Part 22

They were full of noisy humour, these Turks; but what did jar on their nerves was the sight of a battleship or cruiser coaling. They objected most strongly, and always burst shrapnel over, and dropped shell at the "coaling" ship directly the collier had come alongside and she had commenced that dirty job.

They also had a rooted objection to the _Arno_, a trim little destroyer attached to the General Headquarters Staff; and whenever she anchored inside the "net" they did their best to make her feel uncomfortable. She might have always had the General Head-quarters Staff on board, to judge by the persistent way they plugged at her.

And as for Jephson's Post, up there on the top of the ridge, on the left, they took a positive dislike to it and to the Naval Observation Station, just below it. This Observation Station was manned by some naval ratings and two naval officers--a gaunt, hawk-like Commander and a Lieutenant-Commander belonging to other ships. These two took duty in turns--three days "on" and three days "off". The three days "off" they spent on board the _Achates_, sleeping most of the time.

This post was constantly under fire from heavy and light guns. It also received all the "overs" and the stray bullets fired from the Turks, farther along the ridge, at Jephson's Post and the trenches in front of it, so it was not at all a "health" resort.

"The view in the early morning is charming," said one of the Observation officers; "and but for the fact that I'm certain there's a dead mule or a dead 'something' among the bushes somewhere near--has been there for the last fortnight--and that we get something like thirty to forty shell over it every day--often more--it wouldn't be half bad."

Another Naval Observation Station had been established on Chocolate Hill, and to visit either of these positions made exciting afternoon walks and climbs, whenever any of the Honourable Mess ventured ashore. On one occasion the Lamp-post and the Orphan landed at "A West" beach one afternoon, and walked up to the Observation Post near Jephson's Post. Pretty hard going it was, under the hot sun and along the sandy mule-track which wound up the lower slopes among the concealed field-guns. Then they had to climb along a steep path, with a parapet on the enemy side, till they came to the second line of trenches, and heard the intermittent sniping close to them. In the morning the Post had been severely shelled, and they found the Commander lying flat on the ridge, some forty yards away from it, behind a natural parapet of rocks, reinforced by some sand-bags, his telephone box close to him.

"You must have had a warm time of it this morning, sir," they said admiringly.

"That was all right. I was here all the time. There wouldn't have been much left of me if I had stayed there. Come along and see." He took them back below the ridge, climbed up to the rear of the Post--a little three-sided affair, partly made out of large stones and sand-bags piled on each other, partly of natural rocks, with a timber and sand-bag roof over it all.

"Pretty untidy, isn't it, here? You can have the base of that shell--one of this morning's little lot; if you hunt round, you'll find another somewhere, I expect. They keep their eye on this place; I shouldn't wonder if they are watching us now. Let's put back some of these rock things."

The front parapet had been partially knocked down that morning, so that the "observing" loophole was now four or five feet wide. If they could see him when there was only a small loophole, thought the Lamp-post, they'll be able to see us, all right, now. They had just finished piling up the last of the stones and sand-bags in their old places---more or less--when the accustomed ears of the Commander caught the sound of a Turkish gun.

"That's my gun!" he cried, throwing himself down. "Lie down. That will be short," he said coolly, as they heard the "swish--h--h" of an approaching shell. "Short, not very; keep down, some of the bits may come in."

"Whump" burst the shell about thirty yards below them, and something rattled against the parapet they had just built up. The stinging smell of smoke came in through the crevices.

"Scoot out of it!" the Commander said, scrambling to his feet, and taking them down to where they had found him at first--soldiers dashing for cover all along the ridge. "Keep close in behind those rocks," he said, as they lay down, and he peered out between his sand-bags.

"I thought so. The same two old guns, on the far side of the 'Rectory Field'. They've shifted 'em since the morning. They've fired again. They keep those two especially for my benefit."

"Whump" burst a shell, then another, up along the ridge, somewhere close to the Observation Post, whilst the hawk-like Commander rapidly took "angles" with his sextant, and examined the squares and dots on his military map.

