e to go any
farther."

'Unless,' he added thoughtfully, 'we are going to swim for it.'

'A bit far for that,' said Ken. 'We are just thirteen miles from the mouth
of the Straits, and though they say the current runs down at four miles an
hour, I don't think either of us could stand three hours in the water.'

'Not me!' replied Roy with a shiver. 'Too jolly cold!'

'We must get hold of a boat,' said Ken with decision. 'That's our only
chance.'

'Lead on, sonny,' said Roy--'that is, if you know where to find one.'

'I haven't much more notion than you, Roy. But there's just this in our
favour--that I know there's a little cove south of Kilid Bahr. And as all
the coast on either side is cliffs, the chances are that boats, if there
are any, will be lying in that cove.'

'So will half the Turkish Army, most probably,' said Roy recklessly. 'Not
that I care. The only thing I mind is handcuffs. I'm going to slay the
first chap who suggests them.'

Ken was not listening. He was staring out towards the Straits, trying to
get the lie of the land. The coast itself he knew well, for he had been up
and down the Dardanelles a number of times. But of the land he was
ignorant, and it is no joke to find one's way by night over such a country
as the Gallipoli Peninsula.

'Come on, then,' he said presently, and turned due south down the
hill-side.

Not a yard of their journey had been without its risks, but now they had
to be more careful than ever. The whole shore of the Straits was, they
knew, a network of forts and hidden defences. There was no saying when
they might blunder upon something of the kind.

Half-way down the hill, Ken, who was leading, pulled up.

'Look out!' he muttered. 'There's a pit of some sort just in front of us.
Wait, I'll see what it is.'

He dropped on hands and knees and crawled forward. He was away for only a
few moments.

'Nothing but a shell hole,' he explained, 'but it's a regular crater. Must
have been done by one of our twelve-inch guns. Two dead Turks alongside
it.'

'Rum place for a shell to fall,' Roy answered, straining his eyes through
the gloom.

'It means there's a fort somewhere near,' said Ken. 'Our people don't
waste shells on empty hill-sides, I can tell you.'

'Wish it wasn't so infernally dark,' growled Roy.

'I'm jolly glad it is,' answered Ken emphatically. 'Put it any way you
like, it helps us more than the enemy.'

They saw nothing of the fort, if there was one, and