At first the British and French aeroplanes had their home at Tenedos;

and if they rested, slid down on the open ground close to Helles

lighthouse, flighting back to their island before dark to spend the

night. That, too, was always "pretty to watch", as Uncle Podger would

have said.

Then the bombardments of Achi Baba and Krithia, on the days that the

troops attacked, gave him intense enjoyment; and sometimes, though not

often, the China Doll, from his post up aloft in the main-top, could

see, through the forbidden range-finder, little groups of khaki figures

darting about among the scrub and the ravines which intersected that

plain, though he could never be sure whether they were British or Turks.

But what excited him most, and kept him in some quiet corner for hours,

holding on to the rigging or a stanchion, stretching his head out in the

dark, and hardly daring to breathe, were the night attacks by the Turks.

The noise of them would wake him, and up on to the after shelter deck he

would slip, in his ragged pyjamas, and watch the glare of the

field-guns, the bursts of shrapnel-flame, the bright star-shells as they

sunk in graceful curves of dazzling white light, and would listen to the

rattle of the musketry and the Maxims, and the fierce barking of the

guns--especially of the French "75's".

On one of these nights Mr. Meredith found his funny little figure

squeezed up against the rails, close to the life-buoy.

"Hullo, youngster!" he said cheerfully. "Would you like to be right in

among it all--there on shore?"

"No, sir! I mean yes, sir! No, sir!"

"Which do you mean?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir. It sounds so awful."

"Well, you'd better turn in. They're packing up for the night now."

And so the China Doll would patter down the ladder in his bare feet,

listen for a moment at the top of the hatchway to make sure that they

had stopped fighting, and then go back to the dark half-deck and his

hammock, and lie listening until he could not keep awake any longer.

In the picket-boat and steam pinnace the Orphan, the Hun, and Rawlins

(who first relieved one and then the other) had never, all that first

week or ten days, six hours' consecutive sleep.

Steamboats! Why! fifty more would have found plenty to do; and of those

which were actually available, so many were constantly in the Sub's

hands being repaired, or back on board their own ships being repaired,

that those remaining were running practically day and night

continuously. The Hun's pinnace smashed in her stem and stove in her

bows against a trawler on the Thursday, and that laid her up for two

whole days whilst she was being patched. On one of these two days he

took charge of a boat whose midshipman had been killed by a stray bullet

at another beach--"X" beach--round the corner, and on the second he and

the Orphan kept "watch and watch" in the picket-boat. For all practical

purposes their only chance of a rest was when their boats ran short of

coal and water and had to go back to the _Achates_. The job of filling

up with water and coal often took half an hour--time enough to get some

food, sometimes even a bath; more often, all they wanted was sleep.

Occasionally they had a stroke of luck after getting back to the ship,

and might be told that they would not be wanted for an hour, perhaps

longer. Then the Orphan, Rawlins, or the Hun--whoever it was who had

such luck--would coil up on a cushion in the gun-room and sleep, or lie

down on the Sub's bunk--if he was not there--which was more peaceful.

More often than not, something would happen: an urgent signal would come

from somewhere or other, to take a Staff officer "off" from "W" beach to

the _Arcadia_--the General Head-quarters Staff ship---or to tow inshore

a lighter full of stores, urgently needed--bombs, barbed wire, empty

sandbags, whatever it might be; his boat might be the only one

available, and away he would have to go.

This used to happen day and night, for during those first ten days there

was no relaxation of effort whatever, all the twenty-four hours round

the clock.

Very often the Orphan had to take his boat alongside hospital ships, and

several times it happened that men climbed down their tall, white sides

and asked for a passage ashore. One of these, on one occasion, was a

stretcher-bearer of the Worcesters, an old soldier evidently. The air,

just about this time, was full of rumours of Turkish atrocities, and

these caused much anger until they were contradicted--as they generally

were--although the contradictions never went the rounds as did the

original rumours. The Orphan had just heard one particular story,

vouched for, of four English--evidently prisoners--having been found

burnt to death in Sedd-el-Bahr castle. So, thinking this man might know

something about it, he asked him.

"Know about them? I should think I did; all nonsense, that story. They

were burnt right enough--I saw them myself--but so was the wooden

storehouse the Turks had put them in. Everything was burnt, and there

was the base of a 6-inch lyddite shell lying close by them; one of our

ships' shells which had set the place on fire during the bombardment."

He told him of his own experiences. "Why, sir," he said, "twice the

Worcesters have had to fall back a bit at night, and leave wounded

behind; and at daybreak we got back the ground again and found them all

right, though we never expected they would be alive. 'We thought to

find you scuppered,' we told them--at first, that was; not afterwards.

I remember one--the Sergeant-Major of my company. We found him in the

morning, and we asked him how he'd managed to keep clear of the Turks.

'Keep clear of 'em,' he says; 'keep clear of 'em! why, they crept up

after you'd fallen back, found me in the dark, and gave me water; pulled

me along behind some cover--your firing being so hot--and covered me

with a blanket.'"

"Then haven't you seen anything wrong?" the Orphan asked.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that; there's a young chap in there"--and

he pointed to the hospital ship--"what has some thirty-five bayonet

wounds--just pricks--in him. They caught him in a trench and did handle

him pretty rough, till he pretended to be dead; then they left him.

He'll be up and about in ten days' time. Then I saw two of those

Senegalese chaps see 'blue murder' one day; but what can you expect?"

"Are our fellows playing the game?" the Orphan asked.

"You don't know Bert Smith, he's in my section. Well, he and I was

carrying a wounded Turk in our stretcher, he taking the head, and me

going along in front with his feet, and I notices that he starts

a-jerking his end up and down pretty violent, so I says to him: 'Here,

Bert, what are you a-doing of? you'll hurt the poor blighter!' and he up

and says: 'Poor blighter be darned; he's only a blooming Turk!'"

"What did you do?" asked the Orphan, smiling at the man's so very

transparent earnestness.

"I just told him that, Turk or no Turk, he was a-fighting for his home

and country, and it wasn't for us to say he was doing wrong--us who was

trying to drive him out of it--and to go a-hurting of him."

"He carried him proper like after that, but of course, sir, you don't

know Bert Smith; he's a fair 'card'."

The Orphan, noticing that he had a blood-stained bandage round his neck,

asked him what he had been doing aboard the hospital ship.

"They sent me off," the man said indignantly. "Just had a bit of a

clip--went in in front--came out at the back--under the skin--nothing.

I stayed aboard there a little, and then, when the doctors were too busy

to notice, I skipped into the first boat that would take me ashore, and

am off back again. I can do all the doctoring I wants, and they're

getting pretty short of chaps like me up there," and he jerked his thumb

Krithia way.

During these days the Orphan allowed a good many men to scramble down

from the hospital ships into his picket-boat--men slightly wounded, and

who wanted to go back to their regiments. Many of these were

Australians and New Zealanders, a brigade of whom had been brought round

from Anzac, and had suffered extremely heavy losses in a most gallant

but unsuccessful endeavour to capture Krithia.

He often had to take his picket-boat into "W" beach when shells were

dropping on it or into the water close by; and these were times when he

had to pull himself together, so that Jarvis and the crew should not

know that he hated it; especially did he dislike the buzzing noise which

just gave him sufficient warning to make him wonder where _that_ shell

was going to hit. He also had an extremely narrow escape one day when

he was taking a General and his Staff officers to "V" beach. As he

approached the _River Clyde_ he saw that some big shells were dropping

close to her, and just before he reached her, swish--sh--sh came along

the noise of one and it flopped into the sea just ahead, fortunately

without bursting. It heaved the bows of his boat right clear of the

water, and the splash that fell over them fell on the deck, the General,

and on his Staff officers. The Orphan's breath came very fast then; but

he could not help laughing as he saw Plunky Bill, who'd been standing in

the bows with his boat-hook all ready for going alongside the _River

Clyde_, turn a complete somersault and disappear, head first, down the

little hatch there. It was such a relief to have something to laugh at.

One day he was sent to the French flagship--she was probably the

_Suffren_--with a note to the French Admiral, and had to wait on her

quarter-deck for an answer. The Admiral brought it up himself; a dapper

little man he was--all springs--and when he saw the Orphan standing

stiffly to attention, he darted across, laid both his thin, aristocratic

hands on his shoulders, gave him a friendly, encouraging shake, and

talked French to him, the only words the Orphan was able to understand

and remember being: "Ah, mon petit brave! mon pauvre petit garcon!"

On the way back with the answer he told Jarvis about this. "He called

me lots of things, and he called me 'his poor little boy'--rather cheek,

wasn't it?" In fact, the Orphan rather thought that his dignity had

been hurt.

"A funny old bird, that 'ere Gay Pratty, sir," Jarvis said. "D'you know

Porter--'Frenchy' Porter, they calls him now--that 'ere leading

signalman what comed from the _Swiftsure_? 'E was lent to that 'ere

French ship for the 18th March--when the _Bouvet_ and _Ocean_ and

_Irresistible_ were 'outed'. 'E tells me that that 'ere little ladylike

gen'l'man was on the bridge all the time, a 'opping about like a

bloomin' sparrow, and wouldn't go down in the conning-tower nohow. They

had shells all over 'em and all round 'em, and Frenchy Porter couldn't

'elp ducking 'is 'ead. Just as a big one come sloshing along--right

over the bridge, it seemed--an' Frenchy 'ad ducked--that 'ere little

box-of-tricks comes up to 'im, a-smiling and as jaunty as you please,

and says to 'im, a-jerkin' 'is arms and 'is 'ands: 'When the noise come,

you duck your 'ead--but then she 'as gone--you are too late'--it ain't

no bloomin' use, or words to that heffect. A great, little gen'l'man,

that be, sir."

After hearing this story, the Orphan was jolly glad the Admiral _had_

spoken to him.

During the days whilst the piers were being built, the weather was

magnificent and the sea quite calm. It never blew at all until the 3rd

May, when a breeze got up from the north-east and swept clouds of sand

off the ridge above "W" beach--a regular sandstorm, which hid it from

the view of the ships for several hours. This fact is very good proof

of the enormous amount of trampling which had converted the green ridge

and gully into a waste of dry sand in only nine days. The wind

increased all the night of the 3rd May, and blew quite hard on the 4th;

and though "W" beach gave a "lee", a very unpleasant swell swept round

the end of the Peninsula, and made the going alongside the pontoon and

trestle pier very tricky work. Lighters empty and lighters loaded broke

adrift, and the Orphan had the job of rescuing several; and in doing so

knocked his picket-boat about a good deal, and stove a hole in her side,

abreast the engine-room, which made it absolutely necessary for her to

be hoisted in and patched. The Commander cursed him for his

carelessness, and made the poor Orphan miserable until Captain

Macfarlane happened to see him. "A day off to-day, Mr. Orpen?" he

asked, with a twinkle in his eye, for he knew what had happened.

"I knocked a hole in the picket-boat, sir," the Orphan answered

gloomily.

"Only one?" the Captain said, tugging at his yellow, pointed beard.

"Only one? Why, when I was a midshipman---- Oh! Here comes the

Admiral! I have not time to tell you what I could do in those days in

the way of breaking up boats. Come to my cabin and have tea with me in

half an hour." The Orphan felt a different "man" after that.

He took the opportunity of his boat being inboard to give her a coat of

paint, which hardly had time to dry before she was hoisted out and back

again in the water.

Now all this time the Orphan had scarcely set foot on shore, because

whenever he took his picket-boat alongside one or other of the piers at

"W" beach, there was so much risk of her being damaged that he dare not

leave her. He was as wild and harum-scarum a young officer as could be

met with, when not in his beloved picket-boat; but once he took charge

of her he never forgot that he _was_ in charge of her, and responsible

for her safety; and this not because he feared the Commander's sharp

tongue or the displeasure of Captain Macfarlane, but from a very firm

sense of duty, which he would probably have most indignantly denied if

told that that was the reason.

"Hang it all!" he often said, when Bubbles tempted him "to just leave

your old boat and come along and see our dug-out"; "but, old Bubbles, I

can't, that's all, I'd love to, but I can't."

However, virtue was rewarded, for when the _Achates_ became "bombarding"

ship, he and his picket-boat were placed under the orders of the

Beach-master at "W" beach. Nothing could have given him greater

pleasure. Whenever she was not actually required for duty, and could

safely anchor off the beach, he lived ashore with Bubbles and the

Lamp-post, and shared their tent, or their "dug-out" if they were being

shelled. He had a splendid time: the best time of the three of them,

for he was away in his boat most of the day, so escaped nearly all the

heavy shells and the abominable pestilential flies; had every other

night "in"--often two or three "running"--and could wrap himself up in

his blanket and sleep splendidly, outside the tent and under the open

sky, with his picket-boat safely anchored a hundred yards off the beach,

with Jarvis in charge of her.

Probably of all the Honourable Mess, the Orphan enjoyed himself the most

thoroughly.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*The Army comes to a Standstill*

On the day after the landing--the Monday--the French troops who had been

disembarked on the Asiatic shore and had captured 500 prisoners were

re-embarked, and the whole of the French Expeditionary Force commenced

to land on "V" beach, where the poor old _River Clyde_ lay, aground,

under the castle.

