Chapter IX: Part 9

They had noticed that the motor-yacht had come in and run alongside the _Achates_ soon after they had started on their picnic; and when they went on board, the Officer of the Watch told the Sub that Captain Macfarlane wanted to see him directly he had shifted into uniform. In ten minutes he was ready, went aft, and found the Captain in conversation with Mr. M'Andrew.

"Oh! Come in!" the Captain said. "Had a good picnic? No lives lost? Your crew seemed to spend most of their time aloft. I was afraid that you'd kill someone before you'd finished."

"Everyone all right, sir. We had a grand time."

"Well, we have a job for you. Mr. M'Andrew has brought in two refugees, escaped from a place called Ajano, a little village, up a creek, not far from Smyrna. They say that there is a Turkish patrol-boat hiding up there. I want you to take the picket-boat and "cut her out" to-morrow morning at dawn."

The Sub grinned with delight, and forgetting where he was, burst out with: "My jumping Jimmy! what a show!--I beg pardon, sir. I meant 'what a splendid job.' Thank you, sir, I'd love to go;" whilst the Captain crossed his thin knees, tugged at his beard, and smiled at his eagerness. In ten minutes he had given him all instructions; and the Sub, going out, found the Orphan waiting for him outside his cabin in a great state of excitement.

"What is it? What's going to happen? They're sticking the maxim in the picket-boat, and bolting on those shields in front of the wheel. Jarvis tells me that they are going to fix steel plates all round the stern-sheets as well."

"My perishing Orphan! What a show it's going to be!" And the Sub pulled the Orphan inside his cabin, shoved him down on top of the wash-stand, and spread out the rough chart which Captain Macfarlane had just given him.

"It beats the band, Sonny. We've to go out at midnight. The motor-yacht is coming along with us, and we have to rendezvous with the _Kennet_ at about three o'clock. She will take us to the mouth of the creek--here," and the Sub pointed to the creek marked on the chart. "Two refugees from the village are coming with us to show the way in--up we sprint--cut out a Turkish patrol-boat hiding up there in front of the village--tow her out to the destroyer, and bring her back--a prize. What d'you say to that, my guzzling Orphan? What d'you say to that for a job? Fancy catching them asleep, waking them up, and banging them on the head if they don't hand over their old junk quietly."

"Or toppling them overboard," gasped the Orphan, wild with delight. In his wildest dreams he had never imagined such a grand adventure.

"Well, off you go. See that the boat is all right. Oh," the Sub called, as the midshipman began to run off, "we're to take four more 'hands'. I'll choose 'em. I've got 'em in my mind. Everybody has to take rifle and cutlass. You'd better take a pistol, but don't shoot me with it. That's all. I'll arrange about the grub. Off you go."

The Orphan dashed away to supervise the fitting out of the picket-boat.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*A "Cutting-out" Expedition*

Down in the picket-boat the Orphan found armourers and blacksmiths busily fitting the additional plates all round the stern-sheets.

"That'll make a snug place aft, sir," Jarvis said sarcastically, as the midshipman climbed down into the boat. "What's in the wind now?"

"That's 'summat' like a job," he grinned, when he had been told; "summat like a cutting-out job in the old days--that."

The motor-yacht lay alongside the picket-boat, her crew looking very fierce with their rifles and bandoliers and long knives, and as though they were wildly keen to go and slay Turks, especially so when Mr. M'Andrew spoke a few words to each of them, and set on fire their passionate hatred of the enemy.

He brought the two refugees across to the steamboat, and explained to them that they would have to lie one on each side of the maxim gun-mounting in the bows, and guide the boat in through the creek of Ajano by pointing their hands in the direction of the channel. One of these two the Orphan called "the Bandit"--an oldish man in a fez, dirty white shirt, black voluminous trousers, a black cloth wound round his waist, blue cloth wrapped round his legs puttee-fashion, and clumsy leather boots. He had an honest face, which the other man had not. In fact, the Orphan immediately dubbed this one "the Hired Assassin". His swarthy face, glittering black eyes, and bushy eyebrows gave him an exceedingly treacherous appearance. He was, at any rate, a picturesque scoundrel, with his knives sticking out of the folds of a dirty red sash, and the sunburnt skin of his neck and chest showing through the open, dirty shirt he wore.

"You are going in first," Mr. M'Andrew said, "and, if necessary, I shall come along afterwards. I expect that it will be difficult to keep back my chaps. Watch that old 'grandfather man'."

The old Greek with the burning eyes sat under the motor-yacht's awning, with his rifle across his knees, and his wizened old head turning from side to side, looking exactly like a vulture that has sighted some likely carrion.

The Sub, coming down, sent the Orphan and Plunky Bill aboard with the cutlasses, to have them sharpened on the grindstone.

That was a grand job--with half the crew looking on.

"I pity the poor Turk who gets that on 'is 'napper'," Plunky Bill grinned, as he felt, with his great horny thumb, the new edge on one of them.

By eight o'clock everything had been done, so the Orphan went down to the gun-room to get a "watch" dinner, and ate it amidst a babel of gramophone tunes and noisy horse-play as the Honourable Mess wound up the day, after their joyous picnic in the _What's Her Name_.

"You've got a job in front of you. Come along with me," said the Sub when he had finished. He took him to his cabin, gave him a rug and a pillow to lay on the deck, climbed on his bunk, and turned out the light. "Now coil down and go to sleep," he growled.

The Orphan did sleep after a while--slept until the sentry banged on the door and sang out: "Seven bells just gone, sir!"

