Chapter 15

KEN MEETS AN OLD FRIEND

'Then--then you're bound for Constantinople?' said Ken eagerly.

Strang laughed.

'Not necessarily. No, I am not particularly anxious to charge into the Golden Horn. It's a deal of risk, and not much to be got out of it. Our mission is to cruise in the Marmora and look out for Turkish transports and store ships.'

'Why, what's the matter?' he broke off, noticing how Ken's face had fallen.

'I beg your pardon, sir. It was my father I was thinking of. You see he is in Constantinople--at least, so that scoundrel Henkel told me. I thought I might have a chance of getting ashore and helping him.'

'My good fellow, you must be crazy. Apart from the fact that I should have the greatest difficulty in putting you ashore, you would, of course, at once be arrested and shot as a spy.'

'I don't think so, sir. You see I know the place well, and have friends there. And I talk the language as well as I do English. I know some Arabic, too.'

'The deuce you do!' said the commander, staring at him keenly. 'Then it's possible that you may be uncommonly useful to me during our present trip. No, I shall tell you no more just now. And pray put out of your head any such mad idea as landing at Constantinople.'

'Very well, sir,' Ken answered quietly. And saluting again, he left the cabin.

Going forward again, he found Roy tucking into an enormous breakfast with every evidence of enjoyment. Williams was acting as host, and listening with interest to Roy's account of their wanderings across the peninsula.

Ken asked for Gill, and heard that he was doing very well, but only fit to lie up for the present.

Roy rose, brushed the crumbs from his lammies and stretched his tall frame.

'Heigh ho, I wish we could get back to our chaps,' he remarked regretfully.

'Well, of all the ungrateful beggars!' said Ken with a laugh. 'Talk of buying a ham and seeing life, you won't see as much in the trenches in a month as you'll see here in a day.'

'Any one can have this steel box for me,' retorted Roy. 'I like to fight where I can see what's coming.'

'Maybe you'll see more'n you want before you're finished with this trip, ye long grouser,' put in Williams. 'This ain't no pleasure picnic, let me tell you. Our old man's hot stuff, he is, and if I knows anything about it, it won't be long before he starts handing out surprise packets to them Turks.'

'Hallo,' he broke off, 'we're for the surface.'

As he spoke, G 2's bow began to rise and the whole long hull took a gentle slope.

'Pretty quick!' exclaimed Ken. 'I thought you had to do a lot of pumping first.'

'Bless you, no,' said Williams with a superior grin. 'Not with these 'ere modern craft. They works with horizontal rudders, sort o' fins along the side. Blime, G 2 can pop up and down mighty nigh as quick as a dab chick.'

'There now,' he continued, as the vessel came back to an even keel. 'She's floating just submerged. I reckon her periscopes is just out o' the water.'

'Could we have a look?' asked Ken eagerly.

'Ay, I dare say. You wait a minute and I'll see.'

He was back in a minute, and beckoned them to come.

There were two periscopes. It was the forward one they were called to. They saw a circular table from which a tube ran up through the top of the submarine. A man in shirt-sleeves--he was the other coxswain--got up from a stool and motioned Ken to take his seat and look through what seemed like a pair of binoculars.

Ken gave a cry of surprise. Instead of the hot, stuffy interior of the submarine with its pale electrics and maze of machinery, he was gazing at a wide circle of small-crested waves which shone gloriously blue under a brilliant sky. Now and then a white-winged gull swooped across the view, but apart from these, there was no sign of life or of land.

'Here, let's have a squint,' said Roy eagerly, and Ken gave way.

'Why, it's like a living picture show,' declared Roy. 'Gosh, I could sit and watch it all day. But I say, can't other craft spot the periscope in all this sunshine?'

'Not with this bobble on. At least not very easy,' said the observer, as he took his place again.

'Where are we?' asked Roy.

'Somewheres in the Sea o' Marmora,' Williams answered. 'Just in the mouth o' it, so to speak. I expect the old man'll keep pushing along up the north coast, awaiting for them transports out o' the Bosphorus.'

