The Fight for Constantinople Part 3

"We'll prise it up, sir," exclaimed a petty officer. "The men can then wriggle underneath."

"Won't do," objected the Sub firmly. "It will have to be removed."

Two men advanced with slabs of gun-cotton, but again d.i.c.k demurred.

"No explosives to be used in the demolition of obstructions," he ordered. "They must be kept for the enemy's guns. We don't want to alarm the of the landing-party. Bend a rope there, and half a dozen of you clap on for all you're worth."

A rope was speedily forthcoming. The stalwart bluejackets, digging their heels into the sloping ground, tugged heroically. The stout wire sagged, quivered, and resisted their efforts.

The Sub realized that the obstruction must be removed. Although it was possible to crawl underneath, as the petty officer had suggested, it would never do to leave a trap like that between the fort the sh.o.r.e.

In the event of an ambuscade and a retirement to the boats, delay in negotiating the entanglements might spell disaster.

Another half a dozen men a.s.sisted their comrades. Still the wire, now at a terrific tension, showed no of being wrenched from its hold.

"All together--heave!"

With a burly "Heave-ho" the dozen bluejackets made a fresh effort.

Balked, they gave a tremendous jerk. Something had to go, but it was not the wire. The rope parted with a crack, and twelve seamen were struggling in a confused heap on the steep hillside, while little Sefton, caught by the human avalanche, found himself head over heels in a particularly aggressive thorn-bush.

"Work round to the right there, and see what the infernal wire is made fast to!" ordered the Sub impatiently. "Look alive there, or the others will be at the top before us."

Four or five men hastened to carry out his commands. The work was of a difficult nature, for on either side of the rugged path by which the party had ascended thus far the ground was precipitous and thickly dotted with bushes.

Figuratively hanging on by their eyebrows the seamen worked along, following the course of the aggressive wire, till they were lost to sight beyond a fantastically shaped boulder.

Suddenly one of the men reappeared.

"Here's a blessed 12-pounder, sir," he announced. "What are we to do with it?"

Followed by Mids.h.i.+pman Sefton, who in the excitement caused by this latest discovery had lost all interest in the painful operation of extracting thorns from various remote portions of his anatomy, Crosthwaite hastened to the spot with as much haste as the nature of the ground would permit. The rest of the men, with the exception of those detailed to carry the explosives, also scrambled over the intervening ground.

A ghastly sight met their gaze. Beyond the boulder, and screened from seaward by a partly-burnt cl.u.s.ter of brushwood, was a field-piece. One wheel of the carriage had been smashed. The other was held only by a few spokes, while the muzzle of the weapon was buried deep in the ground. Coiled round the chase and jammed between the trunnion and the carriage was the end of the barbed wire. The gun was splattered with the yellow deposit from the explosion of a British lyddite sh.e.l.l, while all around lay the mangled bodies of the Turkish artillerymen. Five yards to the rear of the damaged weapon were the scanty remains of a limber. The same sh.e.l.l that had wrought the destruction of the gun and the men who served it, had completely exploded the ammunition.

"Smash the breech mechanism!" ordered d.i.c.k.

Two of the armourer's crew sprang to the gun for the purpose of breaking the interrupted screw-thread that locks the breech-block in the gun. Their efforts were in vain, for the explosion of the sh.e.l.l had rendered the breech-block incapable of being moved.

A fresh rope was speedily forthcoming. Its bight was placed under the heel of the 12-pounder, and by the united efforts of the seamen the heavy weapon was up-ended and toppled over the slope. Cras.h.i.+ng through the brushwood, it rolled and bounded for quite a hundred feet, then with a resounding splash disappeared underneath the waters of the Dardanelles. The remains of the carriage were then hurled over, but, held up by the barbed wire that had caused so much fruitless effort, the ma.s.s of shattered steel effected a twofold purpose in its fall. It swept the cliff path clear of brushwood and brought the barbed wire into a position that it no longer formed an obstruction.

"This way up, men!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, pointing to a fairly broad and easy path in the rear of the gun emplacement. The Turks had conducted their defence with considerable cunning, for midway between the fort and the sh.o.r.e they had, by great exertion and ingenuity, placed several field-guns in well-sheltered spots, hoping that while the fire of the Allies was directed upon the visible batteries, their light pieces could with comparative impunity deliver a galling fire upon the mine-sweepers and the covering torpedo-boat destroyers. Unfortunately for the enemy the far-reaching effect of the heavy sh.e.l.ls had resulted in the silencing of the concealed weapons, the men serving them being for the most part slain at their posts. A few had attempted to escape, but before they got beyond the danger zone they too were wiped out by the death-dealing lyddite.

The path d.i.c.k had indicated was the one by which the field-pieces had been lowered from the higher ground. It was obstructed in several places by craters torn by the explosion of the British sh.e.l.ls, but these afforded no difficulty to the bluejackets.

Wellnigh breathless with their exertions, they reached the fort only to find, to their chagrin, that they had been forestalled by their friendly rivals, for the British flag floated proudly on the captured position.