"Come along, my jumping Orphan! Come along! Wake up! Show a leg!" the Sub cried, turning up the light. "Now we're off for our picnic."

They pulled on their boots, buckled their revolver-belts round them--the Orphan feeling a funny sensation of emptiness under his belt, just at first--and went on deck, creeping under the hammocks in the half-deck, and hearing Bubbles snoring luxuriously.

They climbed down into the picket-boat and found Jarvis.

"Everything ready, sir! Old Fletcher 'as just gone up to bring down that there hanimile of 'is--the old 'umbug. 'E'll be along in a minute. I've got some 'ot cocoa for you two officers--down in the cabin."

Alongside, in the motor-yacht, the Greeks were coiled up asleep, and Mr. M'Andrew could be seen, walking round in his usual ponderous way, waking them. A little oil-lamp in her engine-room showed the Greek engineer overhauling the motors.

The Bandit and the Hired Assassin, with rifles and bandoliers, were brought across and taken down into the forepeak.

From the dark gangway above them the Captain's voice called down: "Everything ready to start?"

"Yes, sir," the Sub called back.

"Well, good luck to you! I hope you'll bring back a prize by breakfast-time."

"We'll have a jolly good try, sir," the Sub answered.

"It's time for you to shove off, Mr. M'Andrew," the Captain sang out. "Good luck to you!"

The motor-yacht let go her ropes; there was a smell of petrol, and a tut-tut-tut from her stern, and off she went in the dark.

"That there old 'umbug ain't come back yet," Jarvis told the Sub. But just as he was about to send a "hand" to look for him, Fletcher came climbing down.

"Very sorry, sir, but I can't find 'Kaiser Bill' anywhere. The picnic must have made him so giddy that he's started climbing over the boat deck."

"Bad luck, Fletcher!" the Sub said sympathetically.

"Well, he did seem a bit of a mascot--as the saying goes."

"The old 'umbug!" snorted Jarvis. "'E ain't no blooming mascot."

"Well, off you go! Good luck!" called the Captain.

"Shove off for'ard!" cried the Sub.

The Orphan rang "ahead" to the engine-room, and the picket-boat followed the motor-yacht out through the narrow, very dark channel into the open sea. The two boats then changed places, the picket-boat leading and the motor-yacht following, because Mr. M'Andrew's compass could not be trusted. This was the first time that the Orphan had ever had a twenty-mile "run" in a picket-boat before him, and, with no lights showing (except the tiny little glow in the compass-box), on such a dark night it was rather eerie work.

By half-past twelve they were clear of the harbour. In a couple of hours they expected to pick up the destroyer _Kennet_. By twenty past three there ought to be enough light to see a mile and a half ahead, and by that time they hoped to be close in to the mouth of the creek. By half-past four the job might be over--should be finished--and they ought to be on the way home, with the Turkish patrol-boat in tow.

"My jumping Orphan! It's a grand show, isn't it?" said the Sub, swallowing some of the cocoa. "Nothing like ship's cocoa to stand by one's stomach."

The Orphan, awed by the solemnity of the night and the blackness and emptiness of everything, and too excited to talk, gripped the steering-wheel and peered into the compass-box.

A little before half-past two the black outline of a destroyer loomed up. The signalman in the picket-boat, Bostock--a thick-set, criminal-looking man whom the Sub had chosen--flashed across with a shaded lamp. The _Kennet_ flashed back, stopped, and took both boats in tow, then very slowly steamed ahead. By a quarter-past three the coast-line became faintly visible, with a break in it--the creek of Ajano. The destroyer stopped, the towing hawser was cast off, and then the Orphan knew that their time had come. How his heart beat!

"Shove along in!" called the Captain of the _Kennet_, coming aft. "I'll keep an eye on you. Get back as soon as you can. Good luck to you!"

The Orphan had a glimpse of Mr. M'Andrew fumbling with his watch-chain, and of the Greeks springing about and fingering their rifles as though they wanted to let them off then and there; and then the destroyer was left behind, and he was steering for the mouth of the little creek, with the picket-boat throbbing and panting under him.

"You've got your revolver? Yes, that's right. For goodness' sake don't fire it unless you are obliged," the Sub said in a low voice.

Jarvis had already buckled on his cutlass. He, too, had a revolver. The Bandit and the Hired Assassin crept out of the forepeak and lay down on each side of the maxim--they looked very keen on their job. Plunky Bill went for'ard to the maxim, opened a belt-box, and slipped the end of the belt through the breech. The other "hands", including Bostock the signalman and the three extra men--great horny chaps--stirred themselves, and buckled their cutlass-belts round them--they would probably find these more useful than rifles, though rifles also lay handy.

"I'd better have one of these cutlasses," the Sub said. "Got a spare one down there?"

They passed up one and its belt, and he fastened it round him, drawing the cutlass half out of the scabbard to make certain that it would not stick. "Clumsy things," he said, "but mighty good in a scrap; can knock a chap's teeth down his throat with the hilt--fine."

"You men all ready?" he asked. "Two of you go for'ard, abaft the maxim. The others keep down below the plates; and when we run alongside the patrol-boat, and you hear me "sing out", out you jump and give 'em 'beans'." It was almost daylight now, and the picket-boat had entered the mouth of the creek--some four hundred yards wide. The Bandit and the Hired Assassin, lying with their hands pointing straight ahead, were very excited.

"Keep your eye on them," the Sub snapped. "Hello! there's the village; you can see it over the land--masts there too, lots of them."

