Part 25

"It's about time we packed up too. There's only a little more big baggage, and perhaps a hundred and fifty men of the beach parties, military landing-officers, and your people to go off from here, and that finishes the bag of tricks. Haven't we pulled their legs? Listen! they're sniping just as usual, up there. I'm just going round to get those stores properly started burning, and then pack up. I'm really sorry to leave, for some reasons," he said, glancing round his tiny little office "dug-out", with the bare rock on one side and the sand-bag walls.

He sent the Orphan, with one of the Pier-masters, to make a last search of the left flank. Off they went, rounded Suvla Point, and worked slowly along under the foot of the cliffs again, the Pier-master hailing the shore occasionally through a megaphone. Not a sound came back, except the echo from the face of the cliffs. They went some two miles along the coast, turned, and steamed back quickly, because they saw the glare of the burning fires, and thought that now, at any rate, the Turks would realize what had happened, and would come tearing down. Suvla Point and Saunders Pier were lighted up by the crackling, leaping flames, and in his four boats, still lying alongside the pier, the last of the people to leave Suvla had crowded. Four or five army officers came across to the less crowded picket-boat, and then, with an extraordinary feeling of exhilaration, he towed them off to the waiting trawlers, and stood off whilst those last people crowded into them.

This accomplished, he received orders to anchor his boats, and, with that same Pier-master, to make another last search along the cliffs on the left flank.

Away he went, and perhaps not more than half a mile--certainly not a mile--from the end of Suvla Point they saw a small group of dark figures on top of the cliffs. The Pier-master, a lusty naval lieutenant, hailed them through his megaphone; and a voice shouted back: "We're English! We're English!"

"That's funny," said the Pier-master. "Edge in a little closer; get your maxim ready."

The coxswain steered in towards the shore, and again the Pier-master hailed, and again a single voice called back: "We're English! We're English!"

"Well, if they _were_ English, they would _all_ shout," he said. "Keep her out! They are Turks, those chaps; probably a patrol which has pushed along the edge of the cliffs and does not know what to make of things. They would make a 'hullabaloo', right enough, if they were our chaps left behind."

The picket-boat steamed along under the cliffs, hailing every now and then, until they had passed the place where the left-flank trenches, coming down from Jephson's Post, touched the shore. Not a man could be seen, nor did any answer come back in response to the hails through the megaphone.

"That's finish!" the Pier-master told the Orphan. "Turn her round." Over went the wheel, round twisted the picket-boat, back she steamed to where the four boats lay, out beyond Suvla Point; and although the moon had disappeared by this time, there was not the slightest difficulty in finding them, for the whole water reflected the flames of the burning stores, and the boats and the men's faces showed up plainly.

The picket-boat took them in tow, and commenced to steam across to Kephalo. Behind her the flames leapt fiercely along the sweep of the bay, and every now and again explosions took place, hurling masses of flame and sparks high in the air. Silhouetted black against these fires was the _Cornwallis_ battleship, left behind to keep the fires burning with her shells--if necessary--and to destroy in the morning the few wooden lighters which had been left behind.

Down along the coast at Anzac the sea was ruddy with the huge fires burning there.

"Well, if they've only been as successful down there, it's been a mighty good show," the Pier-master said as they watched them. "We've only left four condemned guns--blown them up, too--and not a single man, horse, or mule; and we've even taken off the goats belonging to the Indian Transport Column. My hat! it's simply wonderful; I'm going to coil up and do a little 'shut eye' down in the cabin. I have not slept for nearly four days."

"'Kaiser Bill' is down there. I do believe he has brought luck," the Orphan burst out; and then had to explain who "Kaiser Bill" was.

The coxswain, sweeping his hand astern towards Anafarta, called down: "Look, sir, there comes the dawn. We wondered if the weather would hold till Monday, and, thank God! it has."

The Orphan looked, and, hardly noticeable behind the bright glare of the fires, saw the pale light of dawn behind the Anafarta hills.

There was no longer any need for precautions. The "bogey" on the engine-room casings soon burnt brightly, and soon he and Marchant were sharing a big bowl of cocoa, and ravenously eating some more clumsy sandwiches which the men cut for them. Neither of them as yet felt sleepy, because the excitement of success kept them wide awake, though neither had slept for two whole days and nights.