On Tuesday the whole Allied forces advanced for two miles along the

plain towards the white village of Krithia and the high ridge of Achi

Baba, which barred their way. They met with very little resistance.

On the Wednesday a further advance was made; but at the end of the day

the Turks counter-attacked so fiercely that it became necessary for our

troops to dig themselves in, when they were yet a mile from the village.

The Allied army was now "up against" the position which the Turks had so

carefully prepared with all the ingenuity and skill their German

instructors had taught them, and, for all practical purposes, no real

further impression was made on this position during the remainder of

"The Great Adventure".

It was on the Tuesday afternoon that Bubbles and the Lamp-post first

came under shrapnel-fire. They had obtained leave, for half an hour, to

climb up the ridge above "W" beach, and watch the progress of the

advance in the plain below them; and whilst there, the Turks began

bursting shrapnel above and all around it. This they took all as part

of the game, and were rather pleased than otherwise when one shell,

bursting not very far above and in front of them, scattered bullets in

the ground close by.

Bubbles burst out with a loud guffaw of enjoyment, and would have

remained standing where he was--on the sky-line; but the Lamp-post, who

had a very old head on his young shoulders, made him take cover in the

Turkish trench there--a trench which our Sappers had already begun to

deepen.

"It's no use for us to be knocked out," he said; "and it's a rotten kind

of bravery not to take cover when you aren't doing anyone any good by

making a target of yourself."

It was on that afternoon that Captain Macfarlane, coming ashore to

stretch his long legs and to see how things were going with the beach

party, happened to find Bubbles and the Lamp-post. The Beach-master's

servant had just made them a cup of tea, so they, rather nervously,

asked him if he would have one. Of course he would; so they sent the

little man away to borrow the Pink Rat's enamelled mug. The Captain had

just walked back from the lighthouse, and along the trench up which the

midshipmen had carried those boxes of ammunition on the Sunday night.

He had heard of this, and was speaking about it when the servant came

back. Frightened out of his life he was, the miserable-looking little

man, to wait upon so important an officer as Captain Macfarlane. The

sight of a strange naval Captain simply terrified him, and made him

quite incoherent.

"He helped us," they said. "He took up two by himself, and then helped

with another. He was jolly plucky, sir!"

"You must have found them very heavy, didn't you?" the Captain said

kindly. "It was a very plucky thing to do, under those conditions.

What is your name? I must remember it."

But the little man looked more frightened than ever, dropped the cup he

was carrying, opened his mouth, couldn't speak a word, and simply fled.

Captain Macfarlane smiled and pulled his beard. "A strange thing is

courage," he said. "It comes at times to the most unlikely people. You

can't legislate for it. Now, that little chap probably deserves the

D.C.M.[#], if anybody does; and if he had it he would very likely suffer

agonies all his life, dreading lest he should have to 'live up to it'."

[#] D.C.M. = Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Before he went away, the Captain advised them to dig "dug-outs" for

themselves.

"But the shrapnel hardly comes as far as the ridge," they said; "and

they tried to reach the beach this morning from the Asiatic side and

couldn't. We saw the shells falling three or four hundred yards

short--four of them. Nothing but a few bullets come near here."

"Young gentlemen,"--he smiled, with that kindly, humorous expression of

his--"the Turks will bring up more guns in a few days, mark my word, and

probably advance those they have. When they do, it won't be only

shrapnel and small stuff, so you had better be ready."

But they thought this rather useless waste of time; they didn't mind

what came--or thought they didn't--and besides, the soldiers would

capture Achi Baba in a few days, and then no Turkish guns could reach

them.

"We _shall_ capture that hill in a day or two, shan't we, sir?" they

asked; but he only smiled his inscrutable smile, and added: "Young

gentlemen, take my advice."

He took them round to select a spot, but nowhere within the limits which

the Navy had pegged out as its camp was the ground anywhere steep enough

to dig a cave, which, as he told them, "was of course the best of all."

He tugged at his beard and smiled again as he looked at a very suitable

place just to the left and below the Naval Camp boundary. "Well, you

will have to do your best--where you are: the Navy cannot poach, can

it?--not on these occasions."

So that very night, whenever they had any time to spare, they began to

dig a hole for themselves in the gentle slope on the left of the gully,

just behind where the naval mess-tent was eventually put up. Spades

were plentiful, and they thought it great fun, although they were rather

shy of being the first to do this. However, everyone followed their

example--in fact the Beach-master ordered some form of protection to be

dug for everyone.

They scooped a place away about four feet wide, and by digging

downwards, and nibbling, and broadening it, they soon had a "funk-hole"

where all three of them could squeeze uncomfortably. They did try, by

undermining the slope, to get some protection overhead; but the slope

was too gentle for this to be a success, and the top kept falling in,

especially if someone happened to walk near it. No timber was as yet

available, so their "dug-out" had really no cover at all, but was simply

a deep furrow, deeper at one end than the other.

Though they did this at first for fun, and because Captain Macfarlane

had advised them to do it, they were very glad they had taken his advice

when, a few days later, the Turks did advance their field-guns and

peppered the ridge, the gully leading to it, and "W" beach itself very

liberally, not only with shrapnel, but also with common shell. Few of

these common shell burst, and when they did, seldom hurt anyone; but no

one, however brave or however small, can stand in a place which is being

shelled, without feeling that he is the biggest thing there--for miles

round--or the most conspicuous person, however many others are round

him. The casualties from this first day of thoughtful and thorough

shelling were very slight, considering the crowded state of the area,

and the men's principal anxiety was to obtain fragments of shells or

intact unexploded ones, digging those out before they had time to get

cool. However, the competition in making "dug-outs" certainly became

much more keen afterwards.

Neither the periods of being shelled nor the making of "dug-outs" was

allowed to interfere with the work of the beach parties.

Those men who happened to be off duty crawled into their "funk-holes",

but the others went on working; and of course, as most of them were

employed below the cliffs, they really were not--as were the soldiers'

working-parties stacking stores on the slopes--exposed the whole of the

time.

In those first four days an enormous amount of work was done; mountains

of stores were piled on either side of the gully, mules and horses in

hundreds were landed, guns and their limbers--18-pounders, long

60-pounders, heavy guns and squat 6-inch howitzers--water carts,

transport carts, and ambulance wagons. Hundreds of light two-wheeled

carts were brought ashore, in readiness to follow the Army when the

advance, which was fated never to take place, commenced; and by the end

of the first week the slope between the ridge and the cliff, from the

end of the Peninsula to Cape Helles lighthouse, was one orderly mass of

mule and horse lines, transport "parks" and stores, and the ground which

had been so covered with grass and scrubby bushes had been worn bare, as

barren as the beach and the cliffs themselves.

Until the fifth day the beach parties had lived in the open, but on that

day several marquees and tents were brought ashore and pitched for them.

Quite a cosy little collection of white tents they made, at the bottom

of the left-hand slope of the gully.

On the Thursday and Friday very little happened. The Army was digging

itself in a mile and a half from Krithia, and about three miles from the

ridge over "W" beach; practically all guns had been landed; the whole of

the Royal Naval Division and other reinforcements had disembarked; and

several thousand wounded had been safely sent on board the hospital

ships, and transports used as hospital carriers.

On the Saturday night the Turks, at about ten o'clock, commenced a

desperate effort, first to pierce our lines (which they did,

momentarily, but only momentarily), and afterwards to drive the French

into the sea.

The Lamp-post had a night "in" that night; and when the noise of firing

woke him, was comfortably snuggled in a corner of the mess marquee,

rolled in his blanket. The crackling of rifle-firing broke out on the

left at first, and grew so fierce and incessant that he realized this

was something quite different to anything he had heard before.

That counter-attack on the first Sunday, when he and Bubbles had helped

to take up ammunition, was as nothing compared to it, and had not made

him feel nervous--or perhaps anxious is a better word--as this did. He

then had had something to do; but now, after a very hard day's work, and

two spells of being shelled, he had nothing to do but lie there and

listen to the really appalling din of musketry, field-guns, and the roar

of the two 60-pounders on the end of the Peninsula, above him, which,

every time they fired, lighted up the inside of the marquee and shook

the ground beneath him.

As he lay, undecided as to whether or no he should get up and see what

was happening, the intensity of the firing grew, until it reached such a

pitch of frenzy that he felt certain that this must be the prelude to

hand-to-hand fighting. He could not help but feel nervous. He was not

blessed with a dull imagination, and he could not prevent himself

picturing what was happening beyond the ridge, and what _would_ happen

if the Turks drove in our thin lines and forced them back to the sea

below. He worked himself into such a state of nerves that at last, when

the French "75's" broke into rapid firing--one continuous screech--he

could stand it no longer, pulled on his boots, and went outside the

marquee. Out over the Straits the sea was all a glitter of transports'

lights as usual, and the row of "flares" along the beach lighted up the

beach parties unloading boats, and the working parties wearily carrying

stores towards the two flares which marked the depots on the slopes of

the gully--all went on just as usual. But horse teams with their

limbers were coming down from the ridge, past him, towards the

ammunition depots, at the bottom of the gully--coming down at an

unaccustomed speed; and he heard their drivers shouting impatiently for

their limbers to be filled.

He ran to one of these, who had swung round his limber and was now

trying to calm the big horse he was sitting--the "near leader" of the

team.

"What's going on?" the Lamp-post asked.

"They've broken through the 86th," the man told him; "came on without

firing a shot--the beggars!" But the midshipman could get nothing more

out of him.

"I don't know nothing more. Curse this darned horse! Keep still, can't

you? My job's to get more of the stuff up to the guns. I don't know

nothink. Chuck it, yer blighted fools! Ain't yer been long enough

together? Cawn't yer smell who you've got next yer?"

The two horses were nosing each other, one trying to bite, and both

fretting.

"They ain't worked together afore," he said, as the Lamp-post, who loved

horses, separated their heads and rubbed their noses soothingly. "I 'ad

to get a fresh 'off leader' this morning; the other was killed just

t'other side of that 'ere ridge--shrapnel summat cruel there, all

day--cawn't move a team but bang bursts a shrapnel--and they've been

bursting shrapnel now, all along the road we've just come and have to go

back by--curse them! This darned fool brute--chuck it, you

blighter!"--as the horse he was sitting slyly bit the neck of the new

"off leader", who sidled and trembled--"'e cawn't abide a stranger.

'Ere, stop that kicking! 'Old yer 'eads up, cawn't yer?"

He jerked the two horses apart as the two "wheelers" behind them began

to plunge, and their driver to curse as he steadied them.

"'Struth! Ain't they fair cautions? Almost 'uman," growled the

Lamp-post's friend.

Someone in the rear of the limber banged down the limber covers and

shouted: "Right away, Bob!"

"Stand clear! Get up, you brutes!" and the drivers cracked their whips;

but the wheels of the limber had stuck in the sand, and the four horses,

excited and plunging, and not pulling together, could not move them.

"Clap on, you chaps! Give us a start!" shouted the drivers; and the

Lamp-post and some more men hauled on the spokes of the wheels; the

whips cracked, and this time the horses moved the limber, and away it

went, jolting up the gully, on its way back with more shells for its

battery, somewhere in the valley.

The Lamp-post followed it up the ridge, and there, for two hours and

more, he watched the battle in the dark, hundreds of men standing near

him. Compared to that Sunday night fight, the noise was as the inside

of a boiler-shop, with work in full swing, to the noise of a country

blacksmith's forge; and the sight of it like a Crystal Palace firework

night, to the five or six shillings' worth of squibs and rockets he and

his brothers used to have at home on the 5th November.

He had read of the famous French "75's", but he had thought the

descriptions probably more picturesque than real. Now, as he listened

to their extraordinarily determined voices, they seemed so

self-confident, so absolutely sure of themselves, that he no longer

wondered why the French almost worshipped them; and when they started

rapid fire, as they did occasionally, a whole battery, sometimes two

together, he realized that this was the glorious _rafale_ he had heard

so much about.

More empty limbers came toiling up from the valley, unable to go fast

because of the darkness, and only dashing across the area over which

shrapnel were bursting. The drivers of these passed the word, as they

went down the gully, that the Turks had been driven back again, and the

line made good. That was reassuring.

He heard Bubbles laughing and guffawing somewhere near, and found him.

"The Commander let me come along for half an hour. Isn't it a grand

show?"

Whilst they stood there, many tilted wagons passed down into the valley,

their wheels creaking and the mule chains jangling; and as those

60-pounders fired, their glare lighted up the white patches and the red

crosses painted on them.

A regiment (it had only come back from the trenches the previous

afternoon) came up the gully, the men dragging their shuffling feet

through the sand, and voices calling wearily: "Step out, men! Don't go

to sleep, lads! Close up, lads! Pull yourselves together!" The head

of it bent over the ridge and trailed down into the valley, till, like a

long snake, it disappeared in the darkness.

When the half-hour which Bubbles had been allowed was "up", the

Lamp-post went back with him. The Turks had evidently broken

themselves, and their attack was weakening; also, he was dead tired. He

threw himself down in the marquee and slept till daybreak, not even

wakened by a still more furious attack delivered, later on, against the

French flank--an attack which was only repulsed after very heavy losses.

