CHAPTER X
How the Landing Party Fared
It will now be necessary to set back the hands of the clock, and follow the adventures of Sub-lieutenants Webb and Haynes from the time when the cutter and the whaler parted company with the steamboat.
Tom Webb, being now the senior officer, led the way, steering a compass course, and having to make due allowances for the southerly current from the distant Dardanelles. Only the ripple of the water from the boat's bows, the laboured breathing of the oarsmen, and the creak of the stretchers broke the silence of the night. The muffled oars were admirably handled, not a plash being audible as the blades rose cleanly from the phosphorescent water. The superb pulling of those Royal Naval Reserve men would have evoked praise from the most critical naval officer.
Gradually the shore loomed up nearer and nearer. Progress was slow but sure, for Webb had taken the precaution to reserve the rowers' strength for the final lap. On the port hand the land rose abruptly. To starboard a ledge of jagged rocks stretched seaward; while dead ahead lay a comparatively broad expanse of land-locked water, its extent rendered baffling by the deep reflection cast by the high ground upon the placid surface.
Keeping midway between the entrance points Webb steered straight in. The petrol depot was supposed to be on the port-hand side, on gently shelving ground hidden from seaward by a line of low cliffs.
Webb would not have been surprised if, on rounding the entrance, there were signs of activity on shore. A couple of submarines, perhaps, anchored in the seclusion of the creek, and in the act of taking in quantities of fuel. But all was quiet. Not a sound came from the shadowy land; not a light was visible.
The cutter was in the act of turning to port, when from the high ground at the entrance to the creek a rifle-shot rang out, and a bullet whizzed within fifty feet of the boat's bows. There was no mistaking the shot. It was not a chance bullet, but a purposely-made signal.
"Give way, lads!" exclaimed the Sub, all necessity for silence now at an end. Haynes, too, gave the word for his men to pull their hardest, and now, almost neck and neck, the two boats literally tore through the water, greeted by a veritable fusillade from the heights on the left and from the shelving ground ahead.
A stifled cry of pain told Webb that one of the boat's crew had stopped a piece of nickel; but, setting his teeth grimly, the wounded man, despite a bullet wound completely through the left arm, stuck gamely to his oar.
"By Jove!" muttered the young officer as the blinding glare of the first of the unmasked search-lights played fairly upon his eyes, "we're trapped."
Then other rays darted across the surface of the creek, transforming the darkness of the night into a state of brilliance almost approaching that of daylight. A seven-pounder shell, hurtling overhead, exploded a hundred yards astern of the whaler, while, all around the two boats, the water was churned into a series of miniature waterspouts by a hail of bullets.
The British craft did not come off unscathed. Splinters from the ash oars and from the gunwales flew in all directions. Already writhing figures were huddled upon the cutter's bottom-boards, while stifled groans from the whaler told the unpleasant fact that some of her crew had been hit.
"Pull starboard, back port!" ordered Webb. With the opening fire of the Turkish light guns he knew that it would be worse than useless to attempt to carry out the operations. It would only be needlessly sacrificing the lives of the men without the faintest chance of success. All that could be done was to withdraw from the veritable death-trap, if such a course were possible.
The Turks were now using machine-guns, but luckily their aim was bad, for the scythe-like hail of bullets passed harmlessly over the boats. Had the weapons been depressed a mere fraction of an inch, the British would have been wiped out to a man.
Quickly the whaler followed the cutter's example, turning and making for the open sea.
By this time the roar of the hostile fire was deafening. Had the search-lights not been running, the flashes of the guns and of the continuous musketry were sufficient to turn the hitherto pitch darkness into a lurid glare. Showing up clearly against the high ground on the opposite side of the creek, the boats presented an easy target. By all the laws and theories of modern warfare they should have been blown clear out of the water; instead, they seemed to be shielded by a special providence.
As the boats withdrew and the range of the hostile fire increased, the Turks began to aim with better results. The coxswain of Webb's boat, shot through the head, was lying across the backboard of the stern-sheets. The bowman, hit by a flying fragment of shell, had dropped inertly over the thwart. Others of the crew had sustained more or less serious wounds, until only six men were left to use the oars.