Everything was absolutely quiet, except for the noise of the engines and the rush of water under the bows. The creek began to narrow rapidly; they were approaching a bend in it, and the two Greeks pointed their hands over one bow, and made a hissing noise to draw attention. "All right; we see you; don't lose your 'wool'. Follow the 'pointer', Orphan."

He touched the wheel, the picket-boat swerved into the channel, and the Sub rang for half speed. Five hundred yards ahead they saw a small building standing some fifty yards back from the bank. It looked like a ferryman's house, or perhaps a small toll-house. The Bandit cried out "Turko! Turko!" but no one could be seen moving about there. He kept pointing away to the left--away from the toll-house--and so did the Hired Assassin.

The Orphan followed the direction they indicated.

"They're taking us mighty close to the other bank," the Sub said anxiously, and sent Jarvis for'ard to look out for the water shoaling. The boat was now not fifty yards from the left bank when, just as Jarvis threw his hand up and waved for the helm to be "ported", she suddenly slowed, the bows gave a heave, she pushed on for some ten feet, and then came to a standstill.

"We're stuck," the Sub muttered tragically, seized a boat-hook, and sounded.

"Deep water ahead," Jarvis, coming aft, reported.

"Turko! Turko!" the Greeks whispered hoarsely.

The Sub ordered the engines full speed astern, then full speed ahead, then astern again, but the boat did not shift an inch.

"Turko! Turko!" the Greeks hissed.

The engines were stopped. "Everyone overboard," the Sub sang out softly, and slid over the side into the water, up to his waist. "It's only soft mud, we'll push her through."

The Orphan let himself down into some sticky mud, and all the men, except the two Greeks, Fletcher in the stokehold, and the stoker petty officer in the engine-room, followed.

"Now get hold of her and shove her ahead."

Nobody required to be told what to do; they shoved hard, but with no result. Then the Sub made them keep time together. "One! two! three! shove!" he called in a low voice. "Ah! she moved then; now another. There she goes!"

She glided off; the black mud swirled up under her stern, and the crew, clinging to the life-lines, dragged themselves on board.

"Phew! I didn't like that," the Sub said, as the black mud dripped off his clothes. He put the engines "easy ahead", and the two Greeks pointed towards the toll-house, whining "Turko, Turko," and looking frightened. The picket-boat now headed almost straight for the toll-house, some three hundred yards away; and just as the Orphan caught sight of someone moving close to it, crack went a rifle, and "ping" came a bullet overhead.

"Phew! we're discovered; we must chance it now; full speed ahead! We must hurry if there's to be a chance of surprising that patrol-boat. Confound those Greeks; they're pointing to the other bank, again," the Sub said.

The picket-boat increased speed; one or two more bullets came whizzing past--one hit the new plates round the stern-sheets. Plunky Bill swung his maxim towards the toll-house, but could see nothing to fire at. The two Greeks squirmed on the deck, their faces pressed against it, and their hands pointing away from the toll-house. The head of the creek opened out; the little white village of Ajano came into view, with some sailing craft anchored close inshore, but never a sign of any patrol-boat. Another minute, and they saw that the mud-bank on which they had run ashore was part of an island, and that, some eighty yards farther on, a narrow channel ran between the mainland and the end of it.

"Port your helm!" the Sub cried, "we're getting too close; these Greeks are terrified; we'll be ashore again in a minute;" and hardly had he said this, before the picket-boat pushed into something soft, her bows came up out of the water, her stern swung round, in towards the bank, not forty yards away, and she came to a dead stop.

"Full speed astern!" the Sub yelled; and full speed astern went the engines, her stern shook, and the black mud, churned up from the bottom, swirled for'ard. But not a movement did she make.

"She's right in it, sir," Jarvis, rushing aft, told the Sub; "there's not a foot of water for'ard."

The Sub jumped overboard abreast the wheel.

There was not two feet of water there, and he walked round her bows, pulling his feet out of the sticky mud. He could walk all round her except at the stern. That last swerve she had made had turned the stern right in to the shore, and the dark back of another mud-bank showed not six yards away, just under the surface of the water. He knew, perfectly well, that she would never get off without assistance.

Bullets kept flicking past--Zip! Zip! Ping! Ping! Some struck the water quite close to the boat; another smacked against those new plates round the stern-sheets. Someone was certain to be hit in a moment or two; and the first was the Hired Assassin, who got a bullet through his left arm, and scrambled aft, behind the plates, bleeding like a pig and whimpering with fright.

The engines were still going astern, but quite uselessly. Everybody had to scramble out; most of them did so on the protected side, the side away from the toll-house. "Some of you come this side," the Sub shouted angrily; and the Orphan, Jarvis, and Plunky Bill followed him round. "Now shove her astern! One! two! three! Altogether--one! two! three! Heave!"

They tried a dozen times, but not an inch did she move. It was terrible. Some bullets now began coming from the side opposite to the toll-house, from beyond that gap of water which separated the island on which they were aground from the mainland. They could see some men creeping among some low, scrubby bushes there, and some puffs of rifle smoke. Plunky Bill was ordered to turn the maxim on to them, so climbed on board, swung the gun round, and let "rip" some fifty rounds. Those kept them quiet for a few minutes.

"If Mr. M'Andrew came in, he could tow us on," the Orphan suggested; but the Sub, although he felt sure that it was helpless to think of getting off without assistance, would not signal to ask for it, not yet. He tried making the engines go full speed ahead and then full speed astern, the men all pushing and shoving at the same time. Then they all climbed on board, crowded as far aft as they could, and tried jumping, up and down, in time, whilst the engines went full speed astern. But you might as well have expected to move a house. The picket-boat showed not the slightest sign of coming off.