The ambulance wagons came back in the morning crammed; wounded who could

walk, stumbled down to the beach, lay down, and slept; also, a large

batch of Turkish prisoners came along with a grinning escort. That day

there was another general advance, with heavy casualties but little

progress; and on the following night the Turks attacked again, more

impetuously than the night before. This time they threw their whole

weight against the French flank and against the section held by the

Senegalese troops, who had been very severely punished already. These

troops are not suited for defensive night-work, and again they gave way.

The Lamp-post--on duty this time--down on the beach, could be almost

certain that they had given way, by the continuous roar of the

_rafales_, and again he could not help being anxious until news came

that all was well.

These two nights completely cured him of the nervousness which is only

natural for anyone who has had no previous experience; and though there

were countless attacks and counter-attacks in the nights to come, they

never worried him, nor, if he were asleep, was he often wakened when

those 60-pounders "chipped in" and shook the ground under him.

In the early mornings, after these nights, the tired, haggard,

earth-stained "working-parties" came back from the trenches, where they

had been fighting all night, bringing tales of creeping bombing-parties,

of furious rushes right up to their parapets, and of encounters between

their night patrols, helping back the wounded, and perhaps escorting a

few Turkish prisoners. These tales made each night's fighting a little

epic of its own.

To Bubbles, the Lamp-post never confided his ideas or emotions, because

that fat, joyous midshipman looked upon the whole thing as one vast

"spree", with a spice of danger that only added to its attractions.

Each wounded man who was sent off to the ships, he envied his honourable

wound, and the fact that many of them were maimed for life never entered

his mind, nor the tragedy of the women and children dependent on them.

The day after that second big counter-attack, during a bout of shelling

from some field-guns concealed below Achi Baba, a shell came into a

"dug-out" where a petty officer and two men of the beach party were

sitting, and killed all three. After this, more spare time than ever

was spent on deepening these "dug-outs". Then followed two more days of

desperate fighting for the capture of Krithia village, and ghastly,

never-ending streams of wounded came down the gully to the casualty

clearing-station, whose white tents had been pitched above the cliffs,

to the right of it. Our losses were terrific, and our gains practically

nil. As a set-off to the splendid failure of the centre, the Gurkhas

captured a commanding cliff on the left flank--Gurkha Bluff--and under

protection of fire from the _Talbot_ and _Dublin_, dug themselves in so

securely that these gallant little men never let go their hold on it.

The continual strain of those first two weeks was already beginning to

tell on the three snotties--hardly noticeable, perhaps, in the case of

Bubbles, though he was undoubtedly thinner; but the Pink Rat was one

mass of nerves--he jumped if anyone spoke to him suddenly--and he lost

his appetite. The Lamp-post became more silent and thoughtful than

before, and his nerves, too, were very "rocky", but he had such strong

control over himself that no one could have thought that this was so.

Their clothes were stained with good honest dirt, and torn and ragged

from honest hard work. They became such unpresentable scarecrows that

at last the Beach-master suggested that an improvement was desirable.

So they went across to the Ordnance Stores and hunted out the stock

sizes of the soldiers suits in store, which would fit them best. They

also obtained puttees, and after those first ten days or two weeks the

only thing "naval" about them was their caps.

On the 12th May--a most perfect day it was--the three snotties were

sitting outside their tent after lunch, smoking cigarettes, and watching

an aeroplane, circling gracefully above them, looking for a good

landing-place on the cliffs, close to the lighthouse Suddenly a great,

tearing, rending noise seemed to fill all space. Everyone dropped,

automatically, what was in his hand and bent his head; then, looking up,

saw a cloud, black and oily--a hellish-looking balloon of

smoke--suspended in the air above the ridge.

This was the first high-explosive shell which burst near "W" beach.

"Gallipoli Bill"--a stumpy 6-inch howitzer--fired it, and fired many

more that afternoon and again an hour before sunset, some of his shells

bursting on impact, others in the air--all with that rending,

awe-inspiring crash.

There was by this time, on top of the ridge, a broad sandy track, which

must have been most conspicuous from Achi Baba. On each side of it, six

or eight hundred horses and as many mules had been picketted, and those

poor creatures suffered most. The snotties had fled to their dug-out;

the Pink Rat lying flat on his face with his hands over his ears, whilst

the other two peered over the edge, watching where the shells dropped.

They did not--not even Bubbles--want to see them, but the terrible roar

fascinated them, and they were obliged to do so. They would hear the

noise of another approaching, and, three or four seconds later, up would

go a cloud of black smoke and that thunderclap of an explosion--not one

farther away than three hundred yards. "Right among the horses!" the

Lamp-post would say, with a catch in his breath; and when the smoke

drifted clear, there would they see six, a dozen--often more--of these

gallant animals lying dead, or feebly trying to regain their feet

horribly mutilated.

Other shells burst in open spaces, doing no harm; others among the mules

and transport-wagon "parks". After every explosion, men would leave

their "dug-outs" and rush to the place, a couple of stretcher-men would

perhaps dash down from the casualty clearing-station; and then the noise

of another approaching shell would send them scurrying back--scurrying

fast, all of them, except the stretcher-men, who if they had found an

injured man had to bear him slowly and steadily.

One shell, on that first day, fell right among a warren of crowded

"dug-outs", and the Lamp-post turned away his head with a shudder, so as

not to see what would come to view when the smoke cleared away. When he

did turn round--it was so horribly fascinating--he saw men scrambling

from those "dug-outs", jostling each other in the crater just made among

them, shouting and laughing, and squabbling and searching for

"souvenirs".

Farce and tragedy are, thank God! perpetually associated; if they were

not, and only tragedy stared one continually in the face, human brains

could not endure the strain of modern warfare as they do.

Writing of "dug-outs", it did not really make much difference where one

took shelter, for those "funk-holes" gave no protection from a direct

hit, only from sideways-flying splinters and fragments; a hare crouching

on its "form" is no more protected from being trodden under foot than a

man in one of these from the actual shell itself.

All through these periods when high-explosive shells burst on the ridge

and the slopes down to the gully, the empty limbers, water-carts, and

transport wagons would jolt down to the depots, fill up, and go back

again, up the slopes through the area where those shells were falling,

up that broad road between those huddled masses of quivering mules and

horses, just as though nothing unusual was happening.

"Gallipoli Bill" at first fired for half an hour in the middle of the

day, and again for another half an hour before the close of it; but

presently, when he had received a more plentiful supply of ammunition,

often gave an additional "hate" in the forenoon.

The one thing in his favour, as compared to the field-guns, was that

after he had fired his ten or twelve rounds, you knew he would not fire

again for several hours. With the field-guns it was different--their

little shells fell at all hours and all through the day.

To add to the attractiveness of "W" beach--or "Lancashire Landing", as

it was afterwards called--as a health resort, hostile aeroplanes often

dropped bombs there. Nobody attempted to take cover when these

aeroplanes flew past, for the simple reason that no "cover" existed,

except actually underneath the very foot of the cliffs. They had to

carry on their work, wait until they heard the rushing noise of the

bomb, and when the explosion followed, wait for the second one which

almost invariably followed it. Afterwards they knew that this "show"

was concluded, and that "Cuthbert", as they called the aeroplane, would

not drop any more on that trip. "Cuthbert's" average "bag" in three

days would seldom exceed two men wounded and one killed, and perhaps

three or four horses or mules killed, or so much injured that they had

to be shot. Generally, at about seven o'clock in the morning the first

aeroplane would come, on its way to wake the General Head-quarters Staff

aboard the _Arcadia_, anchored close by; and then occasionally in the

evening, when he was off to see if he really couldn't--this time--manage

to flop a bomb on top of the captive balloon or its parent ship.

This last was one of the pleasures of the day, and the Lamp-post and

Bubbles would often sit and watch "Cuthbert" flying towards the big

yellow balloon--flying well above it to keep out of range.

The parent ship would haul the balloon down just as fast as she

could--"to lessen the bump if it was hit", as Bubbles used to gurgle.

Then the Lamp-post, through his glasses, would see first one, then

another bomb drop from the aeroplane; would shout: "He's dropped

one--two!" and in a few seconds, whilst they held their breath and

watched, up would go the splashes these explosions made. Never did they

hit either balloon or parent ship. It really became a perfect farce;

though, as Uncle Podger told them, when one day, coming ashore to pay

the beach party, a small shell had buried itself quite close to him and

his money-bags, and a bomb had dropped and burst not fifty yards away:

"It's all very pretty to watch, but I prefer watching it from the ship."

Directly it became evident that "Gallipoli Bill" had come to stay, all

those horses and mules were brought down and placed in safety beneath

the cliffs, and along ledges which the Turkish prisoners and a large

number of imported Greek labourers cut for them in the face of the

cliffs.

When they were all safely stowed away, the end of the Peninsula

presented a most extraordinary sight, and if only the crippled _Goeben_

could have come out and had half an hour's practice, she would have

killed them all. Magazines also were dug beneath the cliffs, and the

vast stores of small-arm ammunition, shells, charges, bombs, grenades,

and explosives of all sorts were placed out of danger.

Water, or rather the scarcity of it, made life still more unpleasant;

water for drinking was sufficient, but had to be used carefully; the

amount allowed for washing was entirely inadequate. However, whenever

the snotties had the chance, they would scramble along to the rocks

right at the end of the Peninsula, under Cape Tekke, and have a bathe.

Many a grand hour they put in down there, and forgot, for a time, the

discomforts and perils of the day which had passed, or of the days which

were to come.

But now, worse than the bombs, the field-guns' shells, or those roaring,

rending high-explosives, came the flies. A fortnight after the landing

they had been a nuisance; at the end of the third week, bred in the

horse and mule lines, they became an unbearable plague. The food on

one's plate was covered with them, they crawled over it; they crawled

over hands and faces; rest during the day was almost impossible. It was

horrid to see a man asleep, with his lips, nostrils, and eyelids hidden

in a dense mass of them, clinging there and sucking the moisture. At

night, and only at night, was one free from these beastly things, and

then they gathered in countless millions on the upper parts of the

insides of the tents, waiting till the warmth of next day's sun woke

them to start their intolerable persecution.

The mental torture caused by these was infinitely greater than the total

effect of the shells and bombs; worst of all, they brought dysentery.

The Pink Rat was the first one to go down. He had worked hard and well,

but the strain of the shells had, very evidently, upset his nerves; he

had been moody and depressed for some days, and the flies finished him.

He had to be sent on board to Dr. O'Neill, thinner, and more like a rat

than ever. He was quickly followed by six or seven of the men; but

Bubbles and the Lamp-post, though both were affected by a mild form of

dysentery--as was practically everyone--and their hands were covered

with small "chipped-out" bits which would not heal, "stuck it out" until

they, and all who remained of the original beach party, were replaced by

officers and men from the sunken _Ocean_ and _Irresistible_.

The same day on which the Pink Rat left them, the Orphan joined the

little naval camp at the foot of the gully, with its marquees and tents,

and boundaries marked neatly with white-washed stones.

"My aunt! Isn't this splendid?" he said, as Plunky Bill gave him a hand

up the beach with his uniform tin case.

His coming was a great event, just what the other two snotties required

to cheer them up. There was so much to show him, and so much to do when

all three happened to be off duty--the bathes among the rocks at the

foot of Cape Tekke, the 60-pounders above it to show him, the trenches

down in the plain, the trench up which they had carried ammunition, the

big Turkish guns on Hill 138; and one afternoon they all three had time

to walk across to "V" beach, and wander about the neat, orderly French

camp, ingratiate themselves with the sentries to let them pass forbidden

places, and to look over the old castle itself. The Orphan proudly took

them to the "front door", as his friend the Royal Naval Division

Sub-lieutenant had called the great arched entrance, and explained to

them how he had fired at the Turks coming through it, with a maxim, and

started a battle "on his own", pointing to the bows of the _River Clyde_

to show where he and his maxim actually had been.

"You _do_ come in for all the tit-bits; you are a lucky chap!" Bubbles

gurgled excitedly.

The late afternoon was not the most pleasant time to choose for such an

excursion, because "V" beach was seldom "healthy" at that time of day,

and proved to be more than usually "unhealthy" on this particular

occasion, for "Asiatic Annie" plumped fourteen or fifteen big 8-inch

shells among the stores and the camps whilst they were there.

They all took shelter behind a small mountain of corned-meat

packing-cases, in company with a couple of gaily dressed, shiny-black

Senegalese, who were not in the least happy, and a young, equally

gaudily dressed "Foreign Legion" soldier, who was quite happy--a slim,

sunburnt, laughing man in a red fez with a long tassel, a grey-blue

embroidered Zouave jacket, a blue sash, and baggy scarlet trousers. One

shell came very near them, and burst with a terrific crash on the other

side of the packing-cases, blowing in two or three, so that the

meat-tins showed through the cracks, but only covering the three

midshipmen with dust. This was the first high-explosive shell which had

burst near the Orphan, and he did not like it a little bit. Bubbles and

the Lamp-post, who had had more experience of them, liked it still less;

but the Zouave only smiled: "Mon Dieu! le mechant! le misereble!" and

offered them little twisted cigarettes of black tobacco. They were not

in the least miserable when a long pause ensued after one shell, and a

bugle sounded to tell everyone that "Asiatic Annie" had "packed up", and

they were able to leave the protection of their tinned-meat

packing-cases.

