There was a dreadful silence aboard the battleship following the explosion of that Turkish shell. Both the boys had been knocked down by the concussion. They sat up, looking rather stupid, and Amos was rubbing the back of his head as though it had come in for a smart blow when it struck the metal deck.
Jack looked him over anxiously.
“Not hurt, I hope, Amos?” he exclaimed, when he could find his breath.
“Er—I guess only a bump or so,” stammered the other, trying to smile, although the effort was a dismal failure because it made his head hurt. “Say, that was a peach of a crack, wasn’t it? They got our range that time all right, seems like, and more may follow that shell.”
“They’ve changed the course of the ship, I think,” said Jack, “for the purpose of blocking
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 that very game. I wonder how much damage it did aboard?”
“I’m almost afraid to find out,” Amos admitted, “because some of the poor fellows may be lying around terribly hurt, or else blown into bits.”
Gaining their feet they pushed in the direction of the spot where the shell had burst. It was forward on the port side, and from this fact they knew the missile must have come from a battery or fort on Gallipoli and not the Asiatic side of the straits.
Despite the fact that there was nothing but the best of steel to be struck by the monster shell, so powerful was the explosive contained in the same that much material damage had been effected. Luckily few of the crew chanced to be within reach of the explosion. Three men received minor wounds, no one was killed, and the damage, the boys quickly learned, was not likely to interfere in the least with the work laid out for the Thunderer on that morning.
“If one of those big things ever burst close to
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 a fellow,” Amos commented as he examined the effect of the gunfire, “it would be all day with him.”
“One thing sure,” Jack added, “he would never know what hurt him. It would be like being struck by lightning; they say the victim sees a flash, and that is the end of it. He never lives long enough to hear the thunder, even when it comes hot on the heels of the lightning.”
The boys were greatly interested in the humble and dangerous though necessary work of the numerous mine-sweepers. Glory there was none for the brave-hearted men aboard the small boats that kept stubbornly at their labor, despite the fire to which they were frequently subjected. Now and then one might be hit and go down, whereupon the crew of a few men must take their chances with the sharks known to infest those waters when there was so much fighting going on.
“They are heroes, every one of them,” Amos declared, when they talked of the remarkable courage shown by the men aboard these small
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 craft. “Just as much as the fellow who does some striking deed in the spotlight, and is rewarded by the Nation’s praise, as well as the Victoria Cross. But they never expect to be known, and are content to just go on and do their work the best way they can see, content if success crowns their efforts.”
“Yes, and right now, Amos, while we’re talking about the risks they run, if you look at that sweeper over near the shore you’ll see she’s sinking.”
“You’re right, Jack; she must have been struck by a shot of some kind from one of those concealed shore batteries. These Turks are pretty clever about hiding their guns, and suddenly making a killing. The meanest patch of brush may shelter three or four guns that even the aviators above fail to see.”
“I think the commanders on the warships dread those hidden batteries more than they do the big guns at Kilid Bahr or Chanak up in the Narrows,” Jack went on to say.
“Then they ought to do something to find out
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 where they are located, I should think,” was the opinion expressed by his comrade.
“The mine-sweepers are helping to do that, for it seems the gunners lying hidden among the gullies ashore find it hard to resist smashing one when they get an opportunity. And that, you know, Amos, shows the watchers on the warships just where to send some of their big shells.”
All this while the busy birdmen were circling the battle field, and constantly seeking to impart important information which, from their lofty eyrie, they were enabled to collect.
“They can see a thousand things from up there, you know,” Jack was saying presently when they watched one of the airmen dropping little bombs that made a great smoke, but which were intended simply as signals to the fleet.
“Yes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they could watch the movements of a submarine far below the surface of the water. I really wonder why aeroplanes haven’t been used to follow and destroy some of the German submersibles that have commenced preying on British commerce.”
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“Perhaps they have, for all we can say,” Jack told him. “I know from experiments that when you’re fifty feet above a shallow body of water you can, in calm weather, see the bottom everywhere. That’s how the fish-hawk picks out the prize it wants for its dinner.”
Their exchange of remarks had to be frequently interrupted, for there were violent bursts of cannonading that rendered conversation next to impossible. Many of the British and French warships were now inside the strait, and doing their utmost to silence the enemy batteries.
This was not all by any means. From other positions many miles away came the heaviest of booming. The boys understood that this marked the presence of the super-dreadnaught Queen Elizabeth, which from a station out in the open sea could drop enormous shells from her sixteen-inch guns on the Turkish forts in the Narrows, doing great damage.
After the time when Jack and his cousin had the privilege of witnessing that battle in the straits the conditions changed radically.
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 Thanks to those same floating mines that sank a number of vessels, the f............