"What d'you want to do?"
"I'd like to slip, and try and get along by ourselves. We can do it, sir; she's a very good steamer."
The Orphan didn't know quite what to do. He realized the danger, but he didn't relish the idea of steaming nearly fifty miles to wind'ard, in the teeth of the rapidly rising wind.
However, he realized that Marchant probably knew, better than he did, what the boat could or could not do; so he agreed.
He seized the megaphone and yelled to the Cheese-mite to slip his tow-rope. The Cheese-mite, who also had raised steam, wanted to know where he was going.
"Make for Mudros!" yelled the Orphan.
"D'you know the way?"
"The coxswain does."
"I'll follow you," the Cheese-mite shouted, as the tow-rope fell into the water.
The two of them swerved outside the clumsy motor-lighters and gradually forged ahead, lost sight of them, and went plunging into the head seas, steering by compass and by the glow of the fires of Anzac. In a very short time they had to batten down everything—the forepeak hatch, the engine-room, and the stokehold hatches. The Orphan and Marchant (who had taken off his boots and oilskin) were wet through, waves washed a foot deep over the picket-boat, and she made very little progress.