the way of craft--at least not this side of Gallipoli.'

'Then I vote for trying to make her,' said Roy. 'Right you are,' Ken answered, and began baling harder than ever Roy, pulling on his left-hand oar, got the boat round, and made a last spurt in the direction of the sound.

It seemed a very forlorn hope. They could not even see the craft--whatever she was--and their boat manifestly had but a short time to live. If she sank out in mid-straits there was no earthly chance of reaching the sh.o.r.e.

Drowning was certain.

Three minutes pa.s.sed. The water in the boat was nearly knee deep. Pull as he might, Roy could hardly keep her moving. Ken raised his head and peered out through the gloom.

'I see her,' he said with sudden eagerness. He pointed as he spoke to a dim shape not more than a couple of hundred yards away.

Roy glanced back over his shoulder. 'She's very small,' he said, 'and she's working upstream. Hallo, there's another just beyond her--a pair of 'em.'

'Two, are there? Then I tell you what they are--trawlers.'

'Trawlers!' echoed Roy. 'What--catching herrings for the Admiral's breakfast?'

'No, you a.s.s--mines. They're mine-sweepers of course.' Roy gave a low whistle.

'I'd sooner catch herrings,' he said. 'But never mind. So long as they're British, that's all that matters.' And he set to pulling again with all the energy left him.

The trawlers were creeping along at very slow speed, and without a light of any sort showing. There was not even the usual glow from the funnel top. Lucky it was for Roy and Ken that they were going so slowly, for they were still some little distance from the nearest trawler when the ripples began to wash over the gunwale of the water-logged boat.

'Help!' shouted Roy hoa.r.s.ely. 'Help!'

'Pull on!' said Ken, as he still baled frantically. 'Pull on! They can't come round if they've got their sweeping cable out.'

Roy made a last effort, and whether it was Roy's shout or the sound of the oars, some one aboard the trawler heard them.

'Who are you?' came a gruff voice, half-m.u.f.fled, as though afraid of being overheard on sh.o.r.e.

'Friends--British,' answered Ken. 'Our boat's sinking.'

There came a sharp order echoed from the farther ship. The trawlers both slackened speed.

'Come alongside, if you can. We can't pull out to you,' called the same voice that Ken had heard previously.

A few more strokes, then just as the boat was actually sinking under them, a rope came whizzing across. Roy caught it and a moment later, wet and draggled, they were standing on the deck of the trawler.

'Well, I'll be everlastingly jiggered,' exclaimed a gruff voice. 'Where in all that's wonderful did you fellers spring from?' The speaker was a short, square man, but it was so dark that all they could see of his face was that it was round and clean-shaven.

'Out of the Dardanelles last, and before that from Kilid Bahr,' Ken answered. 'We're escaped prisoners.'

'Gosh, you've been in warm places, young fellers,' said the other, 'but I kind o' think it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.'

'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,'

said Roy with a shiver.

'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot cocoa.'

'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.

The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted anything so good in all their lives.

Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these also the hungry youngsters did justice.

'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied.

'"Maid o' Sker." Mine--sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief answer. Then, after a pause, 'Where did you blokes come from?'

Ken told him, or rather began to, for before he had finished, the steady beat of the engines suddenly slackened.

'Cotched one, I reckon,' remarked Gill briefly, and hurried on deck followed by the two boys.