"Hullo, what's that?" he said, noticing smoke coming up out of the funnel.
"I didn't wake you, sir; there's nothing to worry about—not yet; but I don't like the look of the weather, so I'm raising steam in case anything happens. You'd better get an oilskin on, sir," he added, as the bows bumped into a wave and the spray came over them.
But the Orphan had not one, so he took the wheel whilst Marchant went for his.
The breeze had indeed risen, and the sea too. The picket-boats ahead of him were going up and down like the boats at a circus roundabout; and behind him those motor-lighters, looking more like "water-beetles" than ever, in the moonlight, were slowly falling astern, yawing from side to side and covered with spray.
He saw Kephalo South Point light and the fires over at Anzac, which still burnt furiously, and knew that the boats had only just got past Aliki Bay. He could not have been asleep for long.
The wind and sea increased every minute, and made the steering of the picket-boat quite a hard job. Marchant came back and took the wheel from him. "I've known this boat for nearly three years, sir," he said; and the Orphan, knowing how he hated letting anyone steer his own old picket-boat, knew what he meant.
"What extraordinary luck, sir!" Marchant said presently. "Fancy if it had blown like this last night! Right on shore it would have been, and not a boat could have gone near it. We could not possibly have taken the soldiers off, to say nothing about their guns."
In half an hour the motor-lighters were evidently in difficulties. In order to keep their screws in the water they had to be much ballasted down by the stern. This made their bluff bows come right out of the water; and every sea hitting them, besides almost stopping their way, tended to throw them off their course. They could not steer properly, yawing this way, yawing that; and it was impossible for them to keep up with the five and a half knots of the tug, which was then about the speed she was towing the picket-boats.
She stopped and, as the motor-lighters struggled towards her, hailed them, and made two come alongside, abreast each other, on each side of her. She made them fast, and with them working their motors and doing their best to steer, she went on again. But you can imagine what a terribly clumsy "tow" they made, bumping into each other, bumping into the tug, simply covered with spray minute after minute.
"Look here, sir," said Marchant presently, as the weather rapidly grew worse; "if those lighters break adrift, they'll come down on us and finish us."