Then he rang up the Naval Observation Post, and giving them the new position of the guns told them to ask _Swiftsure_ to try a few rounds.

"Keep down!" he sang out to the two boys. "Snuggle up to those rocks. Those chaps sometimes try lower down the slope."

During the next quarter of an hour some fifteen or sixteen shells burst close to the old Observation Post, and the Orphan wriggled to a place where he could look down, across the harbour, to where the _Swiftsure_, _Venerable_, and _Achates_ lay. They did look small.

"Hello! there goes one from the _Swiftsure_," he cried, and wriggled farther round to see if its shell went anywhere near those guns that had been firing.

"Twenty yards short--good shot!" the Commander sang out. "They'll fire another, if either of the guns are loaded---- Yes--there they go--keep down! Then they'll pack up."

"B-r-r--whomp" burst a shell, just as the _Swiftsure_ fired again, and they watched for her shell to burst. "I believe that's a hit; if it wasn't, it was jolly close. Go up and see what damage they have done; it's perfectly safe now."

The two midshipmen scrambled to their feet and made their way up to the old Observation Post, whilst the Commander busied himself with the telephone.

"My aunt! Look, Lampy!" sang out the Orphan, who reached it first. "Jolly lucky that we didn't stay!"

They had a difficulty in crawling in, because two of the balks of timber had been blown down at one end. All those stones and sand-bags they had replaced twenty minutes ago lay scattered on the ground--some outside among the bushes, others inside. In one torn and half-emptied sand-bag they found the fuse of the shell which had apparently done the damage. It was still warm.

"Oh, look! there's your stick! You must have left it. Look! That will be a bit of a curio, won't it?"

"It isn't mine; it's the Pink Rat's," the Lamp-post grinned, as he picked up the two pieces. "I wish it had been mine."

They took the broken pieces and went back to the Commander. "They've knocked it about no end, sir. It's lucky we didn't stay there. You'll have to give it up, won't you, sir?"

"Oh no! rather not. I shall use it again to-morrow; but I shan't touch it--leave it just as it is. Probably I'll put some sand-bags here, where they can see them, and let them pot at this place instead. Come along, we'll give you a drop of tea, down in my 'dug-out'. The _Swiftsure_ has finished firing."

"Did she hit either of them?" they asked.

"Went jolly close," he said. "I rather fancy she did hit one, but it's very difficult to say for certain."

The Commander's "dug-out" was some fifty yards below the crest of the ridge, and out of sight of Suvla Bay and the plain of Anafarta. From it the Lamp-post looked over the Gulf of Zeros, the Bulgarian and Turkish coast-lines, and, on the left, the lofty island of Samothrace, rearing its crest above the clouds. Down in the sea at his feet--some five hundred feet below him--the _Grampus_, destroyer, steamed slowly along to protect the extreme left flank of the army, which extended from behind Jephson's Post to the actual beach. Beyond her, either the _Grafton_ or the _Theseus_ came slowly along towards Suvla Point, pushing through the glittering water. Trawlers and drifters, with their reddish-brown mizzen-sails giving a peaceful and home-like appearance to the beautiful view, patrolled very, very slowly the stretches of the Gulf between Samothrace and the Peninsula.

From this "dug-out" the ground sloped very abruptly to the sea, its surface composed of scattered rocks interspersed with coarse bushes. The bivouacs of the brigade in reserve were here, and hundreds of men lay about smoking, talking, and mending their clothes, or fast asleep. Bathing parties went down to the sea, chattering noisily, or scrambled back, half naked, to dry themselves in the sun.

As the two snotties drank their tea, two men on stretchers were carried past, on their way to a Dressing Station, a little way below and to the left. One man smoked a cigarette and looked quite cheery; the head of the other lay back oddly on the stretcher, with that horrid grey colour on his face--he was dead.

