Left to themselves, the two boys sought a place where they could make
themselves comfortable. The camp stools looked inviting, but cautious
Jack shook his head when Amos proposed occupying them.
“I think we can find a safer place than that,” he remarked. “Just as
like as not some Turkish spies have had a look-in at this camp, and
marked the position of the General’s headquarters. If they have any
guns along they’ll be apt to hurl a few shells around here, and it
wouldn’t pay us to take the chances.”
“Whew! I never thought of that,” admitted Amos, always ready to agree
with his chum.
Wandering around the almost deserted camp, they presently selected a
location where they might see something of what was going on. They
could easily understand that the position taken by the Territorials
had been made as impregnable as the conditions allowed. No doubt
there were trenches and barricades behind which the troops could work
their many rapid-fire guns, and their repeating rifles as well. Being
born marksmen, they would take frightful toll of the Turks when they
advanced to the attack in their customary solid formations, urged on
by German officers, who from the rear would threaten to sabre or shoot
anyone daring to turn back.
All seemed silent save for the sound of the sea fretting along the
shore. Amos could hardly believe that right then and there hundreds
upon hundreds of Allied troops were getting in position to man the
defences of the camp; and that some thousands of ferocious Mussulman
fighters were creeping along not so very far away with the avowed
intention of rushing the works after the manner of reckless fighters,
careless of their lives.
Amos had not forgotten the main reason for his being there in the camp
of the gallant New Zealanders. As he sat there and glanced this way
and that, trying to make things out in the uncertain light, he was
wondering just where the little level plateau lay from which the bold
aviator took his flights, and landed again after he had sufficiently
harassed the enemy.
It surely was somewhere close by, for unless well within the lines he
could never have come and gone with safety. A thousand thoughts were
racing through the agitated mind of Amos Turner, though the main theme
lay in his fervent hope that here at last he might meet the brother for
whom he had been searching so long.
He believed he would know the best or the worst by the time day dawned
once more. If Frank was there they must inevitably meet; the General
had promised to do anything that lay in his power to help. If again
doomed to disappointment the shock would prove most cruel.
Amos and Jack occasionally exchanged a few sentences, but for the most
part they lay there on the ground, simply waiting to see what would
happen.
An hour, perhaps two of them, had passed since the boys reached camp.
Indeed, Amos had actually dozed several times, so that he was utterly
unable to keep track of time. He scanned the heavens and believed it
must be getting well on toward midnight. Would the Turks attack soon,
or had they for some reason given up the plan? Amos even wondered
whether the General might not believe they had been mistaken in their
warning, and accordingly act less cordially toward the boys.
It was while he was ruefully contemplating some such dire possibility
as this that the first shot was fired some little distance away.
Instantly a transformation that was certainly wonderful took place.
Several searchlights flashed into being, and criss-crossed in a hasty
manner as the manipulators sought to show up the advancing enemy.
“They’ve got everything fixed, you see!” Jack exclaimed, as both of
them jumped to their feet in their eagerness to see all they could.
Loud shouts were now heard. They evidently sprang from the advancing
Turks, filled with fanatical zeal, and determined to sweep everything
before them, as they had undoubtedly been assured by their German
officers could be easily done.
Amos held his breath. He knew what was bound to follow, and the thought
of the hail storm of missiles that would presently be hurled upon the
attacking party filled him with dismay; for he had seen the terrible
results of such work at close quarters before then, and would never
forget it as long as he lived.
That first shot must have been fired by some advanced vidette, who,
satisfied with having thus given the alarm, had hastily retreated along
lines previously laid out for his guidance.
You have often heard the sudden, sharp crash of thunder immediately
after a most brilliant flash of lightning--well, to Jack’s mind that
was about what the sudden discharge of a gun close by sounded like, it
came with such startling abruptness.
Immediately afterwards other sounds chimed in--the whirring rattle
of quick-firers, the volleys of those in the trenches, and the
stentorious shouts of the excited men from the other side of the world
who were filled with the enthusiasm of battle.
The advancing Turks also made themselves heard, for they shouted at the
top of their voices, even as red Indians had been wont to whoop when
attacking some log cabin in an Ohio clearing, or a wagon-train on its
way across the plains.
The clamor grew in volume. The Turks were firing as they came on,
though those they sought to slay were doubly screened both by darkness
and the barricades behind which they stood or crouched, each man acting
mostly on his own initiative. The searchlights were destined to turn
the scales of battle against the charging Turks, Jack imagined. Those
powerful streams of light playing along the enemy’s lines betrayed
their every move, and afforded the Allies a splendid opportunity to
spray their columns with the fluid of death that leaped from the
muzzles of those quick-firers.
Nor was this all.
