"And so," argued Phil, as he bit at a cigarette, "and so, my boy, you've designs on the steamer. 'Pon my word! I wish I was able to speak the lingo. Languages are things I've always hated; but I can see what advantages they give to a fellow, what fun they bring him, and—ahem!—what chances of promotion. So you'll go aboard? Wish the dickens I could come with you."
"I shall go aboard and find out the whereabouts of this officer."
"And then you'll listen to his conversation through the keyhole if need be," said Philip, whose buoyant spirits always made him seize upon the smallest opportunity of being facetious. "Keyhole, eh? Wonder if Turks have 'em? Anyway, you'll contrive to find a spot from which you can hear the old bounder; and then, of course, the business will be to make him converse upon the subject upon which you are most interested. That's a teaser, eh? How will you do it? Supposing he's immersed in an argument about the war, and about the rights and wrongs of the Turks and the Germans; or supposing he's only telling his under-officer—for I suppose there is such an individual—all about his home life, his wife and his children, his house and his garden. Supposing, in fact, he won't get on to your line of argument, and won't babble about the Turks and their concentration in the marshes."
Hum! It certainly was a teaser, and the situation as Philip drew it had not occurred to Geoff before. That it was possible to reach the steamer in the tiny dinghy carried aboard the launch, and to clamber unseen aboard her, he did not doubt; that he might, by skill and cheek, contrive thereafter to get within sight and sound of the Commander, he thought was within the bounds of possibility; but to make that Commander talk, to make him give the information which Geoff sought, was an entirely different matter altogether.
"By George!" he exclaimed; "that would be awkward."
"It would," Philip told him in tones of irony. "You're aboard the steamer, you've—not actually, but let us say metaphorically—sat down in the cabin occupied by this old bounder, and then he won't talk, you can't make him talk; he's glum, we'll say; he's agitated about the loss of the steam-launch; he can't make up his mind what all that firing meant, and where his twenty-odd soldiers and the two officers who commanded them have got to. In fact, he's in the dickens of a stew, in a beastly temper, smoking a cigar, and won't say 'nothink'."
"Oh, shut up!" Geoff told him angrily.
"Like the Turkish captain, in fact," Philip laughed. "But, seriously, just as you said a moment ago, seriously, what's to be done? You know the old adage: 'You can take a horse to the water, but no amount of kicks or coaxing will make him drink'; well, this old Turk may be just like that obstinate old horse. He's there, aboard his steamer, and nothing will make him talk, not even——"
"Stop!" commanded Geoff abruptly. "'Nothing will make him talk,' you say? Won't it? I mean to get information out of the old beggar—for I presume he is old—but don't forget that neither of us have seen him yet, so he may be young and active. All the same, I am going aboard now, and, of course, if I don't come back within reasonable time you will have cause to believe that I have been captured. Then the command of the expedition devolves upon you, and it is for you to carry out the work entrusted to us. Just launch that dinghy, quietly, my lads," he called over the front of the cabin, "and see that there's a paddle in her."
Geoff began to grope in the cabin of the steam-launch, till his hand presently lit upon the pannier containing dressings, which had been handed over to them by the gallant Commander, whom they had left wounded aboard the motor-boat.