"Have another cup of tea? I'm sorry there's no cake," the Commander said. "Those infernal snipers get some fifteen or twenty of our chaps up here every day. They paint themselves green--their hands and faces--dress up in green clothes, or fix themselves up in twigs and leaves. They're plucky chaps, I must say. We found one chap, down in the plain, the other day, over there"--and he jerked his thumb up the ridge towards Anafarta--"we found him half a mile inside our lines, up a tree, lashed to a branch. One of our chaps happened to be walking back from the trenches, and walked right under the tree; thought he heard a noise, looked up and saw him. Luckily he had his rifle, so he shot him, but had to climb the tree and cut him clear before the body fell to the ground. On one side of that Turk hung a basket with a few figs in it, and on the other side a basket full of cartridge cases. Most of them were empty, so that he must have had a pretty good 'run' for his money."

A messenger came to say that the Turks were commencing their usual evening "hate" on the beaches and ships. "Well, you'd better get along back," he said. "Now, don't play the fool. For the first few hundred yards past the Observation Post you will be in full view of their firing-trench along the ridge; so don't loiter. I must be off to see whether any of those guns have shifted since yesterday. Good-bye!"

So back they went, with the base of one shell, the fuse of another, and that broken stick belonging to the Pink Rat. As they neared the beach, big shells kept dropping on it, so they waited a little while before going down to "A West". A friendly A.S.C. sergeant invited them into his roomy "dug-out"; and luckily they did go in, for shrapnel began bursting very close, and an empty case buried itself in some ground between two lines of mules, not twenty yards away.

Flies had been bad up in the Commander's "dug-out". Here they were ten times worse--worse even than they had been before they left "W" beach at Cape Helles.

Having added to their trophies that empty shrapnel case (the A.S.C. sergeant had sent across a couple of Indians belonging to his transport column to dig it up), and the firing having ceased, they presently found themselves in the Hun's steam pinnace, on their way off to the ship.

You can imagine that these two young officers had a good deal to talk about when they did get on board. Neither of them had much chance of going ashore, because, after the first few days, so many of the original midshipmen of the "stray" boats broke down and had to be sent back to their ships, that they were almost constantly employed in steam-boats.

There were the "night patrols", when they steamed, up and down, along the line of submarine-net buoys, from sunset to sunrise--fearfully tedious and monotonous work, only enlivened by the very occasional submarine "scares". Some trawler or drifter--out beyond--would think she had seen one, and fire two Very's lights; and then there would be a hustle and a bustle, and the patrolling picket-boats with their maxims would dash up and down, in case Fritz came along, and they could get a shot at his periscope. For some days the Orphan had to take charge of the Harbour-master's picket-boat, and used to spend most of his nights outside the nets, often in a lumpy, unpleasant sea, meeting troop-carriers coming across with reinforcements, or store ships--all according to programme--and imploring their Captains to go _between_ the two lights on the buoys at the submarine-net "gate"; not that the troop-carriers ever made mistakes--they had had too much practice--but some of these store ships seemed incapable of coming in without fouling the net, picking up some of it with their screws, and giving twenty-four hours' work hacking it clear and then repairing it. Most of the daylight hours during that time the Orphan spent in sleep, but not all by a long chalk, for things were always going wrong with a line of lighters supporting some borrowed torpedo-nets, and the Harbour-master was always wanting to go along and see what could be done. As these lighters were constantly being shelled, this was a most unpleasant job.

One evening, after snatching a couple of hours' sleep, he found that a 3-pounder gun had been mounted in the bows of his boat, and the usual maxim taken away.

"Hello!" he said to the coxswain. "What's this for?"

"I fancy we're going to hunt for Fritz to-night, sir."

"Why, has he been round to-day?"

"He fired a torpedo at the _Jonquil_ this afternoon, sir; somewhere round the left flank, sir."

When the Orphan climbed on board to find out more news, he ran across the Sub on the quarterdeck.

"Hello, my jumping Jimmy! I was looking for you. We've got to go away to-night and see if Fritz goes to sleep in Ejelmar Bay--about seven miles along the coast, round Suvla Point. He's been making a nuisance of himself again. What kind of a coxswain have you?"