In the midst of the terrible noise there came a dull boom from out on
the water. Some battleship must be there in the darkness, possibly the
same one that had so lately destroyed the hidden battery on the shore
below. The men aboard knew to a fraction just what the distance was,
and that brilliant light showed them where to land a shell.
Jack heard a peculiar sound that may have been caused by the passage of
the monster shell overhead. Then came one of those terrible shocks, and
they could see the flash as the explosion took place.
It struck him as nothing short of miraculous how those experts aboard
the battleship could drop their shells exactly where they chose, with
darkness around them; but that was just what happened, for the monster
exploded in the very midst of the charging Turks, and must have created
a panic among those who survived.
Having seen some of the craters dug by the shells hurled from the
famous forty-two-centimetre guns of the Germans along the fighting
line in Belgium and France, Jack could easily imagine what a pit had
followed the crash, swallowing scores of the Turks. But the dismay
among the attacking troops was but momentary. They had been primed for
a victory, and were not to be cheated so easily. Once more they were
coming on, a surging mob, with the rain from the pulsating quick-firers
cutting swathes through their ranks.
If you have ever watched a farmer swinging his scythe, or the mowing
machine pushing through the wheat or oats, you can have a pretty good
idea of how men fall in windrows when a bevy of those modern guns are
in action. Those who manipulate them constantly change the position of
the weapons so that the discharge might be compared to the result when
anyone handles a hose to sprinkle the lawn or the family garden. Some
have even likened it to the machine for whitewashing or painting great
buildings like those erected for Expositions; only instead of the pure
white the result of this spraying is _red_.
Both Amos and Jack stood there watching most anxiously. Those shouts
were so insistent, and the clamor so dreadful that they could be
easily pardoned for feeling more or less nervousness. If, after all,
the Turks swept irresistibly forward and carried the trenches of the
Territorials, what the result might be no one could more than guess.
Both lads felt that they had much at stake in the success or failure of
the valiant defence being put up by the men from the eastern seas. They
tried their best to gauge the rise or fall of the tide of battle from
the awful sounds that came to their ears; but it was all such a mixture
of shouts, jumbled orders, cries of pain or savage triumph, that this
was found to be impossible.
Again the battleship off the coast sent another shell ashore. This
landed in the rear of the Turks, for they were now so close to the
trenches that the British naval gunners did not dare take the chances
of harming their own allies. The effect of the bursting shell was bound
to dampen the enthusiasm of the already despairing Turks, Jack felt
confident, and that counted for something.
Listening he presently decided in his own mind that the ferocious cries
of the assailants seemed somewhat subdued. This might spring from the
fact that so many had already gone down under that merciless spraying
process. It was also possible that those who were left had become
disheartened, and were by degrees giving it up.
When this suspicion grew stronger in his mind, Jack felt a thrill of
relief. Then, after all, it was not going to be a massacre of the
Kiwis; they were not to be thrown into the sea, as the Turks had openly
boasted they would do when they got ready to attend to their case. In
fact, the shoe seemed on the other foot.
Losses would have been incurred by the Territorials, to be sure, for
they had been subjected to a hot fire at close quarters, besides
having many of the onrushing Turks meet them in a bayonet charge; but
the trenches had been held against all opposition. Doubtless, too,
the enemy had received a severe lesson from this rough handling.
They would be more careful after this night how they attacked the men
from New Zealand. If ever they tried to rush those trenches again, it
must be in overwhelming numbers, so that they might carry their point
through the sheer exhaustion of the defenders.
“It’s all over but the shouting, I guess, Jack!” cried Amos, when
the noise began to rapidly subside, though the terrible searchlights
continued to flash back and forth, picking out small detachments of
the retreating Turks upon whom the exultant gunners could turn their
“hoppers,” as some of them called the rapid-fire guns.
“And the camp is saved in the bargain, though we have still to find out
at what cost,” replied Jack, himself greatly pleased with the handy
fashion in which these fighting units of Territorials had carried
themselves under fire.
Although they could hardly expect another attack that night, still
one of those searchlights would undoubtedly be kept busy covering the
ground above. Meanwhile the wounded must be looked after, for there
were many casualties on the side of the Allies, the Turks fighting for
the trenches until many of them were literally thrown out on the point
of the bayonet.
“Here’s where we can make ourselves useful again, Amos,” suggested
Jack. Although greatly wearied after all they had gone through with
since dawn, the boys could not rest easy when there was need of their
services.
Accordingly they sought out the first officer they could find, and
asked to be assigned the task of helping to bring in the wounded,
stating that they had only too willingly shouldered their share of
the burden in the other camp, after the glorious fight by which the
Australians had extended their holding on the shore. And, of course,
the officer gladly gave them permission to use a stretcher, for as most
of the troops were still holding the trenches there was need of all the
help they could secure.