On the afternoon when the first German submarine arrived, and sent the

old _Achates_ flying to Mudros in the scurry of transports and

store-ships, they watched her go without any real regrets. The Orphan

and Bubbles certainly preferred to stay where they were; and though,

perhaps, the Lamp-post, at the bottom of his heart, longed to get away

from the flies and shells, they could never get him to admit it.

Then, three days later, the _Triumph_ was sunk--along the coast, off

Anzac--and all the battleships left Cape Helles; all except the old

_Majestic_, who came along and anchored so close to "W" beach that you

could almost throw a stone on board her from the casualty

clearing-station tents on top of the cliffs.

"They won't 'get' her there, not with all those trawlers and little

steamers round her," Bubbles said. But on Friday morning, just as they

were turning to work, and the Orphan was "standing by" in his

picket-boat to "run an errand", they heard a rumbling explosion, looked

round, saw a huge column of water spout up alongside her, close to her

after bridge, and heard and felt another explosion.

"They've got her!" everyone sang out as she began to turn over very

rapidly; and the Orphan, shouting to Plunky Bill to shove off, dashed

towards her to pick up men already jumping from her sloping deck into

the sea. She heeled over so extraordinarily rapidly that the Orphan

never had a chance of going alongside, but stood off, and with other

steamboats, with trawlers, drifters, a French torpedo-boat, and any

number of other boats of all descriptions, made a ring round the doomed

ship, to which her crew swam. The Orphan pushed his boat so close that

he had to back out to prevent her fore mast-head and "wireless" gear

fouling him as it heeled down to the water's edge. It was a horrid and

sad sight; but the Orphan was too busily engaged pulling people out of

the water to pay much attention to that; and when his picket-boat could

hold no more, he turned them over to a small coasting steamer anchored

near, and went back again. By this time she was bottom up.

The sinking of this ship had a most depressing effect on everyone; and

even the casual Orphan and thoughtless Bubbles wondered what "Gallipoli

Bill" would do, now that there was no ship left with guns big enough to

annoy him. However, that elusive howitzer had evidently very little

ammunition to spare--probably one of our "E" submarines in the Sea of

Marmora had sunk a steamer with a supply she was expecting--so six

shells, twice a day, were as much as he could allow himself.

You will notice that no mention is now made of the small shells. They

still fell on "W" beach and in the sea, close to the piers, at all hours

of the day; but unless they came in numbers, no one took any notice of

them. Their fuses were so poor that they seldom burst, and when they

did, they seldom did any harm.

The three midshipmen's time ashore was now drawing to a close, and four

days after the _Majestic_ had been sunk--how they did wish her ram

wouldn't stick out of the water and remind them of her!--a signalman

brought down a signal: "Officers and men of _Achates_ beach party will

embark in Trawler 370 at 11.30 to-day. Trawler will take _Achates_

picket-boat in tow."

It was not until they had embarked, and the Orphan had made "fast" a

hundred feet of rope from his picket-boat to the trawler's stern, that

they learnt that the _Achates_ had been sent to Mytilene, and that they

were to join her there.

They waved good-bye to "W" beach just as "Gallipoli Bill" dropped a big

shell half-way down the gully, and the Lamp-post and Bubbles realized

the relief of not having to wonder where the next one would come.

"Well, we've had a jolly good time--take it all round--but for the

flies," Bubbles said. "It will be a good thing to get back to the ship

for a while."

"Won't we have a bath, and won't it be grand to get into uniform--clean

uniform and under-things again!" said the Lamp-post; and Bubbles

gurgled: "Won't I have a grand feed!" forgetting what the Orphan had

told him of the state of the gun-room stores.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*Submarines Appear*

Down in the gun-room of the _Achates_, during this month after the

landing, the air was full of rumours--buzzes of all sorts and little

"titbits" of information, gleaned haphazard everywhere and anywhere.

Every snotty--the Orphan, the Hun, Rawlins, or any of the "stranger"

midshipmen--who took his boat alongside a transport or man-of-war, or to

one of the piers at "W" or "V" beaches, came back stuffed with yarns

which lost nothing by the telling: the Dublins had lost every officer;

the Worcesters all but two; the Turks were torturing prisoners; there

was a fearful shortage of doctors; the beaches were simply crowded with

wounded, and there was nowhere to put them; Krithia had fallen--the yarn

spread after every attack; the _Prince George_ had a huge hole made in

her by one of "Asiatic Annie's" 8-in shells; the poor old _River Clyde_

would have to be abandoned--she was being hit so often; the _Goeben_ and

two Turkish battleships were just above The Narrows--the aeroplane had

seen them--and they might come down at any moment; the _Agamemnon_ had

knocked out three "Asiatic Annies" in one afternoon; the _Queen

Elizabeth_ had fired three of her big 15-inch shells across the

Peninsula--the first had sunk two big lighters filled with ammunition,

the second had dropped short and only wiped out a regiment on the march,

and the third had sunk a nine-thousand-ton steamer, anchored above

Nagara, crowded with troops, none of whom was saved. The Pimple, who

brought this last piece of news, knew it was true, because the Navigator

had heard it from a man, who had heard it from the friend of a man, who

had been told by the "observing" officer in the captive balloon which

"spotted" for the _Queen Elisabeth_.

Then there was the constant rumour that "last night's counter-attack by

the Turks was just their last final effort; they were going to make

peace now it had failed". Poor old Turks! they had nothing to gain by

being so obstinate, and they had no food and were short of

ammunition--everything; they were simply longing to "throw up the

sponge" if only the Germans would let them.

Russia intended landing five hundred thousand troops quite close to

Constantinople; Italy was about to declare war and send fifty thousand

to help in the Peninsula; the French had a hundred thousand already on

the way; and Kitchener, good old Kitchener, had made up his mind to send

out two hundred thousand. Shan't we walk through them?

Another snotty would burst in with the news that he had heard, on good

authority, that directly all the mines had been swept up, the ships were

to make another dash up The Narrows, this time towing pontoon "things"

alongside them to stop torpedoes. Another heard that all destroyers had

been ordered to rush through one night, steam up the Sea of Marmora, and

bombard Constantinople.

There was no limit to the inventive genius of the "rumour spreaders",

and the appetite for fresh, spicy news became so keen that anybody who

brought back no titbit was thought a "hopeless rotter".

But one day, on the 12th May, Uncle Podger came into the gun-room with a

long face: "Two German submarines have been reported passing Malta," he

said. This yarn was too incredible to be believed by the young warriors

coiled there, on the cushions, in their dirty Condy's-fluid-stained

clothes; and they greeted it with such derisive yells, shouting, "Go

away and make up something else, Fatty!" that Uncle Podger, who did not

appreciate any such familiarity from strangers, did not bother to tell

them that it happened to be the simple truth. This was the first day on

which it became generally known that German submarines were approaching;

and the certain fact caused much consternation to all, especially to

those who had previously buoyed themselves with the hope that these

craft could not make such a long voyage in time of war.

A very general feeling of uneasiness made itself felt.

That same day the first high-explosive to burst on "W" beach had brought

everyone on deck, drawn there by the sound of its mighty thunder-clap;

and sent them down again wondering whether it would be possible to hold

"W" beach under such conditions much longer. The most optimistic looked

grave, and even the cheery, irresponsible Navigator realized that this

was not the occasion to invent yarns and send them rolling.

Discussion in the ward-room that night was carried on fitfully and in

low tones, and whenever the door opened everyone would turn to see if

the newcomer's face showed that he had heard anything "fresh". Among

all brooded a very pervading feeling of depression. The tall,

aristocratic, and also pessimistic Major of Marines explained in a low

voice to the anxious little Padre, sucking nervously at his big pipe,

the terrible anxieties of a General whose army has no secure base and

whose lines of communication--in this special case, the sea--are

threatened; the Navigator, on the other side, pointed out to the

Fleet-Paymaster how impossible it would be for the battleships to stay

where they were, when the submarines did put in an appearance. The

cheery Fleet-Paymaster kept on saying: "But, my dear chap, we've got

plenty of destroyers and trawlers; they ought to keep them away at

night-time, and surely we can look after ourselves in the daylight."

The Fleet-Surgeon, more gloomy and querulous than ever, growled: "What

the dickens d'you know about it? They'll come right enough. We're just

like sheep waiting for the little dog that's coming across the field to

worry them; they pretend they'll stick together and show a bold front,

and know all the time they'll be off like redshanks directly he gets

near. We're rats in a trap, that's what we are." He seemed to obtain

great satisfaction from the last idea.

The Gunnery-Lieutenant, stamping nervously from one end of the ward-room

to the other, joined in all the conversations, and kept on bursting out

with: "We must have a 'go' at that high-explosive chap to-morrow, and

try and knock him out before they come;" they being, of course, the

submarines.

The War Baby--that youngest thing in subalterns of Royal

Marines--sprawled over the ward-room table, with his chin on his fists,

anxiously listening to everybody, hoping to glean something or other

which would point a way out of the difficulties and comfort him. The

Commander, coming down from making certain that the ship had been

darkened properly, snapped out: "I can't get those transports to 'darken

ship'. The Admiral has ordered everything, big or little, not to show a

single light; and there they are, many of them, showing a blaze of

lights as bright as the Strand by night." He rang the bell and sent the

sentry to find Mr. Orpen. Presently that young officer appeared, and

was ordered "to go round every ship in that darned anchorage and make

'em put out their lights--and don't let me catch any of your boat's crew

smoking alongside the ship, as they were this morning, or I'll----" But

the Orphan didn't wait for the penalty to be mentioned, answered "Very

good, sir," exchanged undetected winks with the War Baby, and went out

again.

Everybody turned in, that night, with their thoughts full of submarines.

An hour after midnight the poor old _Goliath_ was struck by three

torpedoes, and sank. She had anchored only that afternoon, up beyond

Sedd-el-Bahr and opposite a promontory known as "De Tott's Battery" to

protect the left flank of the French army and she lay farther up the

Straits and nearer to Chanak Fort--the big fort at the entrance to The

Narrows--than any other ship. Beyond this fort a Turkish destroyer was

known to be lying, just above The Narrows; and to prevent her making a

sortie, four of our destroyers patrolled the waters between Chanak Fort

and De Tott's Battery, dodging a very brilliant search-light on Chanak

Fort which lighted up this area night after night.

Now the previous evening, just before sunset, a heavy and most unusual

bank of fog had rolled slowly out of The Narrows, and made the night so

dark that the look-outs on board the patrolling destroyers and on board

the _Goliath_ could hardly see a cable's length in front of them. It

was just the night that that Turkish destroyer would be waiting for; and

when Chanak search-light was not switched on at all, and the Straits

were shrouded in thick, ominous darkness, the _Goliath's_ people had a

suspicion that "something" would happen, and kept a more ready

watchfulness.

Shortly after one o'clock the "look-outs" on her bridge, and round the

guns on the fore shelter-deck, sighted a dark mass on her starboard bow,

and made it out to be a destroyer, drifting, stern first, with the

current, towards the ship, just as our own patrolling destroyers had

been accustomed to do. They used to steam towards Chanak and its

search-light, stop engines, and drift back with the current which always

flowed down through The Narrows, drift down until they were abreast De

Tott's Battery, and then steam back again.

At first she was thought to be a British destroyer, but something roused

suspicions, the "challenge" was flashed across; she flashed back, but

incorrectly; and, realizing that she was an enemy, orders were given to

open fire on her. Two shots blazed out, but they were too late; she let

fly three torpedoes, one after the other, all of which struck "home";

and in four minutes the _Goliath_ had rolled over, taking down with her

more than five hundred of her officers and men.

Those on deck in the _Achates_ had heard the muffled explosions, and

seen the search-lights from the other battleships above Sedd-el-Bahr

searching the surface of the water there; but not for some time did

anyone know what had really happened--not until a signal flashed across

to say that the _Goliath_ had been sunk, and to ask for steamboats to be

sent to search for survivors.

The Orphan, who had only just returned from his long job of making all

the obstinate transports and other ships "darken ship" properly, was

immediately sent up to the scene of the catastrophe, and the Hun, with

his steam pinnace, followed. They picked up and brought back one dead

body and a mere handful of very much shaken men. As you know, everyone

had turned in that night with "submarines on the brain"; so when Dr.

Gordon went to the Fleet-Surgeon's cabin and woke him with "Get up, turn

out, P.M.O., the _Goliath_ has been sunk, and our boats have gone for

survivors!" you can imagine that the Fleet-Surgeon naturally thought

that a submarine had done this, so was none too happy. "It'll be our

turn next; rats in a trap! My God! I wish I'd never come to sea," he

kept groaning as he slipped into his clothes, found his

swimming-belt,[#] and hurried on deck.

[#] By this time the swimming-collars had been replaced by belts with

greatly increased buoyancy.

The news, when it came at last, that she had been sunk by a destroyer

came almost as a relief, because, in spite of the official signal to the

contrary, everyone hoped, down at the back of his brain, that perhaps a

mistake had been made, and that those submarines reported from Malta

would turn out to be a myth.

In fact, next morning at breakfast, the Torpedo-Lieutenant was quite

bright and cheery. He was a destroyer expert, and always pooh-poohed

submarines as much overrated craft, so now never tired of saying

"Destroyers are some good after all, you see," and seemed to take as

much pride in the success of the Turkish destroyer, as if it had been an

English one which had sunk a Turkish battleship.

