lessly, and
began to drift downstream.

'That's finished it,' groaned Roy.

Again the destroyer's gun roared, and the deckhouse melted in a shower of
splinters. Ken, struck on the leg by one of them, toppled over helplessly.
His leg felt numb, he could not move. There was nothing for it now but to
await the inevitable end.

Crash! Vaguely Ken realised that this was a heavier gun than the
12-pounders of the destroyer. He heard a shell roar overhead, then from
the destroyer, now no more than a hundred yards away, rose a blinding
flash.

'Hurrah!' he heard Roy shout, but the reason he could not imagine. He made
a desperate effort to struggle up, felt the blood gush hot from his wound.
His head spun, he fell back and knew no more.

Coming back to consciousness after being knocked out is always a slow and
painful business. The first thing that Ken's muddled brain took in was the
surprising fact that he was lying in a real bed between beautifully clean
sheets.

He had not been in such a bed for more than six months, and he could not
understand it at all.

Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked up at a whitewashed ceiling. Through
a window opposite the sun was shining and a warm breeze blowing.

'I suppose I'm dreaming,' he said at last, and was surprised to hear how
weak and husky his voice seemed.

Some one rose quickly from a chair beside the bed.

'My dear lad,' came his father's voice.

Ken stared at him.

'Is it real?' he asked vaguely. 'Where am I?'

'Absolutely genuine, my boy,' answered Captain Carrington, smiling. 'You
are in hospital in Lemnos, and here you've been for two days. We began to
think you were never coming round again.'

'I'm sorry I frightened you,' said Ken, 'but I wish you'd tell me how I
got here. I had a sort of impression that I ought to be at the bottom of
the Dardanelles.'

'The marvel is that we were not all there,' answered his father gravely.
'It was the cruiser "Carnelian" that saved us at the very last moment by
putting a six-inch shell into the Turkish destroyer.'

'But how on earth did she come to be there, right up the Straits?' Ken
asked amazedly.

'That was Strang's doing. The good chap sent a wireless asking them to
look out for us.'

'Jove, that was smart of him,' Ken said smilingly. 'But Roy, dad? Is Roy
all right?'

'Quite right. He has rejoined his regiment.'

Ken's face fell.

'What about me, dad? Don't say I shan't be able to do the same.'

'There is