The whaler, too, followed suit, and, before the Turks realized the fact, both boats were sheltered from the hostile fire.
The Sub now steered the cutter parallel with the line of low cliffs and at a distance of about three boats' lengths from their base. At intervals the two craft had to edge outwards in order to avoid the jagged reefs that jutted out from the precipitous cliffs; yet progressing slowly, for the men at the oars were either wounded or well-nigh exhausted, the cutter, followed by the whaler, crept towards the open sea. And still no sign of the steamboat that was supposed to be standing by to cover their movements.
Suddenly Webb spotted something ahead that filled him with vague apprehension. He stood upright in order to verify his suspicions. There was no mistake: stretched right across the narrowest part of the entrance was a formidable barrier composed of wire hawsers supported on floating iron-spiked balks of timber.
The obstruction had not been there when the boats entered the land-locked estuary. It was a device planned under the supervision of German officers, and was simple in its design and operation. The balks had been bunched together close on shore. From the outermost one a flexible steel hawser crossed the entrance and was secured to a powerful capstan on the opposite bank. With no strain upon it the hawser lay on the bottom of the creek, and the navigable channel was clear. Directly the cutter and the whaler had passed over the hawser a strain was taken on it, with the result that the balks of timber were hauled into position, forming a "boom" too strong to be severed by the "way" of a rowing boat, too buoyant to be pushed under water to allow a craft to pass above, and with too great a strain on the connecting hawser to permit a boat to force her way underneath. It was like being in a bottle with the neck tightly corked.
"What do you make of it?" shouted Tom to the Sub in charge of the whaler.
"A tough job," replied Haynes. "D'you think that there's a live wire attached to that contraption?"
"I'll soon find out, old son," rejoined Webb. There was no time to be lost, for the Turks, realizing that the boats were temporarily sheltered, would almost certainly rush a couple of machine-guns to the summit of the cliff. At close range, for the boats were now within twenty yards of the shore, the British landing party would be at the mercy of the enemy.