Without a doubt, everyone admired the pluck and cunning of this

destroyer and its German crew (it was known afterwards that the crew was

German), however much--or little--the loss of the _Goliath_ affected

him; and, truth to tell, it was not the loss of the ship nor of the men

that affected most people, but the moral effect and the addition to the

general feeling of depression and uneasiness--uneasiness which, it must

be remembered, was not by any means chiefly caused by fear for the

actual safety of the ships and themselves, but by the dread of what

would happen to the Army when left unsupported in its very insecure

position on the Peninsula, with the difficulties of supplying itself

with stores and reinforcements so enormously increased. Those

howitzers, too, might render the position untenable, especially as,

given time, there was no reason why the Turks should not bring up more

and still heavier guns.

Some of the surviving officers lived on board the _Achates_ for a few

days, and slept in hammocks on the half-deck, close to the China Doll.

He will never forget those nights when he turned in--always nervous of

submarines, and with his swimming-belt all ready round his chest, in

case of need--and then had to listen to them relating their gruesome

experiences before and after the old ship rolled over and they had

jumped into the water. They were suffering the after effects of their

shock, and could talk of nothing else all day long, and most of the

night as well.

The China Doll would hear, out of the dark, coming from one of them:

"You remember when that second explosion came--you were standing close

to me--in the battery--the one that shot up that column of water which

cut the cutter in half--you remember--it fell on old Tompkins--it was

old Tompkins, wasn't it?--it crushed him--don't you remember him

howling?--just for a second--and then, not answering when you sung out

to him."

Another voice--a big, gruff one--would "chip in": "I'd just said to the

Gunner, 'That's not one of our destroyers--look at her funnels--you mark

my word--that's not one of ours'--just before we fired that first

shot--it didn't hit--I swear I heard a torpedo fired--the first one--the

one that hit us under the bridge--and I'm certain I heard someone sing

out: 'Gut! sehr gut!'--he must have been a German--he sang it out after

each torpedo hit us."

Another voice out of the darkness, from a hammock close to the China

Doll, broke in with: "My word! she did topple over--I could never have

believed it I was in my cabin--just had time to rush up to the

gangway--the water was pouring over the coaming--couldn't stand on the

quarter-deck--I don't know how I got to the rails--I dragged myself up

somehow, and crawled right round her--oh, my God! the cries inside

her--men who couldn't get out."

The big, gruff voice, which had stopped to listen, interrupted again: "I

got out through a gun-port, crawled along the side--when she turned over

the bilge keel caught me and dragged me under--I never knew how I came

up again--a man close to me--swimming in the water--had his face smashed

in by a plank which shot up from below--I got hold of the plank--it kept

me up till the _Lord Nelson's_ picket-boat found me."

It was not as if these disjointed remarks were made only once, but they

were repeated over and over again; just as if the thoughts they

expressed had been fixed so indelibly in their brains, to the exclusion

of everything else, that when night and darkness came they were again so

vivid that they had to be given utterance to.

The poor China Doll, with his swimming-belt round his chest, would

listen, with hair on end, until he could stand it no longer; then he

would jump out, and run up on deck and wait, perhaps for an hour, until

they were silent. How grateful he was to wake up and see daylight

coming through the gaps in the hatchway awning-cover, and to know that

another night was over! A good many more were as thankful as he was.

Next day the early morning "air" reconnaissance--made by

aeroplane--reported having seen five submarines travelling past Kephez

Point.

"That puts the hat on it," moaned the Fleet-Surgeon when he heard of

them; and everybody marvelled how they had managed to elude the scouting

trawlers and destroyers. But most people felt a sense of relief that

the days of waiting for their coming were now over, and that whatever

was going to happen would do so soon. However, the evening "air

reconnaissance" reported that these five submarines were still there,

but had now turned out to be buoys which we ourselves had moored--so the

grim tension was relieved for a little while.

On that day "Gallipoli Bill" burst very many high-explosive shells on

"W" beach, apparently chiefly out of bravado, to express his glee at the

sinking of the _Goliath_. Next day the _Agamemnon_, the _Swiftsure_,

and the heavy batteries on shore "went" for him, but could not hit him.

The "spotting" aeroplanes did their best to locate him and to direct the

firing; but a dummy gun is so easily put somewhere, where it can be seen

from above, and a real gun can so easily be shifted and hidden, where it

cannot be seen, that quite possibly the ships and the shore batteries

were never firing at the real gun. At any rate, directly they ceased

fire, "Gallipoli Bill" threw half a dozen more shells along the ridge

above "W" beach, and "pulled their legs" pretty thoroughly.

Things went on quietly for the next two or three days, although the

howitzers did a lot of mischief on shore. Rumours came that a trawler

had sighted a periscope off Imbros island, thirteen miles away, and it

seemed definitely ascertained that two submarines had arrived at Smyrna.

On the 18th May the _Achates_ relieved the _Swiftsure_, and from this

date, until driven away by submarines, she became a "bombarding" ship.

She once more ceased to fly a flag; the Admiral left her, taking with

him his two Assistant Clerks; best of all, the devouring host of strange

snotties and their steamboats also departed, and quietness and peace

reigned in the gun-room. But, like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, the

gun-room store was bare--a fact which brought bitter grief to the Pimple

and the China Doll.

There was another submarine scare that night. A trawler fired two

Very's lights, which meant "have sighted a hostile submarine", and

things "hummed" considerably until it turned out that she had mistaken

E11, on her way up the Straits, from Mudros, for an enemy submarine.

Also, during that same night the Turks commenced their desperate

thirty-six-hour attack on Anzac, and for all that period an almost

incessant roar of heavy guns came down wind from there. This attack

ended most disastrously for the enemy, who lost more than three thousand

men killed. The Honourable Mess heard afterwards many yarns of this

fight--yarns of the Turks pressing through gullies against the

Australian and New Zealand trenches, pouring through in dense masses,

shouting "Allah! Allah!" and never ceasing that cry, because they

believed that no bullet would touch them with the sacred name on their

lips, and being shot down in hundreds and hundreds, until, in fact, some

of the Australians, who had clambered on top of their parapets the

better to shoot, refused to shoot any longer. Pressed along by the

masses behind them, the front ranks could not retreat--some, throwing

away their rifles, ran towards the trenches with their hands above their

heads, apparently demented, shouting "Allah! Allah!"

Perhaps they thought that God would give them victory over the "infidel"

with their bare hands; perhaps they wanted to surrender; but none

reached those trenches. In front of one maxim alone, 380 dead were

counted when at last the attacks had melted away, and the Turks had

obtained an armistice to bury their dead.

Now that she was "bombarding" ship, the _Achates_ had the job of looking

after "Gallipoli Bill", and often an aeroplane would fly up to "spot"

for her whilst she tried to knock him out.

Such a day's firing would be arranged and start something like this.

Perhaps Captain Macfarlane had been ashore the afternoon before, to

stretch his long legs, and on coming back to the ship would send for the

Gunnery-Lieutenant. "Oh, look here, I've been ashore this afternoon.

That 6-inch howitzer is bothering everyone a good deal; it dropped one

near me--it may not have known I was there--but I thought it distinctly

rude; the Left Flank Observation Post--I was up there this

afternoon--think they have spotted him--just to the left of that single

tree near the windmills--you know it--the place where those dummy

field-guns used to be; how about having a try for it in the morning?"

"Yes, sir! Certainly, sir! We had better ask for an aeroplane, I

suppose," the very "strict-service" Gunnery-Lieutenant would suggest.

"Certainly! Certainly! Ask them to send a specially nice one this

time, perhaps a white one with blue spots would look pretty."

The Gunnery-Lieutenant, who was absolutely devoid of all sense of

humour, would look up startled, only to see the Captain thoughtfully

tugging at his pointed yellow beard.

"I don't think there are any like that, sir. They have tried various

colours, but none are invisible. I think they have none like that, sir."

"Oh! Very well, we must just take our chance. Perhaps they will send us

one with pretty red, white, and blue rings," the Captain would reply

gravely, without a tremor of an eyelid; and off would go the bewildered

Gunnery-Lieutenant to write out a signal "requesting permission to

bombard Target 159G7", or whatever was the dot on the military map

nearest to "Gallipoli Bill", and wonder whether Captain Macfarlane was

going "off his head". Whilst waiting a reply from the Admiral, he might

run across the Fleet-Surgeon and tell him what the Captain had said. "I

suppose there's nothing the matter with him, Doc.? You don't think the

strain is telling on him?"

"Nothing the matter with him! Of course not," would snap Dr. O'Neill.

"It's yourself, you fool; your silly noddle's so stuffed with wretched

gunnery, you haven't room for a joke. He was pulling your leg."

"But where's the joke about 'white with blue spots'--I've never seen one

like that?" and the Gunnery-Lieutenant would scratch his head.

"Oh! get out of it; you're hopeless!" Dr. O'Neill would growl.

Presently the signal would come that the proposed bombarding had been

approved by the Admiral, who would make arrangements for a "spotting"

aeroplane at ten o'clock.

Thus were details fixed for another attempt to destroy "Bill".

In the morning the Gunnery-Lieutenant waited to see how the current, or

the breeze, or both together, made the ship swing. Perhaps that

especial morning she swung with her stern inshore, so that "X" group of

6-inch guns--the group on the starboard side, aft--bore most easily.

So, after breakfast, the Gunnery-Lieutenant sent for the War Baby--in

charge of these guns--and showed him the exact spot on the map and,

taking him up into the main-top, the special tree close to which "Bill"

had last been seen--the tree on which he had to train his guns.

The aeroplane with its pilot, the "observer" and his wireless apparatus,

started away from the "advanced" aerodrome near Helles lighthouse,

commenced to climb up into the "blue", and, when ready, signalled "Ready

to Commence".

By this time the Gunnery-Lieutenant in the fore-top, the Captain on the

bridge, the War Baby in the sighting hood of X1, and the guns' crews in

X1 and X2 beneath it, just abaft the gun-room, were all ready and

waiting. "Ranging shot at eight--five--o--o, common shell," the

Gunnery-Lieutenant sang down through his voice-pipe; and watched, as X1

fired, away along to the right of Krithia, between the last of the

windmills and that single tree, where he hoped that the aeroplane could

see "Bill", although he could not do so himself. Up went the

cloud-burst, and in perhaps fifty seconds the voice-pipe from the

"wireless" room called "Short 200"--the signal that had just come from

the aeroplane.

Frequently, on these occasions, the enemy "wireless" stations would

"block" the "wireless" signals from the aeroplane, or make "spotting"

signals of their own, to confuse the annoyed Gunnery-Lieutenant. Always

if the aeroplane ventured too near "Bill", the Turks burst shrapnel

round her.

Sights were corrected, and another shot fired; out of the "blue" came

the signal "Right, one hundred and fifty yards". That meant altering

the training or, if the gun was kept on that single tree all the time,

altering the deflection scale on the sight.

And so, for perhaps twenty rounds, firing went on. "Bill", wherever he

was, had never spoken a word; the aeroplane signalled "O.K.", the

interpretation of which being that, as far as she could see, the last

shell had made a direct hit; and presently the Gunnery-Lieutenant, who

generally had the idea that the aeroplane "spotter" didn't know his left

hand from his right, or "overs" from "shorts", and also was as blind as

any bat, thought it was about time to finish, and would climb down and

ask the Captain if he should "pack-up".

The War Baby's guns' crews were then ordered to secure and "sponge out"

their guns, and a searchlight signal was made to the aeroplane that the

firing was finished. Down she would circle to her aerodrome, and if she

had anything exciting to tell, would signal it across from the Naval

Signal Station close at hand.

After such a proceeding it often happened that, almost before the

aeroplane had come down to land, "Bill" would plump three or four

high-explosive shells on "W" beach or in the soldiers' "rest" camp. He

was a facetious fellow, very wanting in tact, and most elusive.

To understand the difficulties of hitting him, you must try and imagine

yourself on the deck of an ordinary steamer, standing somewhere about

twenty feet above the level of the water. The distance of the sea

horizon is then just a little over five miles. If you now imagine that,

instead of a continuous, uninterrupted curved line, the curve of the

horizon is broken up by small gullies and ravines and depressions, in

any one of which "Gallipoli Bill" may be concealed--in fact, _is_

absolutely hidden from you--and all you know is that he is supposed to

be in line with, perhaps, a particular tree which you can see; that up

above, there is an aeroplane quite possibly "spotting" on a dummy gun,

and that only a direct hit will destroy "Bill", you obtain a good idea

of the difficulties of hitting him from where you are--standing in your

steamer.

One day, in order to reduce the range, the _Achates_ anchored in another

billet, off "X" beach, farther along the "outside" coast of the

Peninsula, and had hardly dropped her anchor before a cheeky battery of

4.1-inch guns began dropping their shells all round her. It was

impossible to locate the battery, and there was no option but to shove

off again, out of range. Again, you must bear in mind that the flashes

these guns make when fired are very slight, and quite momentary, also

that dummy flashes were also fired some distance away. The only sure

proof that the actual position of the firing gun had been located was by

observing the cloud of dust blown up from the ground in front of the

gun. The size and density of this depends naturally upon the kind of

ground, and also, of course, a position behind ground thickly covered

with bushes is generally chosen to reduce the dust to a minimum; so

that, at a range of five miles, what dust is thrown up is very, very

seldom visible.