'And you talk about its being dull, Roy?' said Ken with a laugh.

'Well, perhaps I spoke a bit hastily,' allowed Roy. 'I'll grant I'd like to see us get our own back on some of those Turkish blighters. I haven't forgotten last night yet, I can tell you.'

'You wait till we get our eyes on one, that's all,' said Williams,' and you won't wait much longer.'

But the wait lasted longer than Ken and Roy expected. All that day G2 cruised slowly back and forth between the big island of Marmora, where the marble quarries are, and the high coast of the European mainland, yet nothing rewarded her vigilant watch.

There was nothing to do but sit about and yarn, and more than once Roy told Ken that he wouldn't be a submarine sailor for any amount of 'hard lying' money.

It was about four in the afternoon, and Ken had been taking a quiet nap, for he had a lot of arrears of sleep to make up, when he was roused by a sudden sharp order from Lieutenant Strang.

In an instant the drowsy interior of G2 wakened into sudden life, and Ken, springing to his feet, moved forward to where Williams was standing near the forward periscope.

'What's up?' he asked in a quick undertone.

'Craft in sight. Can't tell what she is yet.'

'A warship?'

'Transport, most like, but can't say yet. Sit tight. I'll tell ye when I can see her a bit plainer.'

By the deeper hum of the engines, Ken knew that they had quickened their speed. There was a sort of suppressed eagerness about all the twenty-five men who composed the crew of the submarine. Ken longed to have a peep through the camera of the periscope, but knew it was impossible.

'She isn't much,' said Williams at last. 'Just a tramp of twelve or fourteen hundred tons. Still, she may ha' got troops aboard, and if she ain't, it's grub or munitions for them beggars in the peninsula.'

'Are we going to torpedo her?' asked Ken.

'Not likely. We ain't like Germans, as chucks away a thousand pound torpedo on a pore little fishing smack.'

'But we shan't let her go, surely?'

Williams chuckled. 'Bless your innocence, no! A couple o' shells from our little popper up topside will settle her hash all right.'

Another order echoed from aft. Strang's voice had a curious hollow sound, like a shout in a tunnel. Ken felt the vessel rising beneath him.

Men sprang up the steel ladder leading to the conning tower. A moment later the hatch flew open with a hollow clang, and the sea air gushed in, freshening delightfully the thick oily atmosphere below.

At the same moment power was switched off the electric engines, and the petrol motor broke into life with an appalling racket. The long, cigar-like vessel trembled under the increased power.

'Can't we go up on deck?' muttered Roy who had joined Ken.

Ken shook his head. He knew that this was impossible, yet all the same it was intolerably irksome to remain below without being able to see or take a hand in what was going on.

More orders, and presently the submarine came to rest, and lay, with hardly a movement, on the surface.

Williams turned and beckoned to Ken, and next moment Ken had his eyes glued to the binoculars. In the circle of sea thrown on the mirror, the first thing he saw was an untidy looking tramp, her rusty plates showing as she rolled slowly to the slight sea.

Aboard her all was wild excitement. Turkish sailors were hurriedly launching boats. Ken almost fancied he could hear the davits squeal as the boats were hastily lowered to the level of the sea. Evidently the men were in a desperate fright, for seldom had Ken seen the slack, leisurely Turks move with such speed.

We ain't hurrying 'em,' said Williams in Ken's ear. 'We've give 'em twenty minutes.' Here, let your chum have a squint.'

Ken made way for Roy, and as he did so there was a shout from aft.

'Commander wants Carrington.'

'You lucky beggar,' cried Roy, but Ken was gone like a flash.

'Get along up on deck, soldier,' said a bluejacket. ''E's up there.'

Ken was up the ladder almost before the man had finished speaking, and swinging out through the hatch dropped down on to the narrow deck beneath.