Nor did the whaler fare better. Four dead men lay upon the bottom-boards, seven badly wounded were striving to make light of their terrible injuries. Even when face to face with death the gallant British seamen "stuck it", with grim smiles on their faces and light-hearted jests on their lips. Several of the oars had been splintered; there were half a dozen bullet holes through the planks 'twixt wind and water, to say nothing of numerous perforations in the top-strakes of the gunwales. Yet the whaler still kept afloat, thanks to the determination and resource of her crew, who stuffed strips torn from their scarves into the shot holes and plied balers vigorously, despite the galling fire to which they were unable to reply.
In vain Webb looked for the steam cutter; but while scanning the entrance to the creek he saw something that called for instant action—something that in a measure accounted for the fact that the boats had not been destroyed. The Turkish quick-firers and most of the small arms were directing a fairly concentrated storm of shot and shell across the entrance, thus creating an almost impassable barrage. Clearly the Sub saw the object of these tactics: the enemy were trying to force the two boats into surrendering, rather than blow them out of the water.
Webb found himself asking the question "For why?" He could give no satisfactory reply. He was in a very tight corner; but he had been in similar predicaments before, and his resource and courage had brought him through. Why not now?
"By Jove!" he muttered; "if we can get in close to the shore those cliffs will shelter us. They don't seem to have posted any troops there, and certainly there are no quick-firers."
Acting promptly he altered helm. The rowers, finding their boat heading towards the shore, regarded their young officer with evident concern, until they saw the cool resolute look upon the Sub's face. Then they knew that he had something in view that might extricate them from the deadly trap.
The whaler, too, followed suit, and, before the Turks realized the fact, both boats were sheltered from the hostile fire.
The Sub now steered the cutter parallel with the line of low cliffs and at a distance of about three boats' lengths from their base. At intervals the two craft had to edge outwards in order to avoid the jagged reefs that jutted out from the precipitous cliffs; yet progressing slowly, for the men at the oars were either wounded or well-nigh exhausted, the cutter, followed by the whaler, crept towards the open sea. And still no sign of the steamboat that was supposed to be standing by to cover their movements.
Suddenly Webb spotted something ahead that filled him with vague apprehension. He stood upright in order to verify his suspicions. There was no mistake: stretched right across the narrowest part of the entrance was a formidable barrier composed of wire hawsers supported on floating iron-spiked balks of timber.
The obstruction had not been there when the boats entered the land-locked estuary. It was a device planned under the supervision of German officers, and was simple in its design and operation. The balks had been bunched together close on shore. From the outermost one a flexible steel hawser crossed the entrance and was secured to a powerful capstan on the opposite bank. With no strain upon it the hawser lay on the bottom of the creek, and the navigable channel was clear. Directly the cutter and the whaler had passed over the hawser a strain was taken on it, with the result that the balks of timber were hauled into position, forming a "boom" too strong to be severed by the "way" of a rowing boat, too buoyant to be pushed under water to allow a craft to pass above, and with too great a strain on the connecting hawser to permit a boat to force her way underneath. It was like being in a bottle with the neck tightly corked.
"What do you make of it?" shouted Tom to the Sub in charge of the whaler.
"A tough job," replied Haynes. "D'you think that there's a live wire attached to that contraption?"
"I'll soon find out, old son," rejoined Webb. There was no time to be lost, for the Turks, realizing that the boats were temporarily sheltered, would almost certainly rush a couple of machine-guns to the summit of the cliff. At close range, for the boats were now within twenty yards of the shore, the British landing party would be at the mercy of the enemy.
Snatching up an india-rubber mat that lay in the stern-sheets Webb made his way for'ard, over the thwarts and the pack of wounded men. Then, clambering on the nearest balk of timber, he threw the insulated material over one of the wires and forced it against the next cable. Nothing resulted. That pair, at all events, did not convey any powerful and death-dealing current of electricity.
"A couple of hands for'ard," ordered the Sub. "Bring a hammer and chisel from the boat's bag and start cutting through this wire gear."
Volunteers were quickly forthcoming—two seamen who had been but slightly wounded. While they were tackling the task, knee-deep in water owing to the timber sinking under their weight, Webb tested the remaining wire ropes. To his intense satisfaction they were comparatively harmless; but the fact remained that there were six 2-inch flexible wires to be cut through before the boats could gain the open sea.