In the course of the campaign many of the Turks' guns were knocked out

by the ships; but every shell must fall somewhere, and if you fire a

sufficient number, sooner or later a lucky one may do the "trick" and

fall on the exact spot required.

But a ship's magazines are not inexhaustible; with very little effort

she could empty them in an hour, and be as useless as a Thames barge

until they were refilled. If there had been an inexhaustible supply in

the ammunition ships at Mudros, and if a ship had made full use of it,

she would have worn out her guns in next to no time; accurate firing

would be impossible, and the ship again practically useless.

Knowing all these things, you should now be able to realize the

extraordinary difficulties of hitting a single gun from ships at those

necessarily long ranges, and be able to understand their comparative

failure to do so.

To return to the submarines. It was on a Saturday, the 22nd May, that

the first German submarine actually made its appearance off the

Peninsula. Just as the Honourable Mess had finished their meagre lunch,

a signalman brought the Sub a signal, just received from the _Triumph_,

at anchor off Anzac. The Sub read it aloud: "Hostile submarine sighted

N.E. of Gaba Tepe".

"Well, it's a good thing to get the show over," the Sub said; and Uncle

Podger remarked that "At any rate it will be pretty to watch." They all

went on deck; and the sight of a long line of transports, store ships,

and hospital ships hurrying across from Anzac to the little protected

harbour of Kephalo, in the island of Imbros, made it certain that they

evidently did not doubt that a submarine had been seen.

"They're in earnest, at any rate; there's a pretty picture for you,"

said Uncle Podger as he watched them, the smoke simply pouring out of

their funnels as they made haste to get out of danger. All ships round

Cape Helles--some forty or fifty ships of all kinds--were ordered to

raise steam, and the _Achates_, shortening in her cable, waited for

whatever would turn up. Close to her lay the _Swiftsure_; and both had

to rely for protection on the keenness of their "look-outs" and the

quickness of their guns' crews, because neither ship had

torpedo-nets--the _Achates_ never possessed any; the _Swiftsure's_ were

lying in a store-house in Bombay Dockyard, where she had left them a

year before war broke out.

Everyone felt sure that "something" would happen shortly, and actually

experienced a sense of relief to at last be faced with the danger which

had so long threatened. Very many took good care--very good care--to

secure their swimming-belts under their tunics, in readiness to blow

them up should the necessity arise.

It was a glorious day, with a very slight "ruffle" on the sea; and, as

Uncle Podger told the nervous China Doll: "My dear chap, you couldn't

want a better day for a swim."

At half-past one the _Prince George_, in a new coat of paint, steamed

under the _Achates'_ stern. She had returned from a twenty-four-hours

"spell" up the Straits, looking after the Asiatic howitzers, and as she

turned slowly into position, to anchor, she suddenly began to blaze away

with her small guns, for'ard, and went full speed ahead. At the same

moment the cruiser _Talbot_, about a mile away, hoisted the signal

"hostile submarine in sight", and fired a blank charge to draw attention

to it. "Close water-tight doors" was piped along the decks; the crew

dashed down below; and the China Doll, trembling with excitement, made

his way for'ard, and saw the splashes of the _Prince George's_ shells

following and bursting all round what looked like the swirl and heave of

water which a big fish would make when swimming just below the surface.

One of the gun's crews near him shouted that he saw a periscope;

another, an obvious liar, swore that he could see the tail rudders.

Two destroyers came dashing down--a smother of black smoke and white

foam--dashing right in among the shell splashes--or so it seemed to the

nervous Assistant Clerk--and then began scurrying round and round in

circles, seeking something to pounce upon.

But the submarine had dived, and, whatever her skipper's intentions

were, she never showed herself again that day.

The _Prince George_ came solemnly back and let go her anchor, like some

half-worn-out old watch-dog who had gone barking round to drive off

intruders and then returned to his kennel door; whilst the _Swiftsure_

started off to join the destroyers in their search.

But then commenced a most extraordinary exodus of shipping from Cape

Helles. Transports and store ships hove up their anchors and started

off on their sixty-mile journey to Mudros to seek safety behind the

submarine net across the entrance. The _Achates_ received orders to

proceed there too, and, you may be sure, was not long getting under way,

steaming on a straight course until a signal came from the Admiral,

"_Achates_ zigzag". The sea from Cape Helles was one long line of

hurrying steamers. Two big "crack" French liners, the _France_ and _La

Provence_, the first of which had only arrived that morning, and had not

yet begun to disembark the four thousand troops on board, lingered at

anchor for nearly an hour. They were such huge ships, and were such

tempting submarine targets, that everyone wondered why they delayed.

Presently, however, they joined in the race for safety, and catching up

the _Achates_, steamed past her as though she had been at anchor.

Was not the China Doll, and many more, too, aboard her, delighted when

the _Achates_ slipped through the "gate" in that submarine net!

That night the _Albion_ and _Canopus_, off Anzac, remained under way,

for safety. During the night the _Albion_ "took" the ground off Gaba

Tepe, and, not being able to get off, was exposed to a very heavy fire

at daybreak from howitzers, field-batteries, and also from the 12-inch

guns of a Turkish ironclad, somewhere above The Narrows, and firing

across the land. Fortunately, this fire was as inaccurate as it was

heavy; but the situation was most dangerous and unpleasant until the

_Canopus_ came along, in the thick of the shells, laid out some hawsers

to her, and at the second attempt towed her clear, with a total loss of

only one man killed and nine wounded.

The next two days passed quietly; no submarines were seen or heard of,

until on the second morning, at half-past eight, a periscope was

suddenly observed passing along between the _Swiftsure_ and _Agamemnon_,

at anchor off Cape Helles not six hundred yards from each other. Fire

was opened immediately, and down dipped the periscope, to appear again

just ahead and on the _Swiftsure's_ starboard bow. The _Swiftsure's_

14-pounders blazed away, under went the periscope and did not appear

again.

It is a mystery why she did not fire a torpedo; presumably she had no

time to get into position to make a good shot. A signal sent to the

ships off Gaba Tepe and Anzac warned them; but just before half-past

twelve the _Triumph_ there was struck by two torpedoes. The news that

she had a list brought all the _Swiftsure's_ officers and men on deck.

Sure enough, they could see her through telescopes listing heavily, and

two destroyers standing by. In twenty minutes the red composition on

her bottom showed above the water; she rapidly fell over, remained

bottom upwards for some eight minutes, and then disappeared.

Fortunately, very few of her crew were lost.

Another exodus of ships followed, and only the poor old _Majestic_ and

the _Henri IV_, that quaint old Frenchman--with the Captain who feared

neither mine nor torpedo--remained off the Peninsula. Three days' grace

the _Majestic_ received, and then she too met her fate, a submarine

creeping up, with her periscope just showing, and firing two torpedoes

at her through a gap between two small store ships. At 6.45 a.m. on

Friday, 28th May, the poor old ship received her death-blows, and seven

and a half minutes later capsized. For months her ram just appeared

above the water off "W" beach, until the autumn gales made her settle

farther down and mercifully hid her from sight.

It is not surprising that the general feeling of uncertainty and

uneasiness due to the approach or German submarines should, now that

they had arrived, sunk two big ships, and driven the others away, give

place to one of foreboding and depression.

The army, which had landed with such proud hopes of opening the gates of

The Narrows for the fleet to pass through, had fought itself to a

standstill at Helles and Anzac; its supply beaches were constantly under

shell-fire, and even the "rest" camps daily gave up their toll of dead

and wounded from shells shrapnel or high-explosive.

The big ships could not use the narrow waters with freedom or safety;

and if one, two, three, or five submarines, whatever their number was at

this time, had already made the long voyage from Germany, ten, fifteen,

or twenty might follow; and even if the big ships forced their way to

Constantinople, these submarines could make it impossible for them to

stay there.

Everyone wondered what would be the next move--what would happen next.

There were two bright patches of cheerful sky between the dark clouds:

our own submarines, working with unparalleled daring and skill, passed

up and down The Narrows, through the nets laid across to catch them,

almost at their ease, and prevented the Turks from using the Sea of

Marmora to bring up troops or stores; the Commander-in-Chief himself

remained optimistic, in spite of all.

Dr. O'Neill, meeting Captain Macfarlane, who had just returned from the

yacht _Triad_, which now flew the Commander-in-Chief's flag, asked him:

"How about the Admiral, sir? I suppose he is even more depressed than

we are?"

"Not a bit of it," Captain Macfarlane told him. "He is quite cheery; he

has a lot 'up his sleeve' yet."

From now onwards, the battleships remained behind the nets at Mudros or

Kephalo. From these, every now and again, one or other of them would

dash out with escorts of destroyers; an aeroplane would circle overhead

to 'spot' for her; and she would bombard the Asiatic guns, Achi Baba,

Sari Bair, above Anzac, or the Olive Grove, near Gaba Tepe, where the

Turks always had several guns. Having done as much damage as possible,

back she would steam, zigzagging all the way into safety.

And from this time all stores, ammunition, and reinforcements were

carried across to the Peninsula at night in trawlers, small coasting

steamers, and what were termed "fleet sweepers"; these being small

steamers, of a thousand to fifteen hundred tons, which had--most of

them, at any rate--previous to the war, been employed in the passenger

and freight traffic on the cross-Channel, Irish, or Channel Island

services.

Splendidly did they carry out their work--very frequently under fire.

*CHAPTER XV*

*A Peaceful Month*

The day after the _Triumph_ had been torpedoed, and two days before the

_Majestic_ met the same fate, the _Achates_ left Mudros for the island

of Mytilene, zigzagging all the way, because Mytilene lay at the mouth

of the Gulf of Smyrna, and Smyrna harboured several submarines which

might possibly be in wait for her.

A grand day it was, the sun shining out of an almost cloudless sky, the

sea bluer than the sky, and ruffled pleasantly by a gentle breeze. In

the evening she passed through a narrow channel between tree-clad

heights, and anchored in the land-locked harbour.

For the last month it had not been possible to go on deck without seeing

a gun fired or a shell burst. Down below, in cabin, ward-room, or

gun-room, you did escape the sight of them--and the sight of those high

explosives bursting among men and horses on the beaches can never be

forgotten--but you could not escape the sound of them. Each time the

air, coming through scuttle, doorway, skylight, or hatchway, thudded

against your ears, the shock, big or little, from far or near, made you

wince, and made your mind stop momentarily to picture the actual

explosion; your ears tingled, alert and braced, to receive the next

shock, until the constant, expectant waiting and wincing became a strain

which affected many people, even those who were not then exposed to

personal danger. It made them irritable or taciturn, or brought about

little alterations of character and disposition, not sufficiently

definite, perhaps, to state in words, but real enough to notice at the

time. In addition, the constant sight of trawlers and boats full of

wounded, passing the _Achates_ on their way to hospital ships, had a

constant depressing effect, not perhaps fully realized at the moment.

Later, when there came the more imminent personal danger from submarine

attack, culminating in the capsizing of two battleships, torpedoed in

broad daylight and in full view of thousands, in circumstances which

showed how impossible it was, under those conditions of service, to meet

submarine attack successfully, the effect of the strain became more

pronounced.

Above all, there lacked the success of the expedition, which alone could

act as an antidote to the strain.

When, therefore, the _Achates_ wound her way through the tortuous

channel into Ieros harbour, her yards almost touching the thick

brushwood which clothed the cliffs, and these cliffs, shutting out all

sight of the sea, opened out to give a view of an inland lake surrounded

by olive-clad hills fading away in the distance, and glowing at the warm

touch of the evening sun, their many-tinted green slopes reflected in

its placid waters; of villages, quiet little peaceful villages, with the

peasants clustering along the water's edge as the ship floated past, or

white-sailed boats crowded with smiling, gaily-welcoming Greek men and

women, it seemed as though a magician's wand had suddenly guided and

wafted her into some fairy harbour, where war and the brutalities of

bloodshed could never have been known and would never dare to intrude.

Officers and men stood, drinking in, in their various ways, the beauty,

the peace, and the overwhelming quietness of it all.

"Old 'Gallipoli Bill' will drop one among those people in a moment;

they're exposing themselves terribly," the Hun grinned.

"They've got 'dug-outs' all handy, somewhere close by; you bet they

have!" Rawlins said.

"I wonder how our three chaps are getting on at 'W' beach;" said the

Sub, smacking the open-mouthed and staring China Doll on his back, so

that his doll's eyes nearly fell out. "My jumping Jimmy, what a place!

My blessed stars! What a bathe we'll have when we've dropped the

'killick'. I'll ask the Commander," and stalked away to find him,

banging every member of the Honourable Mess he met with his fist, with

shouts of "My jumping Jupiter, what a place!" The Pimple pointed out to

the China Doll one of the boats they passed. Half full of oranges and

bananas it was; and their mouths watered and their eyes brightened as

they thought of the feast they would have if it came alongside and the

ward-room messman did not buy them all.

The ship slowly turned round another bluff, and a collier with two

English submarines lying alongside her came into view.

"They rather spoil the picture," Uncle Podger said, "but we needn't look

at 'em."