By seven-thirty it became light enough for them to see, ahead of them, on their way from Suvla or Anzac, ten or twelve "water-beetles", a dozen or more trawlers, with long strings of transports' boats, pontoons, and lighters towing behind them; some twenty steamboats, also with their "tows", and several small tugs. The Suvla distilling steamer--the _Bacchus_--which for four months had been constantly shelled, was steaming on her way to Mudros; and patrolling destroyers, trawlers, and drifters swept the sea just as they always had done, and just as though nothing had happened.

Boom! Boom! came the rumble and thud of the firing of two big guns.

"The _Cornwallis_, sir, at Suvla," the coxswain said, turning to look, and making the Orphan turn to watch Turkish shells bursting down by the water's edge--just as usual. They had commenced their early morning "hate"--on empty beaches.

"By all that is wonderful, sir!" said the coxswain.

At half-past eight the picket-boat entered Kephalo harbour; and the Orphan knew, by the cheering which greeted him from the troops packed together aboard two large transports anchored inside, that the evacuation of Anzac had been completed as successfully as that at Suvla.

He turned over his four boats to a battleship, and threaded his way through the throng of steamboats, trawlers, and motor-lighters which jostled each other in the harbour, eventually reached the shore, and landed to report himself.

He found the Fierce One, who had only just returned from Suvla, and the Not So Fierce One at breakfast in their little wooden hut.

"Hum! You've come back, have you?" growled the Fierce One. "A very good two nights' work; very good, indeed!"

The Not So Fierce One, looking at the Orphan, said: "You look pretty well fagged out; have a cup of tea, or something."

*CHAPTER XXII*

*A Terrible Night*

The Orphan had returned to Kephalo at nine o'clock in the morning--that Monday morning after the evacuation of Suvla. He had had no sleep for forty-eight hours, and was allowed none now. In the afternoon the largest tug received orders to tow four picket-boats and a steam pinnace to Mudros--the two picket-boats belonging to the _Lord Nelson_, the boat belonging to the _Swiftsure_, another, and the steam pinnace.

The Orphan thought this would be rather a "spree", and did not notice that the north-easterly breeze which had held all that past week had backed to the south-west.

At half-past four in the afternoon, he and the other boats followed the tug out of harbour under their own steam. Beyond the "nets" the tug waited for them to come along and make fast, one behind the other.

"This is just the time when it's best to be last," Marchant, his coxswain, suggested. "I don't feel quite certain of the weather, and if we are the last boat we can slip whenever we want to."

The Orphan agreed, and wasted a good deal of time--on purpose--going out of harbour, and found the other boats all secured to each other, in one long line, by the time he joined them. The captain of the tug was not very polite to him, but he did not worry about that, and made fast his tow-rope to the last boat--the _Lord Nelson's_ No. 1 picket-boat.

The Cheese-mite shouted across: "I say, Orphan, you've cut me out of the stern billet--I wanted that."

"So did I," the Orphan laughed.

Away they all went, one after another, the tug steaming very slowly; and outside Suvla Point they found quite a fresh breeze, blowing straight in their faces, and the sea which had been so calm had already begun to cover itself with little "white horses".

Four "water-beetles" joined company, puffing along with them as fast as they could.

Fires were allowed to die out gradually in all the steamboats, and there was nothing to do but steer them.

The crew now lighted the bogey, made tea, and fried some bacon. Everyone had a good meal; and after it the Orphan felt much too comfortable and sleepy to chaff the Cheese-mite ahead of him through his megaphone. "I'm going to have a bit of sleep," he told Marchant, and snuggled down below in the little cabin, with a rolled-up overcoat as pillow.

It was bright moonlight when he woke up, and he felt the picket-boat bumping into waves every other second. He rubbed his eyes, and jumped on deck to the wheel.

"Hullo, what's that?" he said, noticing smoke coming up out of the funnel.

"I didn't wake you, sir; there's nothing to worry about--not yet; but I don't like the look of the weather, so I'm raising steam in case anything happens. You'd better get an oilskin on, sir," he added, as the bows bumped into a wave and the spray came over them.

