If only "Glaring Gertrude" would stay where she was and amuse herself counting the salt-heaps all would be well. Once or twice she swept away from them, and the Orphan caught his breath lest she would swing right round on the picket-boat; but every time, just at the critical moment, back she would go to see if the salt-heaps were still there.
The picket-boat throbbed along; hardly any smoke was coming out of her funnel, and only very seldom a spark; old Fletcher might be a humbug, as Jarvis said, but he could stoke.
Then the Sub pointed out, right ahead, the square dark shape of Yeni Kali itself, its upper edge—broken and jagged where shells had crumbled it—silhouetted against "Glaring Gertrude's" beam.
"They're working it from somewhere in the fort itself," he said, speaking very quietly, "and the fort gives us a shadow. Splendid!"
"We've come too far; port your helm and ease her a bit, Orphan. Get that lantern ready—stand by to light it," he told the signalman.
The picket-boat turned in towards the darkness of the land, and moved through the black water with just a little rippling gurgle under her bows, whilst the crew, for'ard, strained their eyes to find the mark-buoy—the mark-buoy which the Turks had shifted.
"We ought to see it—it's white," muttered the Sub impatiently, but their eyes were rather blinded by looking at "Glaring Gertrude", and they could not pick it up.
The Sub kept his eyes shut for a minute, and then looked again.
No result.
The line of shore was very close now, and it was inconceivable that the Turkish look-outs at their guns, all along it, could not see the picket-boat. Round and round, first this way and then that, she steamed, hunting everywhere for that mark-buoy—without success.