CHAPTER XVI
TWO MEN IN A LAUNCH
In the confusion ensuing upon the fall of the gun Frank crept unseen up the gully. He chuckled as he heard the infuriate curses of the German officer. The cause of the disaster would never be known. Whether it were ascribed to the carelessness of the men or to the accidental slipping of a ring mattered nothing: the gun was lying at a spot whence it would be almost impossible to remove it; very likely it was damaged beyond repair. Frank's satisfaction was only alloyed by regret that to attempt the same feat with the other guns of the battery was out of the question.
"Now what's to be done?" he thought, when, having put a considerable distance between himself and any risk of danger, he stopped to think over his position. One result of the establishment of the battery on the heights must be his abandonment of the sepulchre. Whatever might be the reason for placing the battery just there, if the guns began to play they would draw upon them the shells of the British fleet, and the sepulchre was near enough to be anything but a safe asylum. The troops pursuing him were not far to the north. With no permanent refuge he could not hope to evade them much longer. Sari Bair was becoming too hot to hold him. He must move on.
But in what direction? No part of the peninsula was any longer safe. To go southwards was mere folly: he would only come to the forts, about which there was no doubt a strong concentration of troops. And that way there was no outlet but the sea. Northwards, where the peninsula was wider, there would be more room to move; but after what had happened he would be watched for at every little farm, on all the roads, and if he were not actually captured, lack of food would ultimately enforce his surrender. "What an ass I was not to make for the harbour at Gallipoli that night," he thought, "and try to smuggle myself on Kopri's vessel!" But repentance had come too late. Here he was, caged; nothing could now alter that; and if he were caught in the end--well, these last few days had given him an amount of joyous excitement which he could never forget. Even the reflection that he had now lost the privileges of a civilian, and would probably be shot at sight, did not much trouble him. "Kismet!" he thought: "I must have breathed in the fatalistic spirit of the country."
"But I'm not done yet," he added to himself. "It's Bulgaria now, I suppose. I'd better get away first to the east, out of the way of those fellows hunting me, and then work round as quickly as I can to the north-west. Lucky I stuffed my pockets pretty full of loaves; but it's quarter rations. I don't know when I'll be able to get more."
The booming of guns to the south reminded him that fellow-countrymen were only a few miles away--a galling remembrance. They could do nothing for him. "Alone, alone, all, all alone!"--where had he read those words, and how little he had understood till now what they meant!--"Oh, chuck it, Frank Forester!" he said to himself. "It's no good grousing. Come on!"
He struck off across the shoulder of the hill, and made his way down the bed of a stream skirting the western side of Kojadere, and flowing almost due south until with a sharp turn to the left it fell into the Dardanelles a mile or so north of Maidos. For the greater part of the distance it was close to a road, and Frank had to keep a careful look-out. But the country was rugged and desolate: there were no villages and to all appearance no houses; only once did he catch sight of anything on the road--a bullock wagon lumbering slowly in the opposite direction.
The ground was for the most part on a low level, and in order to ascertain his distance from the coast he turned off to the left, where there were hills rising nearly two hundred feet. After a long and tiring climb he reached a cliff at the eastern extremity of the Kalkmaz Dagh which, projecting a little into the sea, gave him a direct view downward into Maidos and the strait beyond. A Turkish warship lay just above the Narrows; torpedo boats and vessels which, though he did not know it, were mine-layers, were moored here and there; and crossing the channel from Chanak was the motor launch, with its awning over the fore-deck, which he had noticed once or twice before. "Abdi's on the other side now," he thought.
He watched the launch through his glasses as it threaded its way through the congestion of lighters and small cargo vessels lying off Maidos, to a jetty north of the town. A number of passengers came ashore. The launch was tied up and the crew also landed--all but one man, who sat down in the stern and appeared to be eating his dinner. Frank almost unconsciously took out one of his loaves. "Didn't know I was so hungry," he muttered. He ate half the loaf, which was little larger than a scone, put the remainder back, then took it out again for a final mouthful. The man on the launch was still eating. Frank watched him enviously, and almost hated him when he saw him wrap up a portion of his meal and stow it away. "He has too much and I too little," he thought. "I daresay he'd sell what's left. Wish I could get at him!"