All this time some ten or twelve rifles were being constantly fired at them from different points in the direction of the toll-house, only about two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards away. Some of these rifles were evidently mausers--they recognized their sharp crack; but several were old-fashioned ones which gave a duller noise when they fired, and their bullets, coming almost simultaneously with the report, made a bigger splash when they hit the water. Also, every now and then, little white wisps of powder smoke drifted up from behind some of those bushes. Those wisps were practically the only "targets" Plunky Bill had to fire at, but occasionally he caught sight of something creeping about among the bushes.

The shooting of these Turks was, of course, execrable; otherwise everyone in the picket-boat must have been killed.

Soon some of those rifle "cracks" began to sound appreciably nearer.

"The Turks have come down to the bank, near the toll-house," the Orphan gasped out. "I think they're trying to creep along the bank towards us."

The Sub, wading round the bows, climbed on board and told Bostock to signal to the _Kennet_, "Have run aground, send motor-boat"; and whilst Bostock, jumping on the top of the cabin, where he was entirely exposed, wagged his semaphore flags, Plunky Bill searched the opposite bank with his maxim.

"Scramble aboard, all of you!" the Sub shouted to those still over the side. "Get down behind the shields. Four of you, fire your rifles at the bank near that white house, and two at those Turks beyond the island."

They scrambled behind the cover of the plates, picked up their rifles, and tried to find something to aim at.

Bostock now took in the reply to that signal: "Am sending in motor-boat". The Sub, looking out to sea, saw that the destroyer was about twelve hundred yards away, and that the motor-yacht was at that time alongside her.

"Mr. M'Andrew will be here in a few minutes; we'll get off all right then," he said confidently.

There was a yell from Plunky Bill, crouched behind the maxim-gun shield looking for a target. He put his hand to his face, and found it covered with blood. He cursed horribly, swung round the maxim towards the scrub bushes beyond the island, and let off a dozen rounds "into the brown". Splashes kept jumping up out of the water on both sides; the cracks of the rifles and the "ping" "flop" as the bullets struck the side of the boat or the water, or whipped overhead, being almost simultaneous. Within the protecting shields round the stern, people were practically safe. Everyone was there now except Plunky Bill, Fletcher in the stokehold, and the man in the engine-room. Theoretically, these last two were not safe at such short range, though, actually, no bullets did penetrate the sides of the picket-boat--none that were noticed.

"That motor-yacht has not shoved off yet," the Sub cried, looking over the edge of the plates. "I wonder what has happened. Motors have broken down, I expect. Phew! that's rotten; we'll never get off without her."

Jarvis, much excited, shouted: "A lot more men have come along to that white house, sir; they are coming this way, but I can't see them now."

"Ask the _Kennet_ to open fire on the white house, and to search the banks near it," the Sub told Bostock, who jumped on top of the cabin again, and, though bullets were "zipping" past every few moments, made the signal quite unconcernedly, then slowly climbed down into safety under cover of the steel plates, grinning as he spread out one of the flags and showed a bullet-hole in it.

A minute later the destroyer's for'ard 12-pounder fired, and a shell burst just in front of the toll-house. Others came in quick succession, searching the banks between it and the picket-boat.

Rifle-fire died down at once; one or two men could be seen crawling away. A seaman down aft fired his rifle, and swore that he had hit one of them; the others fired whenever they saw a chance, and so did Plunky Bill with his maxim.

The motor-boat had not yet cast off from the destroyer.

There was a shout from Plunky Bill, and they saw a ferry-boat crowded with men start across the creek from the toll-house side. Two of the bluejackets fired at this boat, and the maxim was turned on it; but before there was time to steady it the men in the ferry had scrambled out, and were hidden among those thick bushes there.

"They'll be trying to wade across that gap to the island presently," Jarvis growled. "If they do get across, they'll be able to crawl up to within fifty yards of the boat without us being able to touch them. Bad show this, sir!"

"Curse that motor-boat!" the Sub growled. "Why doesn't she come along?"

Then came a warning shout from for'ard; and the Orphan, looking over the edge of the shield in front of the wheel, saw that some twenty or thirty men with rifles were commencing to wade across the gap to the island. At the same moment Plunky Bill fell on his face. Without thinking, the Orphan dashed out of his cover and ran to him; but before he reached him he had risen to his knees, and was endeavouring to swing his maxim round to fire on them.

He was streaming with blood, both from a wound in his cheek and from another through the right shoulder.

"I can't hold it, sir; you take it."

The Orphan's hands trembled, and his head felt as though it were bursting; but he gripped the handles, looked along the sights, and somehow or other got them in line with the cluster of men who had begun to wade across the gap, and pressed the firing-button with all his might. Plunky Bill, with one hand, "fed" the cartridge-belt.

The Orphan did not feel the recoil nor notice the jar on his wrists. He saw the splashes his bullets were making, swung the muzzle of the gun a little to the left, depressed the handles ever so little, until these splashes flew up right among the Turks. His shaking hands made the bullets spread from side to side.

Six or seven of the men disappeared under the water; most of the others began hurrying back to the cover of those "scrubby" bushes, but two, three, five pressed on, and in twenty more paces would have gained the cover of the end of the island. Once there, they would crawl along till they could fire right into the picket-boat at point-blank range.

The Orphan gave a yell; something had hit his left foot, and the pain shot up his leg; but he held on to those handles, swung the maxim back, and pressed the button.