There were four men on the deck, namely Lieutenant Strang, his second in command, Sub-Lieutenant Hotham, and two who stood by the gun, a 12-pounder which had been raised from its snug niche in the deck, and was pointed full on the steamer.

The latter was nearer than Ken had thought, and by this time it seemed that her whole crew were in the boats, and the ship herself entirely deserted.

'Ah, Carrington,' said the commander. 'You're the man who talks Turkish. I can't quite make out whether the skipper of this old tub thinks his boats can make the shore or whether he wants a tow. Ask him, will you?'

The Turkish skipper, a greasy-looking ruffian, was in a boat close by. He was gesticulating wildly.

Ken at once hailed him, and asked the necessary question. The man burst into violent speech.

Ken listened, and there was a smile on his face as he turned to the commander.

'He's only swearing at us, sir, and asking what right we have to sink his ship.'

'Tell him he'd better inquire of Enver Bey,' was the grim reply, and Ken faithfully repeated the remark, only to hear a volley of curses called down on Enver's head as well as on his own.

'He can't do anything but swear, sir,' said Ken.

'Well, we've no time to waste,' said the officer impatiently. 'Tell him to clear out as quick as he can. I'm not going to waste shells on that thing. A charge of gun-cotton in her hold is all she's worth.'

With much bad language, the Turkish skipper cleared off, and the three boats containing himself and his crew pulled away in the direction of the land, which was just visible on the almost before the words left the commander's lips, and pulling like fury for the steamer.

'Make for the bows,' he heard Strang shout, and he did so.

The distance was nothing--merely a couple of hundred yards. He glanced round over his shoulder, and saw the rusty bows towering above him--saw, too, to his intense relief, that the old man had realised that he was to be rescued and was moving forward.

Ken shipped his sculls. The dinghy glided in under the tall side of the tramp. Ken stood up, and looked round for a rope. He could not see one. There seemed no way of climbing the perpendicular side of the vessel, yet it was quite clear that the old man could not get down unaided.

Ken saw his face appear over the rail. A gasp of astonishment came from his lips.

'Othman!' he exclaimed. 'It's Othman Pacha!'

It was Othman Pacha, his old friend, the very man who had saved him when his father was arrested. How had he come here? How was it he had been left alone to perish by the crew of the steamer? What did it all mean? These and a dozen other thoughts darted through Ken's brain with the swiftness of a lightning flash. But above them all came the desperate resolve to save the old man at all costs.

Othman could do nothing to help himself. That was clear on the face of it. Old and apparently ill, he seemed quite confused and helpless.

Just above his head Ken saw an open port. Standing on the thwart he just managed to reach it. With a desperate effort he drew himself up, and succeeded in getting foothold on the lower rim. There was no way of securing the boat. He had to trust to luck that she would remain where he had left her.

Quickly yet cautiously he raised himself again, and his clutching fingers met the stays of the foremast. Another big pull, and he was level with the rail.

The old Turk stood staring at him, but did not seem to recognise him, and naturally Ken did not wait to explain. Every instant he expected to see the decks burst upwards, and the whole ship fly to pieces. He knew that it could be only a matter of seconds before the explosion took place.

A rope--that was what he wanted most just at that moment, and luckily he had not far to go for one. An untidy coil of line lay close beside the forward hatch.

He sprang for it, whipped it up, and in a trice had put a loop in it, and made a double bight around Othman's body.

'Over you go, Pacha!' he said with a sharpness which at last reached the muddled brains of the poor old Turk.

Somehow he bundled him over the rail, and lowered him quickly yet carefully into the boat which fortunately remained where he had left it alongside.

'Cast off the rope, Pacha,' he shouted in an agony of impatience, and Othman fumblingly tried to obey. Ken saw that he would never do it in time, so rapidly made fast his own end to the rail, and giving one pull to tighten the knot, sprang over.

Fifteen seconds more and he would have been safe. But hardly were his legs over the rail when the explosion came. There was a stunning shock, the whole ship seemed to melt beneath him. A blast of hot air struck him, and the next thing he knew was struggling in the water.