Then the _Achates_ let go her anchor, the cable rattled noisily,

stopped, and the ship lay still.

A quarter of an hour later, "hands to bathe" was "piped", and in less

than ten minutes, at least five hundred officers and men were bobbing in

the water alongside, and the air was alive with their cheery shouts.

The men dived off the booms, the nettings, out of the gangways, or

climbed down her sides; the water for'ard was so thick with black heads

and white shoulders, that when another man and yet another, a constant

stream of them, dived in, one could not help wondering if there was a

clear space for them to dive into, though the others always did manage

to "open out" and let the newcomer in without accident.

Aft, some of the Honourable Mess were diving off the top of the

accommodation ladder; others, the more cautious ones, preferred to drop

off the foot of it. The Hun went off the top, so did Rawlins. Uncle

Podger walked sedately down the ladder, turned a back somersault, and

bobbed up again, in time to see the Pimple make a show of diving off the

top, decide that it was too high, and walk down it. The China Doll,

trying to attract attention, wouldn't even dive from the foot of the

ladder. "You'll promise not to duck me, won't you?" he squeaked, and

lowered himself down, holding on to a rope. The Sub, with his gnarled

muscles showing under his bathing dress, and disdaining the twenty-foot

dive from the ladder top, climbed to the edge of the after bridge with a

water polo ball under his arm, threw it far out from the ship, climbed

the rails, balanced himself for a moment, roared out "Look out, you

jumping shrimps!" and dived forty feet into the water, cutting it like a

knife, and coming to the surface some thirty yards farther away. The

more sedate ward-room officers, disrobing in their cabins, heard his

stentorian, roaring shouts of, "My jumping Jimmies! What a place!"

Presently they too appeared on deck, twisting their towels round the

quarter-deck rails before they joined the merry splashing throng; the

little Padre had his swimming-belt round his chest, and his everlasting

pipe in his mouth. The Hun and Uncle Podger, seeing him come down the

ladder, winked at each other, and waited to see what would happen when

he jumped into the water; but were disappointed, for he lowered himself

carefully; the swimming-belt kept his head well above water, and he

paddled about, still smoking.

Around and among all these swimmers paddled the Greeks in their quaint,

picturesque boats, watching them and smiling with amusement.

The Hun and Rawlins, slightly out of breath, after having disappeared

for a few brief moments below the surface of the water in their efforts

to decide which had ducked the other, caught hold of the stern of a boat

which happened to be near, and drawing themselves half out of the water,

grinned happily at a bevy of plump young damsels sitting there. The

girls, laughing merrily, gave them each an orange; whereupon they

slipped back into the water and proceeded to eat them. But the sight of

these two lying placidly on their backs and devouring their oranges was

too much for the others. Uncle Podger with his trudgeon stroke reached

the unsuspecting Rawlins first, seized his orange, ducked him, and

dived, only to come up among the enemy--the Pimple, the Sub, and the

outraged Rawlins. The War Baby threw himself into the melee; the Hun,

swallowing the rest of his orange, joined in too; and the life of Uncle

Podger was only saved by a shower of oranges, and peals of girlish

laughter from the boat.

Securing their prizes they shouted, "Thanks, awfully! Merci beaucoup!"

hoping that they might understand French; and the War Baby, who knew a

few words of Spanish, called out, "Gratia! Senoritas!" hoping they could

understand that. But language did not matter; they knew what was meant

to be expressed, and shrieked with laughter.

The Fleet-Paymaster, puffing along by the side of Dr. Gordon, who looked

exactly like a walrus in the water, grunted out: "We're too old, I

suppose, for 'em to chuck oranges at us? Let's try!"

And they did; and each got his orange, and his shriek of laughter when

he tried to eat it without spoiling the taste with sea water.

All this time the China Doll, who could only swim a few strokes, did not

venture far from the foot of the ladder, very miserable that everybody

seemed to have forgotten him, and knowing that if he did venture out

among the others he would certainly be ducked--which he hated--and very

probably drowned.

Up on deck, Captain Macfarlane, grimly looking on, met the

Gunnery-Lieutenant coming up from performing his trick of tossing a hoop

off the top of the ladder, and then diving through it as it lay on the

surface of the water--he had done this about ten times already, as if he

were carrying out some drill or religious exercise.

"Mr. Gunnery-Lieutenant," Captain Macfarlane said, tugging thoughtfully

at his beard; "the Great War is still on, is it not?" and the startled

Gunnery-Lieutenant, the hoop in one hand, the other raised to his

dripping hair in wild salute, replied: "Oh! Yes, sir! As far as I know,

sir!" and, later on, gave it as his opinion that "the Skipper must be

going off his head".

Presently the bugle sounded the "retire", and everyone splashed back to

the ship, the members of the Honourable Mess going down to the

half-deck, chattering like magpies round the Pink Rat's cot whilst they

rubbed themselves down and dressed.

"I never got an orange. I do think you chaps might have brought me

one," the China Doll squeaked, a little upset because no one had taken

any notice of him; so they chased him round the half-deck with their wet

towels, till he shrieked for mercy and was happy again.

Then they rushed up on deck, because the Hun and Bubbles meant to ask

those girls on board to show them the holes made by the Smyrna shells,

as some little "return" for the oranges.

The others had "dared" them to do this; and they would have asked them,

but were too late--their boat had paddled back to the village.

What a dinner they had that night!

The miserable little messman, for once, had risen to the occasion, and

bought potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, and onions, and fruit--oranges and

bananas--which of course were "extras".

"I'm jolly sorry that the other three aren't here," Uncle Podger

remarked, as he skinned his fourth orange. "Wouldn't old Bubbles have

loved them? Wouldn't he have been pretty to watch?"

On these occasions, when "extras" had been provided, a comic scene

always followed in the pantry. In order that the messman could know who

devoured his precious "extras", and could put the names down in his

book, he had to keep a very smart "look-out" through the sliding doors

in the pantry bulkhead; and Barnes, who hated him like poison, would

block one and then the other with his huge head and shoulders, so that

he should not see which of the "young gen'l'men" had taken an orange or

banana. As Uncle Podger always said on such occasions: "It was pretty

to watch him and Barnes dodging each other backwards and forwards, from

side to side."

Barnes would slide across one of the trap-doors, then block up the

other; across would dart the little messman, slide back the one which

had just been closed, and peep through it. Bang would go the other, and

Barnes would be seen pushing the messman aside, muttering "'Ere you;

you're getting in the way, you are", reaching through, and making

pretence of drawing back any dirty plates or dishes which stood on the

sideboard. And so this game went on; whilst the Pimple and the China

Doll, keeping their eyes about them, would seize fruit at the most

favourable moment, drop the skins on someone else's plate if possible,

and if not, throw them far under the table.

Barnes, afterwards, when he cleared the table and swept up the deck,

would do it to a muttered accompaniment of: "That nawsty little beggar,

a-countin' up and a-puttin' down everythink of 'is beastly hextras.

'Umph!" (bang would go the broom against a leg of the table). "And who

eats 'em? 'Umph! the nawsty, slimy toad. I'll learn 'im, me as what

'as a pub of 'is own at 'ome--or 'ad, afore this 'ere war a-started."

The days which followed were days of real delight, never to be forgotten

by the Honourable Mess, who revelled in them and in the noiseless,

peaceful nights when they slept on the quarter-deck, and woke to slip

off their pyjamas and plunge over the side into the transparent water.

In a week's time, very early one morning, up the harbour came the grey

picket-boat with the Orphan; behind her followed Trawler No. 370 with

Bubbles, the Lamp-post, and all that was left of their beach party.

"Come along, you chaps!" called Uncle Podger, waving his towel, when at

last they came aboard. "My! but you do look scarecrows! Off with your

grubby clothes and flop in. It's simply splendid!" They did flop in;

and that morning's bathe, when the Honourable Mess was once more united,

was a memorable one, especially to the "War Baby"--the officer of the

watch--who could not make them come out of the water until long after

the regulation time, and until the Commander had twice sent for him to

know why he didn't stop that confounded noise round the foot of the

ladder.

They arranged a grand picnic next day, and hired two of the little Greek

sailing-boats which ferried people across from one side of the harbour

to the other. They bought a basketful of oranges from the Greek boats

alongside--it was cheaper to do this than to get them through the

messman--they took a kettle of water, tins of jam, milk, and butter,

loaves of bread; and away they went, with a merry breeze, the whole

crowd of them, the Sub, Uncle Podger, the Orphan, Rawlins, and Bubbles

in one, the Lamp-post and the remainder in the other. They raced the

two boats to a tiny island at the mouth of the entrance of the harbour,

beached them without rubbing off much paint, stripped, and larked in the

water and out of it, on the grass under some trees.

Then the China Doll and the Pimple were appointed "cooks of the mess",

and wandered off to collect driftwood to make a fire on the beach,

whilst the others stretched themselves on the grass to dry themselves

until they were too hot, then plunged in again till they were cool. By

the time the fire had begun to crackle famously the Sub, Uncle Podger,

and two of the snotties--the Lamp-post and Bubbles, who were over

eighteen years old--had found their pipes, lighted them, and were

puffing away luxuriously. The Sub, whose heart warmed benevolently

within him, called out: "Carry on smoking, my bouncing beauties--every

mother's son of you--so long as you aren't sick!" So off dashed the

others to their clothes, and produced the well-worn pipes which they had

brought with them, hoping that the Sub would be in a good temper. Even

the China Doll produced a cigarette case, and made a great fuss of

lighting a "Virginian", puffing at it like a girl, then holding it in

his fingers because the smoke made his eyes water. "No 'stinkers'! No

'gaspers' here! Phew. What a horrible smell!" the others shouted. The

Orphan pretended to faint, Bubbles threw himself down in the grass and

groaned.

"I haven't any 'Gyppies'," pleaded the Assistant Clerk. "You smoke

'stinkers' yourselves sometimes.

"Only on board, China Doll, to drown the smell of the gun-room, when

you're in it," Bubbles gurgled. "Get to leeward, you little stink-pot!"

The Pimple and Rawlins made a rush for him; he dodged them, and waded

into the water.

"Come back!" they shouted as they followed him. "We're getting wet; we

can't swim a stroke," and drove him out until only his head and neck

were above the water. They made him smoke it there, throwing clods of

earth at him whenever he attempted to take it out of his mouth to

prevent his eyes watering.

"Nice, quiet, gentlemanly lads," said Uncle Podger from the grass.

"Very pretty to watch, aren't they?"

But the Pimple--earnestly occupied in keeping the China Doll and the

"overpowering" smell of his tiny cigarette from destroying the aroma

from nine fairly foul pipes loaded with "ship's" tobacco--and the China

Doll thus engaged, with only his head above water, were neglecting their

duty as cooks to the Honourable Mess. The kettle was trying to lift off

its lid, and threatened to fall over.

It was saved just in time, and the Pimple, violently seized by the Hun

and Rawlins, escorted back to his duties, whilst the China Doll waded

out with his cigarette damped and "dead".

The Sub, Uncle Podger, and the Lamp-post lay and smoked, and watched the

others carrying all the paraphernalia of tea from the two boats to a

little place under a shady tree, cutting slices of bread, and opening

the tins of milk, butter, and jam.

"Isn't this an extraordinary change from ten days ago?" said Uncle

Podger presently, with a great sigh of enjoyment. "The whole place

looks as if it had never even heard of such a thing as war."

"It may look like it, Uncle, but you'd be nearer the mark if you said

that it had never really known peace," the Lamp-post said. "Why,

Mytilene, and the other islands round about here, have seen fighting all

through history--history was made in these parts--right away from the

year one--five hundred years before it, too, and they haven't known

peace--not for any length of time--ever since. The Phoenicians,

Athenians, Carthaginians, Romans, Persians, Syrians, Turks, and

Greeks--they've all had a "go" at it--landed and killed the men,

garrisoned the place for a few years, till they were "booted" out or

killed by the next little lot to come along.

"I was only asking the Interpreter[#] this morning, and he told me that

there are villages up there" (and the Lamp-post pointed across the

harbour to the slopes of the hills) "which are full of Turks, and they

daren't come down to the Greek villages except in numbers and in the

daylight--nor dare the Greeks go up to them--for fear of being killed.

He told me that the Greeks and Turks are always fighting on these

islands, and on the mainland right along the coast to Smyrna. The Greek

chaps get on their nerves; they work hard, are smarter business men,

lend money, which makes them very unpopular; and there are so many of

them in the coast towns that the Turks are really frightened of them, so

they kill them whenever they get a comfortable opportunity and can raise

the energy. Hereditary enemies they are, and vendettas go on just as

they have done for centuries; but the Turk has generally got an old

rifle, of sorts, so it's the Greek who gets killed in the long run.

[#] The _Achates_ had a Syrian interpreter on board.

"You see," went on the Lamp-post, "all the Turkish soldiers who used to

keep the peace--sometimes--in the villages and small towns have been

withdrawn to Smyrna or the Dardanelles, and now they are away the Turks

and Greeks are at each other's throats hammer and tongs. The

Interpreter told me that there are more than thirty thousand refugees

from the coast in Mytilene alone, and thousands more are trying to

escape before they are killed."