"A little more to the left, sir," came from Plunky Bill. "Quick, sir!"

And how he did manage to do it he never could explain, but those five men all fell; and it was not till Plunky Bill called out "Cease firing, sir!" that he looked, and saw nothing but a shapeless kind of a hat floating on the water.

"Got the whole bag of tricks, sir."

"They're going to try again; they're gathering behind the bushes." The Orphan looked up, and saw the Sub standing behind him. "Steady, sonny; wait a minute; they'll be in sight directly. That blessed motor-boat hasn't started to shove off yet. Ah! there they come! there they are! Now, let her 'rip'!"

"The Orphan noticed the Sub kneel down behind the maxim shield, on the opposite side to Plunky Bill, who was still tending the belt with his left hand. A bullet, then another, smacked against the little shield, and through the sighting slit he saw a line of men creeping towards the ford where those others had attempted to wade across. His left foot pained--horribly.

"Aim low, sonny! aim low! You will see your bullet-splashes." He pressed the firing-button, and the gun spluttered out a dozen rounds, their splashes jumping out of the water below the bank along which the Turks were creeping.

"Now, up a bit! Good! Now you've got into them! Keep as you are!" The Sub was speaking quite quietly as the midshipman held on to the jerking, shaking maxim. "Now, down a bit! That's the ticket! Splendid! Phew! they won't try that again," the Sub said, and yelled aft for another belt.

Old Fletcher, dragging himself up from the stokehold hatch, ran aft, seized a new box which someone held over the edge of the shield in front of the wheel, brought it for'ard, knelt down and opened it. The Sub ordered Plunky Bill to go aft. He staggered back under the protecting plates round the stern-sheets holding up his right arm with his left hand.

All this time the _Kennet's_ shells were bursting along the bank on the toll-house side, and these and the rifle-fire from the seamen in the stern-sheets kept the Turks fairly quiet in that direction. Then Jarvis shouted: "Here comes the _Kennet's_ whaler, sir. She's quite close. The _Kennet's_ making a signal."

Bostock, waving his flags, took it in. "Abandon steamboat--am sending in whaler for you." He shouted this to the Sub.

"I can't, I can't!" the Sub moaned. "Orphan, I can't do it! You look after those chaps; keep your eye on them. My aunt! your left boot's nearly torn off. Keep them from getting across to the island;" and he dashed aft just as the black whaler ran alongside.

A Royal Naval Reserve lieutenant was in charge of her, and called out: "You've got to abandon her. Take everything you can get into the whaler--and come back. It's been pretty warm work coming in here; they've been potting at us all the way."

"Why doesn't that motor-yacht come in? She could tow us off. What's the matter with her?" the Sub asked angrily.

"Her crew won't face it; they refused to come, and the engineer won't start the motors. He's disabled them in some way or other, and we can't make them work. Get your gear in here quickly."

The Sub raved and cursed. He couldn't make up his mind to abandon the boat.

There came a low, sobbing "Oh" from the stern-sheets, and the other Greek fell forward--the Bandit. A bullet had come in through a gap between two of the steel plates, and he had been shot through the body.

"It's the Captain's order," the _Kennet's_ officer cried impatiently. "You'd best hurry up; we can see any number of men coming along from the village. None of us will get away unless you 'get a move on.'"

Sullenly the Sub gave the order to abandon the picket-boat.

Plunky Bill crawled into the whaler; the two Greeks were lowered into her. Everything that could be taken was taken--the box of ball-cartridge, the compass box, the rifles and cutlasses, signal-book, even the first-aid bag.

The Orphan, still for'ard with Fletcher, who was reeving the new maxim belt through the feed-block, saw more men start to wade towards the island. He opened fire on them; but then the Sub and Jarvis came rushing for'ard, told him to "cease fire", and commenced dismounting the maxim, slinging out the belt, lifting the gun and its shield off its pedestal, and carrying it aft between them. The Orphan tried to pick up the empty belt-box, but couldn't stand, and had to crawl aft without it. Fletcher brought along the almost full box, then ran back and jumped down into the stokehold. Everyone except him was already in the whaler. They shouted for him. He did not come, but a black cloud of smoke belched out of the picket-boat's funnel. Bullets were splashing all round them. Those Turks were half across to the island--in another five minutes they would be able to fire right down into the crowded whaler. Another cloud of smoke came from the funnel.

"He must have gone off his head," the Sub cried, and yelled "Fletcher! Fletcher!"

The old man appeared, dragged himself up, and scrambled down into the boat.

"What the devil were you doing? Shove off! Shove off! Give way!"

"I put on a few shovelfuls of coal, sir, and closed down all the valves--thought she might blow herself up presently."

"Shove off! Get hold of your rifles; half of you blaze away at one side, half of you on the other--at anything you see!" yelled the Sub as the very heavily laden whaler pulled away from the poor old picket-boat and made for mid-stream.

The _Kennet_, out beyond the mouth of the creek, still kept up a continuous fire to cover the retreat of the crowded whaler as it pushed along out to her, with the picket-boat's crew blazing away at anything they saw which looked like a man's head. She must have seen the people wading across to the island, for she opened fire on them from another gun, and its shells whistled over the whaler and burst above the bank alongside the abandoned boat.

The Orphan, huddled down at the bottom of the boat between two thwarts, felt sick and faint. His left foot was quite numb. He looked at it. The toe and front part of the sole of his boot was all ripped up and torn, and his sock was dripping with blood. He did not know what had happened. The two Greeks lay under the thwarts--very silent. Fletcher, near him, kept on saying: "If only I'd found 'Kaiser Bill' and brought him along with us, it wouldn't have happened."