Desperately the two seamen attacked the stubborn wire with cold chisel and hammer. It was a slow business, for the steel was extremely tough, while the lack of anything in the nature of an anvil caused much of the force of the hammer to be wasted.
"One nearly through, sir," reported the seaman with the chisel. His hands were streaming with blood, owing to lacerations made by the severed strands, each of which was as tough and as sharp as a sailmaker's needle. "Wish we had a hacksaw," he added.
"No good wishing for something we haven't got," said Webb. "We'll do it all in good time. Let me give you a spell."
But before the Sub could make his way along the partly submerged timber Haynes exclaimed:
"Stand by; here they come!"
Webb listened intently. He could distinguish the thud of many feet, and the high-pitched sort of cheer that Turkish infantry frequently give vent to when advancing at the double.
"Back with you!" he ordered, addressing the two seamen on the balk. "Stand to your arms, men!"
The Sub had made up his mind. It must be a fight to the death. There could be no surrender. Yet it was a forlorn hope. At the utmost, only a dozen rifles would be able to reply to the renewed attack.
Another and totally different sound wafted across the sea, at first so faintly that Webb was afraid to trust the evidence of his own senses. The sound increased in volume. Now it was unmistakable—the chug-chug of the steam cutter's engines.
Snatching up a Very's pistol and inserting a cartridge, Webb fired into the air. The green light from the signal-cartridge threw a sickly glare upon the scene, hitherto shrouded in intense darkness; for, although the greater portion of the creek was one blaze of search-lights, the darkness under the cliffs was almost impenetrable.
Well it was that Webb had fired the signal, for the steamboat was heading for the centre of the creek. Instantly the boat altered helm and tore down upon the two trapped craft. She was charging at full speed against the formidable boom. "Steamboat ahoy!" shouted Webb at the full force of his lungs. "Slow down; there's an obstruction ahead of you."
The warning was unheeded. Either Osborne had failed to hear his chum's voice, or else he had made up his mind to charge the boom, in the hope that the steamboat's sharp bow would shear through the danger.
The outermost wire of the boom parted like packthread under the terrific impact of ten tons of deadweight, travelling at fifteen knots. By good luck the boat had struck the boom immediately between two of the balks of timber, otherwise her planks would have been ripped like paper by the formidable steel spikes.
The second wire sagged but held. A whole section of the boom swayed, the side nearest the cutter slipping under the water, while the other side reared five or six feet in the air, narrowly missing the bows of the whaler in its descent.
For quite twenty yards the steamboat was forced astern by the rebound of the hawser; then, just as she was forging ahead once more, Osborne ordered the engines to be stopped. Very docilely the boat ran alongside the insurmountable barrier.
"All aboard here—all hands!" ordered Osborne, addressing the survivors of the cutter and the whaler.
The bow gun of the steamboat was spitting venomously at parties of Turks who had now appeared upon the top of the cliffs. Distinctly silhouetted against the glow of the search-lights they made an excellent target, while the boats, lying close alongside the steeply rising ground, were practically invisible, save for the flashes of the steamboat's gun.
Assisted by their slightly wounded comrades, the disabled seamen were helped along the swaying timber and received on board the steam cutter. Webb and Haynes were the last to leave. The latter had come off lightly, having sustained nothing more than a graze across the forehead.
"Bear a hand, old man!" exclaimed Webb, after a vain attempt to scramble upon the boat's side.
"Hit?" enquired Haynes laconically.
"Don't know. Fancy I must be," replied the Sub dully.
Had not Haynes grasped his comrade by the shoulders Webb would have dropped inertly from the balk of timber into the sea. Everything was turning a dazzling white before his eyes. His nerveless hands were holding on to the top-strake of the cutter, yet he was unconscious of the fact.
"Buck up!" exclaimed Haynes encouragingly. "Now, up she comes!"
With a determined effort the Sub of the whaler heaved his chum upon the cutter's waterways.
"Where are you hit, old man?" he asked, but the question was unanswered. Sub-lieutenant Tom Webb was unconscious.