"Not particularly good," the Orphan said. "He's not very fond of shells."

"Hum! I suppose we can't change him," the Sub said, scratching his head. "I've got Bowditch, the gunner's mate, coming along to run the 3-pounder, so that will be all right." Then, bursting with excitement, he thumped the Orphan's chest. "My perishing Orphan! Just fancy if we bag a submarine!"

"Promotion for you, too," grinned the Orphan.

"I hadn't thought of that," beamed the Sub. "Wouldn't that be grand?"

They were interrupted by a signalman running aft. "Hostile aeroplane, sir!" he called out. The "guard call" sounded, and the marines began tumbling up the hatchways with their rifles.

It was "Cuthbert", the aeroplane, coming along for his evening visit; but this time he was not bothering his head about the ships at Suvla, but flew past at a great height, evidently off to Kephalo, in Imbros Island, twelve miles across the water, to try and drop a bomb on the aerodromes there, or on the General Headquarters Camp.

"We aren't going away until nearly midnight," the Sub said, as they watched "Cuthbert" growing smaller and smaller. Suddenly there was a shout of "Hello! One of ours is after him! Look! He's heading him off!"

Sure enough, they saw another dot against the blue sky rapidly closing "Cuthbert", who had evidently seen him and swerved to the right.

As far as they could see, the English aeroplane was the higher of the two, though a long distance separated them.

"Hello! Look there! He's coming back! Look! He's dropped his bombs" (two spouts of water flew up on the sea). "He'll get away now!"

With the weight of the bombs "off" him, "Cuthbert" came back very fast, and presently the English machine gave up the long, stern chase and turned back to Kephalo.

"Well, they stopped him dropping bombs there," the Orphan grinned.

Just before midnight--pitch-dark it was--the Sub, the Orphan, and Bowditch, the gunner's mate, climbed down into the picket-boat and pushed off. They steamed outside, turned to the right, and, half an hour later, met the _Grampus_ destroyer--the left-flank-guard destroyer--who piloted them along the coast-line for some seven miles. Then she stopped. Her skipper shouted across, through a megaphone: "We're right opposite it now. Off you go. I'll wait for you."

In they went--very slowly, to prevent making a noise, and so as not to bump anything in the dark--eventually finding themselves in a bay, with high cliffs all round it. Here the darkness was more intense than ever, and all was absolutely silent. They "felt" round the cliffs at one side, going dead slow, but not a trace of Fritz could they find. Then they pushed across to the opposite cliff, where there was a lighter patch--probably a break in the cliffs--and just as they had searched this other side, a most startling crackling of musketry burst out from the direction of that lighter patch, and bullets fairly hummed round their ears. The coxswain put his helm hard over as the Sub roared for the engines to go full speed ahead, and the picket-boat naturally began turning a circle, and would have headed for the foot of the cliffs in a moment or two, had not the Orphan swung the helm back again. The Sub, coming back from the bows, where he and Bowditch had been "standing by" the 3-pounder and looking for Fritz, took the wheel from him, and steered out into the open.

"My! but that was warm," the Sub said, drawing a deep breath. "That was the hottest bit of fire I've had yet; it beats Ajano. I've never heard so many bullets at the same time. Phew! One lucky shot, and the boat might have been disabled."

"We don't have much luck, do we?" the Orphan said, when he had recovered his normal state of mind.

"No, we don't. Still, there wasn't a submarine there--of that I'm certain. We were sent to find that out--so never mind. Phew! That was hotter than I liked it--it was. I can't think how they missed us."

The _Grampus_ escorted the picket-boat back to Suvla Point, and just after the sun had risen and the hands had been turned out, she ran under the stern of the _Achates_, and the Sub and the Orphan climbed up the "jumping-ladder".

The Lamp-post, with a relief crew, stood waiting to take over the picket-boat.