Although a few bullets followed them, no one was hit, and in ten minutes they were alongside the destroyer, and the Orphan was being hoisted up the side. They wanted to carry him, but he would not let them; he hobbled on his left heel to the ward-room hatch, and got down it somehow; found a chair, and sat on it. He heard the _Kennet's_ 12-pounder still firing, and guessed what she was firing at--his beloved picket-boat--the poor old lady. She had shared so many adventures with him, and now was being ripped open by the _Kennet's_ shells, even if her own boiler did not burst with the added fuel and the screwed-down valves. It was better than that she should fall "alive" into the hands of the Turks, and the Orphan hoped she understood.

A chief stoker belonging to the _Kennet_ came along presently, cut away his boot, and took it off (how it did pain!), and cut away the sock. He knew how to dress wounds, and did his work well.

"A bullet, sir, right along the top of the boot, then through that toe; broken the bone, I think--it's all 'wobbly'. I've a lot of doctoring to do this morning. That there young Greek chap has a bad smash, my word! but I don't rightly know about the other. Stomachs are rather beyond my 'line'. That there seaman--he'll be all right."

By the time the foot had been dressed, the guns had left off firing, and the _Kennet's_ engines began to make the whole stern rattle. The Sub came down, looking haggard, but trying to be cheerful. "We did our best, sonny; don't bother. It was all my fault. If we hadn't been steaming so fast, we might have got her off. So you've got a bullet through your foot, have you? I thought I saw the sole of the boot all ripped off. When did that happen?"

"Just after Plunky Bill was hit the second time. Just after I'd started firing the maxim."

"So you kept going, did you?" said the Sub. "Good for you, Orphan! If you hadn't, those chaps might have got across, and we should have been 'in the soup' in next to no time. There wasn't a sign of a patrol-boat there," the Sub went on. "The _Kennet's_ skipper, from her bridge, could see every square yard of the creek. You remember how those confounded Greeks kept pointing over to port directly after they began singing out 'Turko', 'Turko'. So long as they kept away from the toll-house, where they had seen them, and gave them a wide berth, they didn't care a 'fish's tail' what happened to the picket-boat--never thought of the channel. That chap you call the Hired Assassin--I expect he came along with that 'cock and bull' yarn just to get us to go in there and smash up the village--a girl had jilted him, or something like that, I expect. Oh, if only that motor-yacht had come in!"

"Have you seen Mr. M'Andrew?" the Orphan asked.

"Yes! He wouldn't speak. He wouldn't look at me. He was fumbling with his watch-chain. He looked as if he'd been blubbing. That Greek engineer found out what was wrong with the motors directly everything was over. Curse the chicken-livered swine!"

"Did they smash her up? The Turks won't be able to use her?" the Orphan asked.

"Yes, old sonny; either her boiler blew up or a shell burst there. She's done for."

The Orphan bit his lip--hard.

There happened to be a spare cabin aboard the _Achates_, and, after Dr. O'Neill had dressed the wounded foot, the Orphan was placed in the bunk there.

"The toe may have to come off, or it mayn't," Dr. O'Neill growled. "It won't be any use to you, whichever happens."

Captain Macfarlane came to see him, looking grave, but smiling at him in his kind, fatherly way. "The Sub tells me you cleared off a lot of Turks with that maxim after you'd been hit."

"I didn't really know I had been, sir."

He tugged at his beard, and then began to talk, as though what he had to say was not pleasant. "I have some news for you. It will be a great disappointment, I fear, to you, but you will understand why I wish you to know this before the others. I may as well tell you that I recommended the Sub and you, in the picket-boat, and the midshipman of the steam pinnace for the Distinguished Service Cross."

"Did you, sir? Really, sir!" The Orphan's heart beat fast. "The old Hun, too, sir?"

"Yes, I did. It was for taking your steamboats in and bringing off the crippled transports' boats, after the Lancashire Fusiliers had landed. The Sub and the Hun, as you call him, have been granted it, but I am very sorry indeed" (the Orphan knew what was coming and caught his breath) "that you have not. The Sub was in charge of your boat at the time, and you were not. You see, that makes a difference, I suppose."

The Orphan, biting his lips, nodded. He could not trust himself to speak.

Captain Macfarlane, putting his hand gently on his shoulder, said: "Now you know how the land lies. I only heard last night, and thought you yourself should give the news to the other two. I hope that will rather soften the blow. Won't it, Mr. Orpen?"

"Right, sir! Thank you very much for telling me first, and for telling me yourself," the Orphan managed to say. "And thank you very much for recommending me. None of us knew anything about it."

"Well, good-bye! Perhaps you'd like to tell the news now; I'll send them along."

So, in a minute or two, the Sub and the Hun arrived.

"Hello! my jumping Orphan! Patched you up, have they, my wounded warrior! The Skipper says you want to see us."

"You both have got the D.S.C. The Captain's just told me. Isn't that grand?"

They didn't believe him for a moment. Then the Sub, roaring like a bull, threw the Hun on the deck and nearly strangled him. "And you? What about you?" he sang out, letting the Hun get up; and seeing by the Orphan's face that he had had no such luck, became quiet.

"Whatever for?" they both asked. "What did they give it to us for?"

"For going in and fetching the boats back from 'W' beach that first time."

"Oh! that!" growled the Sub. "What a rotten shame! You did as much as I, or the Hun, did. That's the rottenest thing I ever heard of. Well, old chap, I'm confoundedly sorry," said the Sub, gripping the Orphan's arm; "confoundedly sorry."