But the Orphan had not one, so he took the wheel whilst Marchant went for his.

The breeze had indeed risen, and the sea too. The picket-boats ahead of him were going up and down like the boats at a circus roundabout; and behind him those motor-lighters, looking more like "water-beetles" than ever, in the moonlight, were slowly falling astern, yawing from side to side and covered with spray.

He saw Kephalo South Point light and the fires over at Anzac, which still burnt furiously, and knew that the boats had only just got past Aliki Bay. He could not have been asleep for long.

The wind and sea increased every minute, and made the steering of the picket-boat quite a hard job. Marchant came back and took the wheel from him. "I've known this boat for nearly three years, sir," he said; and the Orphan, knowing how he hated letting anyone steer his own old picket-boat, knew what he meant.

"What extraordinary luck, sir!" Marchant said presently. "Fancy if it had blown like this last night! Right on shore it would have been, and not a boat could have gone near it. We could not possibly have taken the soldiers off, to say nothing about their guns."

In half an hour the motor-lighters were evidently in difficulties. In order to keep their screws in the water they had to be much ballasted down by the stern. This made their bluff bows come right out of the water; and every sea hitting them, besides almost stopping their way, tended to throw them off their course. They could not steer properly, yawing this way, yawing that; and it was impossible for them to keep up with the five and a half knots of the tug, which was then about the speed she was towing the picket-boats.

She stopped and, as the motor-lighters struggled towards her, hailed them, and made two come alongside, abreast each other, on each side of her. She made them fast, and with them working their motors and doing their best to steer, she went on again. But you can imagine what a terribly clumsy "tow" they made, bumping into each other, bumping into the tug, simply covered with spray minute after minute.

"Look here, sir," said Marchant presently, as the weather rapidly grew worse; "if those lighters break adrift, they'll come down on us and finish us."

"What d'you want to do?"

"I'd like to slip, and try and get along by ourselves. We can do it, sir; she's a very good steamer."

The Orphan didn't know quite what to do. He realized the danger, but he didn't relish the idea of steaming nearly fifty miles to wind'ard, in the teeth of the rapidly rising wind.

However, he realized that Marchant probably knew, better than he did, what the boat could or could not do; so he agreed.

He seized the megaphone and yelled to the Cheese-mite to slip his tow-rope. The Cheese-mite, who also had raised steam, wanted to know where he was going.

"Make for Mudros!" yelled the Orphan.

"D'you know the way?"

"The coxswain does."

"I'll follow you," the Cheese-mite shouted, as the tow-rope fell into the water.

The two of them swerved outside the clumsy motor-lighters and gradually forged ahead, lost sight of them, and went plunging into the head seas, steering by compass and by the glow of the fires of Anzac. In a very short time they had to batten down everything--the forepeak hatch, the engine-room, and the stokehold hatches. The Orphan and Marchant (who had taken off his boots and oilskin) were wet through, waves washed a foot deep over the picket-boat, and she made very little progress.

For two hours they struggled on; but by that time a regular gale was blowing, driving a short steep sea in front of it so fiercely that the picket-boat not only made scarcely any way, but could hardly keep her bows to it.

"We can't do it, sir," Marchant at last said, when, at one extra lurch, two of the spare water-barricoes (full they were) tore themselves from their lashings round the engine-room casings and went overboard. "We haven't enough water now--to say nothing of coal."

"We'll have to go back, sir!" he shouted.

"Right-o!" yelled the Orphan, clinging to the rail round the cabin, and not at all liking the idea of turning the boat round in such a sea.

Very gently Marchant edged her round; a wave buried her bows and threw her over; she righted herself, and the next wave, catching her almost broadside on, simply flung her on her beam-ends. For a moment the Orphan thought she would never right herself; then she did with a jerk, a wave came green almost over the wheel, the picket-boat lurched more heavily than before. The Orphan, swept off his feet, clung to the rail, and by the time he had gained his feet again she was round, and going ahead with the waves roaring after her, lifting her stern, foaming over the counter and trying to fling it round. He groped his way aft, clinging to the cabin rail, and found that already there were two feet of water in the stern-sheets.