"No luck, Lampy; nothing doing," the Orphan said. But his pal was too interested watching the colour effect of the sunrise on the mountain top of Samothrace--to the right of Imbros--and made the tired Orphan look at it too. "Bother old Samothrace, Lampy! I want something to eat. I hope they won't start shelling _us_" (a big shell had just burst on the beach, opposite the ship) "till I've had a bath and my breakfast. Where are you going?"

"They ran a lighter ashore at 'C' beach last night, and I've to go and clear her, and try to get her off."

"C" beach was round Nebuchadnezzar Point, out of sight behind Lala Baba, and the Turks shelled most things that went there--at any odd hour of the day.

"Poor old Lampy! They'll start shelling you directly you go there--they did me yesterday. Bath--breakfast--sleep--that's what I'm going to do. Nighty! Nighty!"

"Swish-sh-sh--flom-p" went a shell, half-way between the distilling ship and the _Achates_.

"R-r-r-omp" burst a high explosive on the beach. Another shell, falling into the water close to the _Achates_, burst, and the smoke drifted along the surface to her bows.

"Bugler! Bugler! Sound the 'Retire'!" sang out Mr. Meredith, on watch. "Get away in that boat of yours," he told the Lamp-post, as the old crew came up the jumping-ladder, and the relief crew waited to take their place. "Coal and water her when this 'show's' finished."

"Good luck to 'C' beach and the lighter, old Lampy! Don't duck when they come along. Nighty! Nighty!" the Orphan called out to him, and went below, as another wailing swish sighed through the air over the ship.

Outside X2 casemate the China Doll leant against the thin armour, with his sponge and soap in his hand and a towel round him. "Where are those horrid shell dropping? Anywhere near us?" he asked, blinking his eyes.

The Pink Rat, inside the casemate, looked very miserable. "Any luck, Orphan?" he asked nervously.

"I'm going to 'bag' your baths. I'm so sleepy I can't wait till these silly old Turks have finished," the Orphan said, and sang out for Barnes to get him a cup of tea.

It was now four weeks since the night of the Suvla landing, and, as you have heard, flies were more of a plague on shore than they had been when the _Achates'_ midshipmen left "W" beach. They swarmed on board the ships. Bubbles declared that you could see them sitting along the gunwales of every boat that came off from the beach, and that directly it got alongside they flew on board and made themselves at home. The Honourable Mess presented the China Doll with a "swatter", and made him spend most of his waking hours killing flies in the gun-room, but the more he killed the more flew in through the scuttles or from the mess-deck. Both in the ward-room and the gun-room the noise of the fly "swatters" went on continuously all through the daylight hours.

Dysentery commenced to rage throughout the Army; and whether the flies brought it off from shore or whether they did not, dysentery commenced to break out among the ships' companies, especially among those men who worked in boats, or those living ashore--signalmen and beach-party men--all who were frequently in contact with the soldiers. The Pink Rat, grown visibly thinner, and the Hun both went on the sick-list. They lay in cots on the half-deck, but had often to turn out and get behind the armour, on one or other of the casemates, when the Turks' shells began whistling over the skylight above them. They lived chiefly on condensed milk--"poor brutes", as the China Doll said sympathetically.

So many of those "stray" snotties who had lodged in the _Achates_ had by now been sent back to their own ships, ill, that the Honourable Mess had the gun-room almost to themselves again. Nor had those precious stores been seriously raided this time, so they had no real grievance.

At last the _Achates_ herself received orders to return to Mudros to coal and "rest"; and on the 6th September she slipped out through the submarine "gate" after dark, left the twinkling camp-fires of Suvla behind her, and steamed through the double row of submarine nets at Mudros early next morning.

*CHAPTER XX*

*Hard Work at Mudros*

The _Achates_ had not been at Mudros for nearly three months and a half, and during this period the appearance of the shores on either side of the harbour had changed very greatly indeed. Where, previously, fifty tents or marquees had stood, there were now thousands--multitudes of them--the French on the east, the British on the west side. The French, anticipating a winter campaign, had already built rows of wooden barrack-huts; the British had begun to do so.