The Orphan, left to himself, felt about as miserable as he could be. Dr. Gordon came in to give him an injection of morphia, just as Barnes came to the cabin carrying a tray with his breakfast.

"Which will you have for breakfast?" Dr. Gordon asked, in his funny way--"a little morphia or some bacon and eggs?"

"I think I'd rather have the bacon and eggs," said the Orphan.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*Bombarding at Suvla Bay*

The Orphan's wound gave a great deal of trouble, and for the next fortnight--a "precious" long fortnight--he remained in his bunk. The Honourable Mess looked after him, and kept up his spirits. Captain Macfarlane occasionally came in and talked to him, sitting with his long thin legs crossed, smoking his inevitable cigarette, and tugging gently at his pointed beard. He told him of the transports pouring reinforcements into Mudros in great numbers; of the old "Edgars" coming East, and of the newly built monitors which had begun to arrive--big ones with 14-inch guns, and practically unsinkable; small ones with a 6-inch or 9.2-inch gun in the bows, and drawing so little water, that a submarine would stand but little chance of torpedoing them. "There is no doubt, Mr. Orpen," he would say in his quiet, humorous manner, "they are only waiting for you to be on your feet again to begin a great advance."

Mr. Meredith, Dr. Gordon, the little Padre, and the cheery Fleet-Paymaster often came to see him; so did Plunky Bill, with his face and shoulder swathed in bandages, extremely proud of himself. "If it wasn't for the Fleet-Surgeon a-saying they'd to be dressed twice a day, and 'im a-poking round and 'urting somethink 'orrid, I wouldn't care a blow--not me!"

Fletcher brought him "Kaiser Bill" to play with. "He brings luck, does that tortoise; if we'd only had him with us last time, things would have been different, sir. Well, well, the picket-boat has gone, poor thing; but I was getting too old for her. My eyes aren't what they were; for the last month I could hardly read the gauge-glass in her stokehold--not even with my spectacles."

He liked to talk to the Orphan about his sons who had been killed in France, and, what was most unusual, could talk about them without worrying him.

However, the Orphan was presently allowed to hobble about on crutches; and one morning shortly afterwards the weekly trawler from Mudros brought down all the gun-room stores which the messman had ordered from Malta.

"We needn't ask the War Baby to our picnics now, need we?" the Pimple and the China Doll burst out excitedly, as they saw the piles of sardines and sausages, tins of biscuits, jars of bloater paste, and all the luxuries their souls craved.

By the end of July the Orphan returned to duty with a slight limp, which he kept up rather longer, perhaps, than was absolutely necessary.

The air was full of rumours once again, many of them more ridiculous than ever; and at last, on the 7th August, came the news that nearly sixty thousand men had been thrown ashore at Anzac, and at Suvla to the north of it. "The new landing", stated the message, "took the enemy partially by surprise"--and from that the most optimistic conjectures were made.

Also came the news that E11 had sunk the _Barbarossa_, an old German battleship bought by Turkey some years back--sunk her in the Sea of Marmora. You can guess what a noisy, rowdy night that was down in the gun-room.

Four days later the _Achates_ received orders to proceed to Suvla herself, and, after her six weeks of "heavenly" rest, everyone felt greatly pleased to be "up and doing" something again. She wound her way out through the tortuous channel between those beautiful green cliffs, past "Picnic" Island, and zigzagged her way towards the Gallipoli Peninsula.

At dawn of Thursday, 12th August, she passed through a line of trawlers patrolling between Imbros and Samothrace islands, and presently heard once more the booming of guns.

No information whatever had been received of the actual progress and state of affairs; everyone expected--at any rate, hoped--to find the army established more than half-way across the Peninsula, and still advancing; so that when Captain Macfarlane saw a big shell bursting on the very shore itself, he groaned: "Did you see that, Navigator? Stalemate again, I fear."

"A pretty big one, that shell, sir. It may have come from a ship anchored in The Narrows," the Navigator suggested; but even as he did so, three puff-balls of cotton-wool, shrapnel-bursts, appeared against the sky, only just behind the line of the shore.

"That makes it certain," the Captain said very gravely; "they can't burst shrapnel at long ranges."

A cloud of cordite smoke shot out from the side of a cruiser at anchor there--the _Talbot_; and both of them watched to see where the shell burst. "There it is, sir, just in front of that village," the Navigator called out, pointing to a village five miles inland, in a dip in the great semicircular sweep of hills which shut in the whole bay. "I thought they had gained those hills," exclaimed the Captain, keenly disappointed. "Well!"--and he sighed; "if they haven't by this time they will never get them. This means 'finish'."

A submarine net had been laid across the mouth of Suvla Bay; and by the time the _Achates_ passed through the narrow "gate" between the supporting buoys, most of the Honourable Mess were gathered on the after shelter-deck, gazing ashore at the bursting shells, and eagerly trying to make out the state of affairs. Even to the most unskilled of these young officers it was evident that the Army could not have advanced very far.

The _Achates_ anchored just to the south of Suvla Point, and about twelve hundred yards from the shore. As she swung to the breeze and the tide, the most extraordinary-looking "freak" ship came into view, lying close inshore, with a squat funnel, and an enormous turret with two huge guns sticking out of it. She looked almost as broad as she was long, and the Honourable Mess burst out laughing when they saw her. "That's one of the new big monitors," Bubbles grunted. "Look! What an extraordinary ship!"

