On top of the grenade three burly Turks came leaping out of the pit and fell on Ken and Dave.

Ken just managed to get out his pistol in time, and his first shot finished the leader of the three Turks.  But a second man came at him with a clubbed musket, and Ken only saved his skull by a rapid duck.

‘Dog!’ roared his assailant, as he made another savage swing.

Ken leaped away, and the Turk overbalanced himself with the force of his blow.  Before he could recover Ken’s heavy revolver barrel crashed upon his skull and felled him like a log.

Ken glanced across at Dave, and saw him kneeling on the chest of the third Turk, his long fingers gripping the man’s throat.  Just beyond, Roy, recovering slowly from the stunning effect of his own bomb, was scrambling dazedly to his feet.

Farther off, he heard the sound of running feet.  It was clear that the sound of the two explosions had aroused the suspicions of some supporting party.  Reinforcements were coming up at the double.

If the gun was to be put out of service this would have to be done quickly.  Without a moment’s delay he sprang over into the pit.

The place was a regular shambles.  Ken was amazed at the ruin wrought by the one small bomb.  Three men lay dead in the bottom.  One had his head almost blown off.  Fortunately, perhaps, Ken had no time to dwell on such horrors.  With all possible speed he got the remaining bomb out, and with a handkerchief tied it to the breech of the quick-firer.

Then he lighted the fuse, and waiting only long enough to see that it was burning properly, made a wild leap out of the pit.

‘It’s all right.  I’ve fixed the gun.  Come on, you chaps,’ he said sharply to the others.

The words were hardly out of his mouth before a flash of flame rose from the pit and the loud report of the last bomb sent the echoes flying along the cliffs.  Fragments of the broken gun shot high into the air, the pieces falling in every direction.

‘That’s done the trick,’ said Dave gleefully.

’Don’t talk.  Come on.  There’s a big party of Turks coming up.  Are you game to run, Horan?’

’You bet.  I’m all right now.  But those bombs are oners.  I never reckoned such a small thing would make such a dust up.  Gosh, it nearly blinded me, and my head still rings like a bell.’

Ken did not answer.  All his energies were needed to steer a course through the scrub which covered the steep hill-side.  The morning mist lay thick and clammy.  It was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to miss the way back to the trench, and either go over the steep edge to the beach or get in among the enemy snipers to the left.

‘Look out!’ cried Roy Horan suddenly, and as he spoke four men rose up out of the thick scrub right in their path.  And one of them was a German officer, the very same whom they had encountered twenty minutes earlier.