Part 30 (1/2)

The 'Maid of Sker' was the ordinary type of North Sea trawler, and so far as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the 'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of the mines which were plentifully strewn in the channel.

'Caught one, you say?' whispered Ken in Gill's ear. 'A mine, you mean?'

'Ay. Look at the cable. She's foul of it all right.'

Certainly the cable was sagging in a curious fas.h.i.+on.

'What do you do with them?' asked Roy.

But Gill had already run aft to a.s.sist. Low-voiced orders were heard, and the 'Maid of Sker' began to forge slowly ahead.

'I think they're going to tow it out of the channel,' Ken said to Roy.

'That's what I believe they do.'

'But I thought the beastly things exploded when you touched 'em,' said Roy.

'Some do. That's the sort with steel whiskers on them. The others are what they call tilting mines. They blow up when their balance is upset.'

'And which is this?'

'I don't know any more than you, and I don't suppose the skipper does, either. All these mines swim some way under the surface.'

'What's the betting on her going off?' said the irrepressible Roy.

'She won't,' said Ken confidently. 'These chaps know how to handle her.

She--'

He stopped short, and involuntarily flung up his hands before his eyes. A cone of blinding white light had sprouted suddenly from the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, and in its cold brilliance the outlines of the two trawlers, the people on their decks, the cable towing between them, and a wide patch of rippling water stood out as clearly as in the broadest daylight. It was a searchlight from Kephez Point at the southern angle of Sari Siglar Bay.

'Haul up there. Haul on that cable. Sharp now!' bellowed Captain Grimball, and his men sprang to obey. He himself dashed into the little deckhouse and was out again in an instant with a rifle in his hand.

In the dazzling glare a great bulbous ma.s.s of dark-coloured metal heaved slowly up out of the water midway between the two trawlers. It was hardly in sight before Grimball had flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

Followed instantly an explosion so terrific that Ken distinctly felt the deck of the trawler lift under his feet. A cloud of thick black smoke shot high into the air, and as it rose a very waterspout descended upon the little s.h.i.+p.

Roy and Ken staggered back, half deafened by the appalling concussion.

'Got that one, anyway,' they heard Grimball exclaim, as he dashed back to the bridge and rang the engine bell for full steam. 'Got him all right.

Next question is whether the blighters will get us.'

Both trawlers seemed actuated by the same impulse. Both at the same time surged ahead, while the sweeping cable was either cut or cast loose.

But the searchlight's brilliant beam followed relentlessly, and as the two smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of a heavy sh.e.l.l.

'Rotten shot!' snapped Grimball, as the sh.e.l.l, sailing well over the mast top, plunged into the sea two hundred yards or more beyond.

'Hard aport!' he shouted, and the 'Maid' came spinning round almost as smartly as a sailing dinghy. Next minute she and her consort were legging it southwards at the very top of their speed.