So devastating had been the fire from the s.h.i.+ps that the fort was little better than a shattered heap of brickwork and masonry.

Armour-plated s.h.i.+elds had been rent like paper, guns of immense size been dismounted and hurled aside like straws. Bodies of the devoted Ottoman garrison lay in heaps. Everything was smothered with a yellowish hue from the deadly lyddite and melanite. Yet several of the huge 80-ton guns were seemingly serviceable. These had to be rendered totally useless by means of slabs of gun-cotton placed well within the muzzle and fired electrically.

Sub-lieutenant Crosthwaite was studiously engaged in making a rough plan of the fort when Sefton, his soot-grimed face red with excitement, approached him.

"I believe I've found a magazine or something, sir," he exclaimed.

"It's a funny sort of shop--like a tunnel. There are half a dozen Turks there----"

"Eh?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed d.i.c.k incredulously.

"Dead as door-nails," Sefton hastened to explain. "They look as if they had been suffocated. But the air's pure enough down there now."

Placing his notebook in his pocket, the Sub walked with Sefton across the littered open s.p.a.ce in the centre of the fort till they came to a salient angle that faced the northern or landward side. Here the rubble rose to a height of about twenty feet. In places the wall, composed of armour-plate and concrete, had been riven from top to bottom, huge slabs of masonry being held up only by mutual support. On the top of the debris were half a dozen bluejackets, taking advantage of the daylight that still remained in flag-wagging a message to one of the destroyers.

"Here's the show," announced Sefton, pointing to a narrow pa.s.sage between two immense artificial boulders.

At one time the opening had been much wider, and had been provided with stone steps, but the irresistible shock had contracted the pa.s.sage, and had buried most of the steps under a heap of rubble.

"We want a lantern for the job," observed d.i.c.k. "How did you manage to see? You ought not to have gone on an exploring expedition without someone accompanying you."

"I've brought my electric torch," said the mids.h.i.+pman, studiously ignoring the latter portion of the Sub's remarks.

Unnoticed by the signalling party, the two young officers descended.

For twenty yards they had to exercise considerable effort in order to negotiate the bulging sides, but beyond this the pa.s.sage opened to a width of nearly six feet.

"Mind where you tread," cautioned Sefton, flas.h.i.+ng his lamp on the ground. "They are not dangerous, but it isn't pleasant."

Either lying on the stone floor or propped up in a sitting position against the wall were the bodies of several Turkish infantrymen. Most of them were tunicless, while half a dozen 100-pounder sh.e.l.ls lying on the ground showed that these men were engaged in bringing ammunition from the magazine when death in the form of lyddite fumes overtook them. There were no visible marks of wounds, so it was fairly safe to conclude that no sh.e.l.l had burst within the tunnel. Further, it showed that somewhere underneath the ruined fort was a still intact store of projectiles which would have to be rendered useless to the Turks before the demolition party returned to their s.h.i.+p.

"Didn't those fellows give you a turn?" enquired d.i.c.k.

"A bit at first," admitted the mids.h.i.+pman. "Then when I realized that if they had meant mischief they would have plugged me long before I saw them, I began to think something was wrong with them--and there was."

For nearly a hundred feet the pa.s.sage zigzagged. With the exception of the dip near the main entrance the floor was almost level. At intervals were niches covered with steel slabs. The place had been electrically lighted, but owing to the destruction of the power-house the lamps were extinguished. Sefton's surmise was correct. It was a magazine, for the peculiar pattern of the electric bulbs in their double gla.s.s coverings told d.i.c.k the reason for the precaution.

"This is as far as I have been," announced Sefton, pointing to a heavy canvas screen.

"Then we had better both go carefully," added d.i.c.k, drawing his revolver, an example that the mids.h.i.+pman eagerly hastened to follow.

"Don't go letting rip, mind, without you want to blow the whole crowd of us to pieces. Use your revolver as a moral persuader if there should be any of the enemy skulking here."

Telling the mids.h.i.+pman to keep close to the wall, and to hold the torch at arm's-length with the rays directed into the unexplored part of the tunnel, d.i.c.k pulled aside the curtain, half-expecting to find himself confronted by a dozen more or less intimidated ammunition-bearers.

The place was deserted.

"We'll carry on," said the Sub. "By Jove, what a big show! Absolutely sh.e.l.l-proof, I should imagine."

"I can only just hear the row outside," added the mids.h.i.+pman, as the m.u.f.fled reports of the guncotton explosions showed that the demolition party were doing their work thoroughly.

The magazine was a vault hewn out of the solid rock. It had evidently been in existence for some years, certainly before the modernizing of the fortifications. The ammunition stowed here consisted of sh.e.l.ls for the smaller quick-firers, as the absence of tram-lines for conveying the projectiles that were too heavy to man-handle proved.

"Krupp ammunition," reported Sefton, flas.h.i.+ng his torch upon the base of one of the bra.s.s cylinders. "My word, when our fellows bust that lot up, won't the Turks feel a bit sick!"

"We'll get the men to bring the firing-charges as soon as possible,"