"That's why the Greeks here are giving the Turks in the hills such a

rotten time, I suppose?" the Sub asked.

"It rather spoils the picture," Uncle Podger said; "I wish you hadn't

told us."

"Let us go, some day, and see the castle at Mytilene," the Lamp-post

suggested. "The Interpreter says that it was started five hundred years

B.C.--by the Phoenicians or someone like them, and has been added on to

by everybody else ever since. He says you can see some parts which are

Roman and some which the Persians built. I'm frightfully keen on things

like that," he added apologetically:

"Come along, you chaps! Everything's ready!" the others shouted,

carrying up the kettle of boiling water.

A grand tea they had, although the Orphan upset a good deal of the only

tin of milk over himself. That did not matter much, for they managed to

save most of it with spoons.

"Pass the Orphan, please," one or other would say, "I want some more

milk;" and whoever was sitting next to him, Bubbles or Rawlins, would

sing "He's too heavy," and pretend to scrape more milk off his

bathing-suit.

The China Doll and the Pimple, however, felt that there were two things

lacking to make the picnic a complete success--sardines and some tinned

sausages to cook over the fire; but, of course--and they sighed

heavily--the gun-room store was empty.

The China Doll, presently, blinked and blushed, and suggested that they

should ask the War Baby to the next picnic. There was a shout of "He's

all right, but he doesn't belong to the gun-room--this is a gun-room

picnic."

"But, if he came, he might bring some sardines and 'bangers'. I know

they have some in the ward-room--I asked their messman."

"You're a perfect marvel, China Doll; fancy thinking all that out in

your noddle!" the Pimple said admiringly. "I votes we do ask him."

Then the Orphan, catching sight of the wet remains of that "Virginian"

cigarette lying in the grass, pretended to faint; and when he'd been

revived by a convenient twig twirled round inside his nose, groaned:

"I'm awfully sorry, you chaps, but didn't you notice that awful smell

again," and pointed to that unhappy cigarette end.

"Don't be silly," the China Doll kept on saying, blushing and trying to

hide it; but they sent him twenty yards along the beach, made him scrape

with his hands a hole, a foot deep, in the muddy sand, and bury it

there. "You've eaten all the oranges," he almost "blubbed" when he

returned. "My back's all sunburnt, and my feet are tingling. I've been

treading on something which hurts."

They threw some oranges at him and made him happy, but he kept on

looking at the soles of his feet.

"Well, if you will tread on sea-urchins' eggs you can't expect anything

else," the Lamp-post said, having a look at them himself.

"Lend us a knife, somebody; he's got thirty or forty of the spikes in

his feet." But the pain of having them extracted with a pocket-knife

was too much for the Assistant Clerk; he said he'd get Dr. Gordon to

take them out when they went back to the ship. He ate his oranges, and

looked rather miserable whilst he dressed, slowly.

The others played the newly invented "submarine game", standing in a

ring with the water up to their chins, their legs wide apart, and stones

in their hands; whilst the Orphan, who took the part of a submarine,

started in the middle, dived, and had not to come to the surface before

he had torpedoed somebody by swimming between his legs. If any part of

him showed up above the surface, or he came up to breathe, the others

threw stones at him; and if he was hit he had lost, and started again.

The torpedoed one had to change places with the "submarine"; and when

the fat Bubbles was at last torpedoed and had to take this leading part,

you can imagine that parts of him showed very often, and he laughed so

much that he couldn't keep his head under for ten seconds at a time.

"Very pretty to watch," remarked Uncle Podger. Then they all scrambled

out, dried themselves in the sun, dressed; stowed away all the tea

"gear" in the boats--the kettle, teacups, knives, spoons, and plates;

carried the China Doll down to the boat to the tune of "John Brown's

body lies a-mouldering in the grave"; had a search for a missing spoon;

found it; shoved off, and raced back to the ship, the losing boat's crew

to pay for the oranges.

"Off you go to Dr. Gordon," the Sub told the China Doll, "and just

pretend those feet of yours don't hurt you. If you go limping about

looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, you won't get the kind of

sympathy you want--not from me!"

"That youth behaves like a little girl. He always wants people to take

notice of him and pet him. Whatever will he be like when he grows up?"

the Sub said afterwards to Uncle Podger.

"A good beating twice a week would make a man of him," advised the

Clerk. "He is a good enough little chap, but he does want beating."

"I'll see what can be done," answered the Sub thoughtfully.

At that time the Greek population was extremely polite, and glad to see

British Naval uniforms. Everyone who passed took off his hat, the girls

were all smiles, and the children flocked round, holding out flowers,

though their homage was slightly diminished by insistent demands for

"one pen-ny". In fact, they became a beastly nuisance after a while.

Now you must understand that the _Achates_ had not been sent to Ieros

for the purpose of providing entertainment for the gun-room officers,

but to superintend the blockade of Smyrna. To make this blockade

effective, she had under her orders two mine-layers, some destroyers,

and some submarines. These were always going out or coming in through

the picturesque entrance, and the submarine off duty used to make fast

alongside the _Achates_. Naturally she proved a great attraction to the

gun-room officers, who used to bother the lives out of the

sub-lieutenants--seconds in command--to show them round.

One of these, a cheery sportsman, burst out with: "Oh, hang it all!

Come along, every one of you; four at a time, and I'll work through the

whole blooming Mess and get it over and done with."

He did get it 'over', though the last four, the China Doll among them,

were rather a trial.

"But if," bleated the Assistant Clerk, standing on the plates below the

open conning-tower, "if you did happen to dive when the lid was open,

wouldn't the water come in?"

There was a roar of laughter from the others (which he wanted); but the

second in command, whose patience had not yet quite vanished, said: "Oh,

that's nothing! that often happens. We just stand down here, puff out

our cheeks, and blow up through the conning-tower--blow very hard until

someone climbs up and puts the lid on again."

"Is that really true?" gasped the China Doll, not quite certain whether

he was being made a fool.

Much as the officers appreciated the change of scene at Ieros, the men

appreciated it still more. All except the beach party and the boats'

crews (a very small proportion) had been cooped up in the noisy, crowded

mess-decks ever since leaving Port Said. They to could now go ashore

occasionally; twice a day they could jump overboard and swim in the

glorious, buoyant water alongside, and once a week route marches took

place early in the morning, before the sun became too hot. These route

marches, however, were not very popular.

You may be certain that the first time Fletcher the stoker went ashore,

he took "Kaiser Bill" with him.

"You should have seen him nipping off the bits of grass," he told the

Orphan later on; "he did enjoy himself, sir!"

Whilst here, the wireless press news came each morning, and was not

reassuring, for the Germans had commenced their advance through Galicia

and into Poland, and nothing seemed able to stop them. News, too, from

the Peninsula was bad--nearly a thousand men had been lost when the

transport _Royal Edward_ was sunk by a submarine, and another desperate

attempt to capture Krithia had failed with heavy losses.

As a set-off against all these dismal tales there were rumours of

mysterious monitors on their way out with heavy guns, of reinforcements

pouring eastwards, and of the brilliant exploits of our own submarines

above the Dardanelles, in the Sea of Marmora.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*A Glorious Picnic*

Among the many queer characters they met at Ieros, none was more quaint

than a Mr. M'Andrew, who appeared on the scene in a very smart, rakish

little motor yacht with two masts and a gay awning, very reminiscent of

the River Thames. Sometimes he appeared flying the Greek flag, and

bringing the rubicund military governor of Mytilene to "protest" against

the British having done "this" or "that"; with a cheery "Au revoir,

Messieurs; a Constantinople!" when he left the ship. At other times he

flew the red ensign, and took Captain Macfarlane and the Commander

for--as far as the gun-room knew--pleasant little sea trips. Generally

he flew no flag at all, and had a most motley crew of picturesque

brigands with him.

Occasionally the yacht used to lie alongside the _Achates_, and once or

twice the Sub tempted Mr. M'Andrew down into the gun-room to take a

glass of iced soda-water, of which he seemed excessively fond. He never

touched alcohol.

He looked like a retired bank-manager who possibly devoted his leisure

to teaching in a Sunday or "ragged" school; he was broad and plump, and

perhaps fifty years of age--a most placid-looking individual who always

wore an old, but not shabby, blue suit, across the ample waistcoat of

which stretched a very thick gold watch and chain. He talked very

simply--as if talking was mere waste of breath--and his conversation was

chiefly about soda-water and the places he remembered where you could

buy it cheapest. He always carried a bunch of raisins in one of his

side-pockets, and ate them deliberately, one at a time, whenever he was

not smoking a very old briar pipe. The Sub used to ask him to dinner or

lunch, but he would refuse. "No, thank you; I never have meals; I just

go on munching raisins, and have some bread occasionally."

Rumour had told the Honourable Mess that he was really a daring pirate,

and led forays against the Turks in the little bays on the

mainland--over against Mytilene--though never a word could they get from

him about his adventures--about anything, in fact, except soda-water,

the merits of dried raisins, and the unfortunate family troubles of his

crew.

There was one old man who used to sit on the top of the deck-house all

day long without saying a word to a soul--a shrunken old Greek with very

sharp features and black eyes which seemed to blaze from their deep

sockets in the most startling way. When you first saw him he looked a

poor, withered, feeble old "dodderer", in spite of the Winchester rifle

he always gripped across his knees, and the two filled bandoliers of

cartridges round his waist and shoulders; but when he turned to look at

you the fierceness of his eyes gave him a most extraordinary appearance.

Mr. M'Andrew used to take him down a loaf of bread--provided by the

gun-room--pat him on the shoulder, and say a few words to him. "Poor

old man!" Mr. M'Andrew told them, "poor old man; he's rather miserable.

You see, he and his three sons kept a flock of sheep on some little

island near the coast, and the Turks came along, killed his sons and the

sheep, and tried to kill him, but he managed to escape. He knew of a

crack in a rock, where he hid by day--for three days--crawling out at

night to suck the grass and eat berries and leaves, until the Turks gave

up looking for him and went away--thought he must be dead. I just

happened to be going past there yesterday, saw him wave, and brought him

along. He won't be really happy again until he's killed a Turk for each

of his sons; he thinks I'll give him the chance soon, so won't leave

me."

"But shall you?" the Honourable Mess cried with one accord.

"This really is not at all bad soda-water," Mr. M'Andrew went on in his

slow, deliberate way. "I remember when I was in Mexico--no, it reminds

me of some I got at Haiti during the revolution, the one of 1901. As I

was saying, most of my crew have had a good deal of family trouble one

way or the other. There's that little lad who cleans the brasswork.

He's the only one left of a family of twelve--father, mother, brothers,

and sisters. He hid in the roof when the Turks cut the throats of the

others one night. He came along here--no, I don't know how--and wants

me to let him have a rifle. Oh, those other chaps; nice, gentle-looking

fellows, aren't they? They can't bear the Turks--more or less for the

same reason! Some of their relatives have been killed by them, or

they've been driven away from the mainland and have nothing left of

farms, or shops, or flocks, wives or children. They just come along to

me, and I lend them some old rifles I just happen to have."

"Have they had a chance of using them?" the snotties asked. "Most of

them say they have killed a Turk or two; tell me so when they come

first. And I expect they have," went on Mr. M'Andrew in his placid

voice, feeling in his pocket for another raisin, and fumbling with the

fob of his gold watch-chain.

The China Doll, in fact all the gun-room officers, spent a good deal of

time watching him moving about among the fierce, black-eyed ruffians,

who sat about the deck of the smart little motor-yacht with their

bandoliers across their shoulders, their rifles (which Mr. M'Andrew just

happened to have lent them) gripped firmly in their hands. They cleaned

these interminably, and Mr. M'Andrew walked about and spoke a few words

to each, just as you could picture him walking about the boys in his

Ragged School in Glasgow, distributing raisins and bread to them just as

he might have done to his boys.

One day the motor-yacht towed in a clumsy, old, local trading schooner,

and anchored her abreast the _Achates_. She turned out to be a Turkish

trading ship which had been becalmed off some Greek village. The Greeks

captured her, and had killed at least one of her crew, for his body

still lay on the deck, just at the break of the poop.

"Oh, no!" said Mr. M'Andrew, in genuine surprise, "I had nothing to do

with it. I simply found her a derelict and towed her in here. The rest

of the crew were probably killed as well, but thrown overboard. Oh, no!

that's nothing unusual."

The dead Turk was handed over to the authorities, and this lumbering old

derelict--she looked at least fifty years old, and was probably a

hundred--swung at anchor, close to the _Achates_, for some days.

The Sub had a brilliant "brain wave", and suggested that the gun-room

should commission her, one day, for a picnic. Captain Macfarlane gave

permission, and then came the question of asking the War Baby. Finally

it was unanimously decided to do so; and--"Well", as Bubbles said when

he gave the invitation, "if you can bring some sardines and sausages

along with you, so much the better." They asked Mr. Meredith, the

R.N.R. Lieutenant, and Dr. Gordon, the R.N.V.R. Surgeon, and they asked

the Padre too; and, wonderful to relate, that pale-faced little man

jumped at the offer--"so long as he could smoke his pipe all the time".

The other two of course accepted.

After dinner, and after considerable deliberation and more noise, the

following notice appeared on the board in the gun-room, under the

alarum-clock and the five broken-down wrist-watches:--