Part 12 (1/2)

Ken, flattened against the clay face of the trench, began to feel very uneasy. They had no more reinforcements, and if the Turks got more guns, it began to look as though the whole business would end in failure.

'About time we did another sally to look for that machine gun,' said big Roy Horan in his ear.

'Not in the daylight,' answered Ken, shaking his head. 'We shouldn't have a dog's chance of reaching it.'

'Well, something's got to happen pretty soon,' answered Roy, ducking, as a sh.e.l.l burst almost overhead. 'Something's got to happen, or there won't be enough of us left to hold this blessed dug-out.'

'Things don't look healthy, and that's a fact,' allowed Ken. 'Our only chance is to get some guns to work. And that's just what we haven't got.'

'And can't get, either, until that path up the cliff is finished.'

At that moment a sh.e.l.l pitched full into the next traverse, blowing its two occupants to fragments, and scattering their torn remains far and wide.

'That's poor old Carroll,' growled Roy. 'The swine! How I'd like to get back on 'em!'

Ken did not reply. The horror of it had made him feel quite sick.

At that moment the firing burst out more hotly than ever. It seemed as if every gun and rifle in the enemy's hands spoke at once.

'What's up now?' muttered Roy.

Ken gave a sharp exclamation, and pointed upwards. Looking up, Roy saw a big bi-plane soaring high overhead. It looked like a silver bird as it skimmed across the rich blue of the afternoon sky.

'Hurrah, a plane at last!' said Ken joyfully. 'That means business. She's spotting for the s.h.i.+ps,' he explained. 'You'll see something pretty soon, you chaps, or hear it anyhow.'

All around the plane, the air was full of the white puffs of bursting shrapnel, but the dainty man-bird flirted through them unscathed. The eager Australians, all staring skywards, saw her bank steeply, and at the same time a long white streak shot downwards from her, like a ribbon unrolling in mid air. Then she had turned and was going seawards again at a terrific speed.

'Now look out!' cried Ken, and almost as the words left his lips the battles.h.i.+ps outside let loose.

A score of 6-inch guns spoke out at once with a ringing clamour which absolutely drowned all other sounds, and their great 100-pound sh.e.l.ls came hurtling inland with a series of long-drawn shrieks.

'Look! Look!' cried Ken again, as great fountains of earth and gravel spurted from the side of a hill a mile and a half away to the left. That's plastering them. Now we're getting a little of our own back.'

There was no doubt about it. The German guns shut up like a knife, but whether they were actually hit or merely silenced, it was, of course, impossible to say.

For twenty solid minutes the grim battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers poured forth their storm of sh.e.l.ls, until the whole hill-side where the German guns had been posted gaped with brown craters. Then they ceased, and the saucy aeroplane came buzzing inland again to observe and report upon the damage done.

What its extent was the Colonials could not, of course, know, but at any rate the enfilading guns remained silent and the worst danger was at an end.

'That's saved our bacon,' said Ken, with a sigh of relief. 'We'll get a little rest now, perhaps.'

'Maybe ye will, and maybe ye won't,' said Sergeant O'Brien, who came past at that moment and overheard Ken's words. 'But if ye want forty winks, bhoys, now's your time to s.n.a.t.c.h 'em. There'll be mighty little slape this night for any of us.'

'Why so, sergeant?' asked Dave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: '”Hurrah, a plane at last!” said Ken.']

'Because so soon as ever it's dark we'll have the Turks buzzing round us like bees. And the s.h.i.+ps can't help us then, remember,' he added significantly.