He suddenly remembered "Kaiser Bill", jumped down into the water, went into the cabin, and found his box floating about. He took it out into the moonlight, and was much relieved when the tortoise peeped out of his shell to see what all the "bobbery" was about. He jammed the box in a rack inside the cabin, near the top of it, and went back to the wheel.

"Much, sir?" Marchant asked anxiously.

"Two feet!" the Orphan shouted, and told him about rescuing "Kaiser Bill".

"I'd forgotten all about him, sir. We're all right now, he'll bring us through. We must get that water out of her."

The Orphan knew that the ejector was choked, so he made his way for'ard, clinging to the wire round the engine-room casings, the funnel-stays, and the gun-mounting, to call two of the men, huddled down under the forepeak, to come aft and bale the water out with buckets.

They came and worked hard, but the waves constantly lopped in, and the amount of water diminished very slowly. He knew that if her stern swung round and she "broached to", the seas would fill the big stern-sheets completely, and as he could not trust to the engine-room bulkhead being watertight, she would probably sink. He understood then why Marchant had taken off his boots and oilskin.

He went back to the steering-wheel.

Just then the stokehold hatch opened, the stoker drew himself out, and scrambled cautiously aft. He began unlashing one of the two remaining barricoes of water, when a sudden lurch of the boat threw him off his feet, and he slid overboard.

Like lightning Marchant, shouting "Take the wheel, sir!" jumped in front of the protecting shield, flung himself down, gripping the wire round the engine-room casing with one hand, leant over the gunwale, and seized the stoker almost before he had fallen completely over the side. There was the crash of something being overturned, the sizzle of red-hot cinders falling in the water, and Marchant, with a jerk, wrenched the man against the boat's side. He gripped the life-line; Marchant gave a heave, and he climbed on board again. It all happened in the twinkling of an eye.

Marchant came back and took the wheel.

"Pretty quick work, that!" the Orphan said. "He'd have been drowned; we couldn't have turned round to pick him up."

"No; it wouldn't have been safe," Marchant shouted back, meeting a vicious swerve of the stern with a touch of helm.

"Look at my hands and face, sir," he said, when the picket-boat had quieted herself. "I knocked over that bogey; it hadn't gone out, and the cinders burnt me or scalded me when they fell into the water."

By the moonlight the Orphan saw that his face and hands were very red.

"I can't see that _Lord Nelson's_ boat, sir," Marchant shouted in a minute or two. "She ought to have seen us turn and followed. I can't see her now."

The Orphan looked astern and could see nothing. In ordinary circumstances he would have gone back to look for her; but with that raging, roaring, steep sea racing after them, both he and Marchant knew this was now out of the question.

The only thing they could do they did; Marchant going aft, lighting a lantern, and lashing it to show astern.

He left the wheel to the Orphan.

By the time Marchant came back the tug hove in sight, tossing and tumbling in the white foaming seas, evidently standing by two motor-lighters which had broken adrift and were almost hidden in spray, broadside-on to the waves. They saw nothing of the other two.

They passed them, and caught up with one of the other picket-boats. Marchant roared through his megaphone for her to keep Kephalo Light well clear to port because of the "submarine detector" nets. He knew where they were, and this steamboat seemed to be steering for them.

"There's one caught in them, over there, sir!" Marchant shouted, pointing far away to port. "She'll probably drift on to the rocks."

"Can't we go and help?" the Orphan shouted, knowing full well that this was impossible, for once the propeller fouled those nets his picket-boat would be helpless, and drift on the rocks herself when the waves tore her out of the nets.

Marchant shook his head.

In half an hour they had Kephalo Light a couple of miles on their port beam; half an hour later they had edged the picket-boat into comparatively smooth water, and by eleven o'clock that night they went in through the gate in the submarine net at Kephalo, and ran alongside the _Achates_.

By this time Marchant's face and hands had begun to swell and blister from that scald or burn, and were very painful.

The Orphan sent him inboard to Dr. Gordon, and took his steamboat round the sunken breakwater ships alongside the landing-place. Then he stumbled, wet through and fearfully tired, up to the wooden hut, woke the Fierce One, and reported himself.

