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 theAchates. 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 theArcadia—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 wherethatshell 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 theRiver Clydehe 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 theRiver 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 theSuffren—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 garçon!"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 theSwiftsure? 'E was lent to that 'ere French ship for the 18th March—when theBouvetandOceanandIrresistiblewere '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 Admiralhadspoken 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 hewasin 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 theAchatesbecame "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 XIIIThe Army comes to a StandstillOn 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 oldRiver Clydelay, 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."Weshallcapture 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 whatwouldhappen 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 gloriousrafalehe 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 therafales, 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 theTalbotandDublin, 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 theArcadia, 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 crippledGoebencould 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 sunkenOceanandIrresistible.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 theRiver Clydeto show where he and his maxim actually had been."Youdocome 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 méchant! le miseréble!" 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.
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 theAchates. 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 theArcadia—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 wherethatshell 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 theRiver Clydehe 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 theRiver 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 theSuffren—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 garçon!"
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 theSwiftsure? 'E was lent to that 'ere French ship for the 18th March—when theBouvetandOceanandIrresistiblewere '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 Admiralhadspoken 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 hewasin 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 theAchatesbecame "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 oldRiver Clydelay, 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.
"Weshallcapture 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 whatwouldhappen 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 gloriousrafalehe 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 therafales, 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 theTalbotandDublin, 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 theArcadia, 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 crippledGoebencould 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 sunkenOceanandIrresistible.
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 theRiver Clydeto show where he and his maxim actually had been.
"Youdocome 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 méchant! le miseréble!" 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.