For a second or two he felt half paralysed, and as if he could not use his muscles. He realised that he was sinking, and this gave him such a shock that somehow he managed to pull himself together and strike out.

He came to the surface, dashed the water from his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the dinghy. By a miracle, she was floating unharmed among a mass of wreckage, but Othman was not in her.

Ken looked round, and saw the old Pacha dangling in the water alongside the swaying steamer. He was tied to her by the rope of which one end was around his body, while the other was still fast to the ship's rail.

It was a ghastly fix, for it was clear that the steamer was sinking fast. Another moment, and down she would go, dragging the unfortunate old man with her and Ken too. He knew well enough that, as she sank, she was bound to pull him also down into the vortex, and that from this great eddy he would never have the strength to rise. His one chance for life was to swim away as hard as he could go.

But Ken was not the sort to leave a job half-done. It was both or neither, and treading water he fumbled frantically in his pockets for his knife.

With a sigh of relief, his fingers closed upon it; he whipped it out, and opening it with his teeth struck out with all his strength for Othman.

It is no easy matter to cut a slack rope with a small clasp knife, especially when the blade is none too sharp. Ken felt as though he would never get it through.

He heard shouts from the submarine, but could not distinguish words. The steamer was settling fast. Already her rail was almost level with the water.

The last strand parted, and dropping the knife, Ken seized Othman, who by this time was quite insensible, and made for the dinghy with all his remaining strength.

He reached it, and got one arm over the stern. But that was all he could do. It was out of the question for him to lift Othman into the boat. He could not even climb in himself. He was completely done, and could only hang on, panting so that every breath he drew was pain.

From the steamer came the sound of a fresh explosion. The air, confined below, was forcing up her decks. Ken knew that now it was only a question of seconds before she sank, knew, too, that escape was out of the question. The dinghy was bound to be drawn down, and it was not as if the submarine had a second boat which she could send to the rescue.

'All right, Ken. Hold tight. I've got you!'

It was Roy's cheery voice, and Ken suddenly realised that he was there in the water alongside.

'Look out!' Ken managed to gasp. 'You'll only be dragged down too.'

'Not a bit of it,' Roy answered, as he raised himself and caught hold of the boat. 'Don't you worry, old man. I've a rope round me. I'll hold her.'

'Ah, there she goes!' he exclaimed, and as he spoke there was a queer sucking sound, and Ken felt the boat whirl away in the direction of the sinking steamer.

For some seconds it seemed as if he, Othman, and all would be ripped away from the boat by the tremendous suction. Great eddies boiled and swirled in every direction, and a thick scum of oil and coal dust rose and covered the surface of the sea.

'Hold on!' he heard Roy shout again, and somehow he did, though his right arm felt as though it were being torn from its socket.

At last the commotion ceased, the eddies disappeared, and the strain slackened.

'Thank goodness, that's the last of her,' said Roy, with a sigh of relief. 'Jove, but I couldn't have stuck it much longer. That rope round my waist has nearly cut me in two. How are you making it, old man?'

'I'm all right,' Ken answered, but his voice was so weak it scared Roy.

'Here, hand over his Nibs,' he said, as he moved round and took Othman from Ken. 'Now,' he said, 'just hang on a few minutes longer, and they'll pull us in.'

He raised one arm as a signal, the rope tightened gently, and the dinghy and the three holding to it were towed quickly back to the submarine.

Roy handed up Othman and scrambled out himself but they had to lift Ken out of the water. Once on deck, however, he insisted on scrambling to his feet.

'Not damaged?' inquired Lieutenant Strang with a touch of anxiety in his voice.

'Not a bit, sir,' Ken answered.

'I congratulate you, Carrington. It was an uncommon good and plucky bit of work, and I shall see that it is reported to your own commanding officer.'

Ken went below, tingling with a pleasure which made him forget his aching joints and muscles.