He became horribly unpopular, and was ordered to report in the morning. So back he went to the picket-boat, tied her up alongside the sunken Oruba; and he and his crew went to sleep, and would have slept for ever, if the crew of another picket-boat, tied up close to them, had not given them a "shake" next morning.

In the forenoon the Orphan was sent outside the harbour to search for the other picket-boats which had not arrived. He saw the Cheese-mite's boat hard and fast on shore, and another breaking up not far from her. He expected that the crews had swum or scrambled ashore (they had done so); but the seas ran much too high for him to go in and give assistance, so back he came into harbour and reported this.

"Hum!" growled the Fierce One. "You don't belong to me any more; go back to your ship."

The tired midshipman, thinking that he had disgraced himself, went back.

Bubbles met him at the top of the gangway--his face redder, and his chuckling, snorting noises louder than ever. "Orphan! Orphan!" he blurted out; "you and I are off to 'W' beach. The Sub went there yesterday, and we're going to-night. Really--honour bright!" as he saw that the Orphan thought that his leg was being "pulled".

"Phew! That's grand! My word, what luck!" the Orphan burst out, his tired eyes lighting up as he realized that Bubbles meant it.

Marchant, with his left hand bandaged up and his face all oily and red, was waiting to go down into the boat.

"Good-bye!" the Orphan said. "We've had a splendid time together, haven't we? Good luck to you!" and darted away to see the Commander and get his orders; but then, remembering "Kaiser Bill", ran back again.

"He's all right; they're bringing him up along with your gear," Bubbles told him. "I'll look after everything. You do look a prize burglar!"

He found the Commander. "Yes, you are to go across in a trawler--about five o'clock. The Captain wishes to see you."

So aft he went, and found Captain Macfarlane in his cabin smoking a cigarette, as usual.

"Hum!" he said, smiling when he saw how unkempt the Orphan looked, his face dirty, and his clothes hardly dry from last night's soaking. "Hum, Mr. Orpen! We don't seem to be able to carry on this war without you, do we? You have to go across to 'W' beach to-night, and you'll probably be there for some time."

"Are they going to evacuate Helles, sir?" the Orphan asked.

"I expect you will be able to tell me that, when you've been there a few days. You were out in that gale last night, I hear, and the only one of those five boats to get back. Hum! You seem lucky."

"We had 'Kaiser Bill' on board. Old Fletcher, the stoker, made me take him."

"Oh! was that it?" smiled the Captain, tugging his beard. "Well, off you go, and good luck to you! You'll have plenty of shells to dodge--over there. You'd better take 'Kaiser Bill' with you."

"I will, sir, if Fletcher lets me." And the Orphan, hugely happy and delighted, went away to the gun-room to tell all his adventures.

At four o'clock that afternoon Bubbles and the Orphan stood at the top of the accommodation ladder, with all the clothes and gear they wanted in two ordinary sailor's kit-bags, and their bedding made up in two bundles. On top of the bundles rested "Kaiser Bill's" wooden box, with the tortoise inside. Old Fletcher had come aft, and was "fussing" round him.

"We'll look after him all right. Thank you for lending him!" they called out as they went down into the Hun's steam pinnace. "Kaiser Bill" and their gear were carried down after them, and the Hun took them across to the waiting trawler.

By five o'clock the _Achates_ was once more out of sight, and the trawler was steaming towards Cape Helles with the remnants of last night's gale on her starboard beam. The two midshipmen both wore once again the khaki which the Fierce One had forbidden, the same clothes they had worn when they left "W" beach at the end of May, six months and a half ago; and they felt supremely happy, crouching in the lee of the trawler's galley, and watching the island of Kephalo gradually fading out of sight till darkness hid it altogether.

At half-past six the trawler ran alongside a sunken steamer--the outer hulk of Pier No. 1; a steamboat came for them, and landed them and their gear at No. 3 Pier--the pier they had watched being commenced by the Sappers the very day of the landing. By the light of a single lantern they found the Pier-master--a Sub-lieutenant, R.N.R.--and were ordered to report themselves to the Naval Transport Officer.