This was the _Havelock_, and farther out lay several of the new small monitors with a single 9.2-inch gun in the bows or a 6-inch at each end. Inside the line of black buoys which marked the submarine net were also some twenty transports and store ships, a collier, a water-distilling steamer, and many trawlers. Picket-boats, tugs, and little motor-boats dashed about the harbour; a picket-boat towed a long string of transports' boats out towards a hospital ship lying farther away; but the strangest of all the craft there were the "water-beetles", which they now saw for the first time. These were lighters, painted black, with hinged gangways projecting over their bows, circular shields round their steering-wheels, and square box-shaped structures aft, each with a small funnel projecting from its roof, and the official number of the lighter painted, in huge white figures, on the side. One went grunting and thumping past, leaving a track of smoke and a smell of burning oil behind it, carrying perhaps five hundred soldiers inshore. Another lay alongside the nearest store ship, and the bales of hay which they were loading into her made her look like a huge haystack. Another, flying a Red Cross flag, grunted past from shore, filled with wounded. "Water-beetles" made a most appropriate name for them.

The only other men-of-war at anchor inside the "net" were the _Swiftsure_, _Talbot,_ and _Cornwall_; but farther down the coast, off Anzac and Gabe Tepe, they could see their "sister" ship, the _Bacchante_, looking very much "out in the cold" as far as protection from submarines went, in spite of numerous trawlers and several destroyers patrolling round her.

Steamboats began to come alongside, and from their midshipmen the Honourable Mess soon learnt the news.

One midshipman told them "that the soldiers held the first two miles of the hill beyond Suvla Point, but could not get on any farther". "Have they joined up with Anzac and away to the right?" they asked. "I don't think so--not properly. We haven't advanced for the last two days." "I don't know how many wounded I have taken off," said one wornout-looking midshipman. "That's my job, and I've been at it almost day and night for the last five days--nearly eight thousand have been taken off altogether, I fancy."

Another snotty told them of the awful shortage of water during the first two fateful days, and how terribly the troops had suffered. "They couldn't stand it," he said. "It was frightfully hot, and by Saturday afternoon (they landed at 11 p.m. on Friday night) men were rushing down to the shore and dashing into the sea, quite delirious."

The Hun in his steam pinnace came back from a trip ashore, with a story of two shells which had fallen close to him. "It's like old times," he said excitedly.

It was--exactly; exactly as it had been at Helles, in front of Krithia and Achi Baba.

All that morning, at every opportunity, everyone went up on the after shelter-deck, or climbed up to the main-top, to try and find the exact position occupied by our troops and how far they had advanced. They gazed through their glasses at a huge amphitheatre extending from Suvla Point right down to Anzac--six and a half miles away--shut in by that semi-circular rampart of hills which barred the way to the other side of the Peninsula and the Dardanelles. Down at Anzac they could trace the maze of trenches along the slopes and spurs at that end of the rampart of hills, and could also trace the Turkish trenches on the crest and upper slopes. At first they thought that these last trenches were British; but they soon knew, by watching the shells from the _Bacchante_ bursting among them, that they were not. Sweeping their glasses to the left, they followed the ridge of hills as it bent round in a huge curve some five miles and a half from shore, until they came to a dip, in front of which was Anafarta---just such another village as Krithia--with its white houses and its row of windmills. At the left end of this village a tall minaret showed up very distinctly. Sweeping still farther to the left, the hills became higher, and then bent towards the sea, until they reached within a mile of Suvla Point itself as a ridge some 650 feet high. From this point--known as the Bench Mark--the ridge dropped in a series of shoulders, until nothing but a gigantic backbone of almost bare rock remained to jut out into the sea and form Suvla Point itself. Our men had at one time reached this Bench Mark, but had been driven back to the top of the next depression, which they still held. In fact, from the ship that morning the little khaki figures of our men were very clearly seen up there on the sky-line, two and a half miles from Suvla Point. This advanced post was known as Jephson's Post, and on the land side of it the scrub-covered ground sloped down in ridges and gullies to the plain, whilst behind, and away out of sight of the ships, it fell very abruptly to the sea, and ended in lofty, barren cliffs.

The coast-line from Suvla Point swept round in a deep curve to another point known as Nebuchadnezzar Point[#]--a mile and a half farther towards Anzac--and thus made Suvla Bay. Behind Nebuchadnezzar Point lay the little hill "Lala Baba", some 120 feet high, and just round the corner the shore stretched in an almost straight line right down to Anzac.

[#] Its actual name is Niebruniessi Point.

It was the aristocratic Major of Marines, who had been studying the military map, who pointed all these places out to them. He pointed out the guns already in position behind Lala Baba, and he showed them "Chocolate Hill", another elevation some 160 feet high and about three miles inland, where our people could be seen busy digging trenches, and every now and again being sprayed with shrapnel. Between these two little hills lay a broad, flat area, looking like dry mud. "That is the Salt Lake," the Major told them. "It is dry all the summer."

Except for the people who could be seen up at Jephson's Post, more men moving behind a line of trenches running down the slope from that position, and the people digging on Chocolate Hill, the only indication of the general line we held was to be gained by watching where the Turkish shrapnel occasionally burst.

By this time--the 12th August--after having seen so much of operations ashore, every officer in the gun-room and ward-room had become an expert military strategist and tactician--as you can imagine; so it was quite unnecessary for the gallant Major of Marines--who, of course, was the leading expert of all ("because he wore a red stripe down his trousers," Bubbles said)--to explain that "Anafarta village must be captured; that this was the first thing to be done".

"I guessed that--in once," bleated the China Doll in an undertone.