On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 37

'And if I refuse?' retorted the other.

'I shall sh.e.l.l you until you think better of it,' was the calm reply.

The other bit his lips. 'Very well,' he said sullenly. 'I have no choice.'

'Look out for treachery, sir,' said Ken in a low voice. 'That man means mischief, I believe.'

'He is an ugly looking beggar. But what can he do?'

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the black-browed officer flung up his arm, with a pistol gripped in his fist, and fired straight at Commander Strang's head.

Quick as he was, Ken was quicker. As the man's arm came up, so did Ken's, and seizing Strang by the wrist, he jerked him back.

Before the man could fire a second time, one of the bluejackets had raised his rifle and shot him through the body.

'Thank you, Carrington,' said the commander, glancing at the gray splash of lead on the deck, just where he had been standing the previous moment, 'You were right, and I was wrong.

'Speak to them in their own language,' he continued coolly. 'Tell them I'll blow them out of the water if they try any more tricks of that sort.'

Ken's announcement was followed by dead silence aboard the steamer. Then a second officer appeared at the rail. He had both hands up.

'We surrender,' he said.

''Bout time, too,' growled the big bluejacket.

Strang repeated his former orders, and this time they were obeyed without hesitation. Ken's heart beat thickly as he watched the prisoners hurrying into the boat which had been lowered from her davits to a level with the deck.

'Do you see your father yet?' Strang asked.

'Not yet, sir,' Ken answered, with his eyes fixed on the fast-filling boat.

'Sixteen--seventeen--eighteen,' he counted mechanically. Suddenly a slight cry escaped his lips, and he started forward.

'Father!' he shouted loudly.

An upright man with keen blue eyes, a man of about fifty, but whose hair and moustache were almost white, was in the act of getting to the boat. At Ken's cry, he started violently, stopped short and stared incredulously in the direction of the sound.

'Father!' shouted Ken again.

'You, Ken?' The tone was one of utter amazement.

'It's me all right, dad,' Ken answered in a voice which shook a little in spite of himself.

Before their eyes the other seemed to shake off ten years of age. He sprang into the boat as lightly as a boy. Three more followed, making twenty-two in all. Then the blocks creaked, and the boat was rapidly lowered to the water.

Oars began to ply vigorously, and she shot across the intervening s.p.a.ce, and a minute later was alongside the submarine.

'You must wait there, please, gentlemen,' said Strang courteously. 'I have to deal with the troops at once. Keep well astern.'

Ken was aching to greet his father, but there was plenty for him to do for the moment. He had to translate the commander's orders, which were that all those aboard the steamer should get away at once in the boats. He gave them twenty minutes for the operation.

They were the longest twenty minutes Ken every knew, but they were over at last. The crowded boats pulled slowly away in a northerly direction, the big steamer floated empty and helpless.

'Do we board her, sir?' asked young Hotham of Strang.

'Yes, I'll save my torpedoes while I can. Put a good charge of gun-cotton in her hold. Quick as you can, Hotham. We may have a destroyer down on us any minute. You may be sure they had plenty of time to use their wireless.'

He turned to the boatful of released prisoners. They were of every sort, young and old--French, English, with even one or two Russians and Belgians.

'Gentlemen,' he said briefly, 'I can't ask you all aboard. The reason is obvious. In a submarine there is only room for a certain number, and I am already three beyond my proper complement. The question is, what I am to do with you for your safety, and I should be obliged if two of you would come aboard to discuss matters with me. One whom I will specially ask is Captain Carrington.'

Ken's breath came quickly as he watched his father step across out of the boat on to the steel deck of G2, but like the trained soldier that he was, he did not move. Strang, however, had not forgotten him.

'You shall have your father to yourself as soon as we have settled things,' he said, as he pa.s.sed him.

Mr Ramsay, who had been manager of a British bank at Constantinople, was the other delegate from the boat. He and Ken's father both shook hands with Strang.

'We are most deeply indebted to you, Commander Strang,' said Captain Carrington.' We never hoped for such luck as to find a British vessel already in the Marmora.

'Ours is unfortunately the only sort that can get through at present, sir,' said Strang with a smile.' And after all, I don't know that you have much cause for grat.i.tude. I can't ferry you home through the Straits, for in the first place I can't carry you, and in the second I have my job to do up here. There is only one thing I can think of.' Here he lowered his voice, so that Ken could hear no more. But presently he saw the others nod, evidently agreeing to the proposal, whatever it was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Ken's hand gripped that of father.']

Mr Ramsay went back to the boat, and she was at once taken in tow. The screws began to revolve again, and G2 swung round in a half circle, and headed due east, running on the surface.

Next minute Ken's hand gripped that of his father.

For a moment neither of them could speak. They had not seen one another for two long years, and both had so much to say that they did not know where to begin.

Strang, with his usual kindly tact, touched Ken on the shoulder.

'Take your father for'ard of the conning tower. You can talk there without interruption. We shall be on the surface for the present.'

Ken thanked him gratefully, and they both went forward, and there, leaning against the gray steel of the little turret, with the small waves lapping over the turtle-back forward, Ken told his father how their strange meeting had come about.

Then Captain Carrington gave his son a brief sketch of his two years'

imprisonment. It had not been as bad as it might, for the kindly Othman Pacha had used what interest he possessed to get his friend shut up in a fortress instead of the usual horrible Turkish jail. Still it had been bad enough, and the worst of it, the deep anxiety he had felt for Ken.

'Well, that's all over, dad, thank goodness,' said Ken. 'Everything will be all right now. It's only a matter of time before we force the Dardanelles, and--'

'A matter of time,' broke in the other with the quizzical smile that Ken remembered so well. 'Just so, my boy, but I'm afraid you are forgetting something. What are we to do meanwhile? Here we are, in the heart of Turkish territory, and no way out. It's rather early to say that our troubles are all over, isn't it?'

Ken's face fell. In his delight at meeting his father again, he had quite forgotten the difficulties still before them.

'But--but I thought that Lieutenant Strang had a plan,' he stammered.

'He's towing the boat somewhere.'

His father nodded.