"We're past them both," the Sub said, chuckling quietly, shaking his huge fist at them, and guffawing loudly as he watched first one and then the other switching on and then switching off--out would shoot one light from shore--bang would go a gun--off switched the light--darkness--the other light would try--and disappear again. "Peeping Tom's" crew were even more flustered than "Squinting Susan's"; they hardly waited to be fired on before switching off.
"Bet Bubbles is nearly choking himself," the Sub said, "and Uncle Podger making funny remarks."
"They're 'court-martialling' the China Doll in the gun-room," the Orphan told him.
The picket-boat was now steaming in darkness, made more intense by the glare, two miles ahead of her, of "Glaring Gertrude's" huge beam. This light, by a lucky chance that night, never seemed to leave the white salt-heaps on the opposite shore.
"We're right on top of the mines now, sonny. Feeling gay?"
"Ra--ther!" answered the Orphan, the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach entirely forgotten.
"Worth a guinea a minute! My jumping Jimmy, it is!" the Sub kept saying to himself. "Starboard a little! That's the ticket. Keep her as you go. We're nearly past the mines now."
Presently the Orphan could see a dark line to starboard--perhaps a thousand yards away--and knew that this was the low-lying ground which swept along to the right of Yeni Kali fort, the land from which the guns had fired on the trawlers last Saturday.
If only "Glaring Gertrude" would stay where she was and amuse herself counting the salt-heaps all would be well. Once or twice she swept away from them, and the Orphan caught his breath lest she would swing right round on the picket-boat; but every time, just at the critical moment, back she would go to see if the salt-heaps were still there.
The picket-boat throbbed along; hardly any smoke was coming out of her funnel, and only very seldom a spark; old Fletcher might be a humbug, as Jarvis said, but he _could_ stoke.
Then the Sub pointed out, right ahead, the square dark shape of Yeni Kali itself, its upper edge--broken and jagged where shells had crumbled it--silhouetted against "Glaring Gertrude's" beam.
"They're working it from somewhere in the fort itself," he said, speaking very quietly, "and the fort gives us a shadow. Splendid!"