CHAPTER XVIII

THE LANDING AT ANZAC

One bright morning in April, a group of young officers sat smoking on the deck of a British destroyer lying amid a crowd of warships and transport vessels in Mudros harbour, on the southern shore of the Grecian island of Lemnos. They were clad in khaki, with sun helmets, which marked them out as military, not naval officers. Seated in a rough half-circle, some on chairs, some on the spotless deck, they appeared to be specially interested in one of their number, at whom they were throwing questions one after another.

"What's the Turkish for 'Give me some beer,' anyhow?" one had just asked.

"_Bana bira ver_," replied the young subaltern. "But you won't easily get it, you know. Moslems don't drink it."

"Do they grow grapes?" asked another.

"Oh yes; _yuzum_ 's the word."

"Don't they make 'em into wine, then?"

"They're not supposed to, but I daresay you might get some if you said _Bana sharab ver_ very politely."

"You won't want it, Ted," said a third. "We've plenty of our own stuff. Our Australian wine is as good as any."

"Besides," said the man they were questioning, "you won't get many opportunities of making requisitions of that sort. There aren't any inns in Gallipoli, you know."

"What's the Turkish for _inn_?"

"Khan."

"Say 'keep up your pecker' in Turkish: that'll stump you."

"Not at all. If you fancy your Turk is downhearted, say to him '_Gheiret ileh_.'"

A subaltern, who had furtively taken from his pocket a booklet with a buff-coloured paper cover, turned over the pages, replaced the book, and bending forward said:

"Here's a poser for you. What's the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'?"

There was a gust of laughter.

"Tomlinson's thinking of the girl he left behind him," said one of his comrades. "_Gheiret ileh_, Tommy."

"Stumped, Forester?"

"I'm sorry for Tomlinson; he'll have a mouthful to say. _Sevderilehmemek_ meets the case, I think."

"By Jove!" gasped the last speaker. "Sounds like a bird twittering."

Tomlinson had taken out his book again.

"Forester's right," he said, examining a page. "What a language! How in the world did you manage to learn it?"

"What have you got there?" some one asked.

"A remarkable production called 'Easy Turkish,'" Tomlinson replied. "If that's easy! ... It's supposed to be a word-book for our chaps in Turkey; but while it gives you the Turkish for 'not to be able to be made to love'--as if any sane person would want to say that!--it doesn't tell you how to say you're hungry or thirsty. Poof!"

He flung the book overboard.

"Bang goes sixpence!" he remarked. "You'd better compile something decent, Forester."

"It's too late now," said Frank, smiling. "Pity; I might have made a few honest pennies if I had started in time."

Frank had been taken in the hospital ship to Malta, where he found his father. As he made a swift recovery from his wound, he grew more and more eager to join the fighting forces, and was on the point of applying for a commission when news came that a military expedition in Gallipoli had been decided on, to retrieve the failure of the naval operations which had been in progress for several months. With his father's approval he hastened to Alexandria and applied for work in connection with the expedition. His knowledge of Turkish and his recent experiences in Gallipoli served him well. Interpreters were much needed. He was attached as interpreter to the Australian contingent with the rank of lieutenant, and accompanied the troops when they sailed for the base in Mudros Bay.

"What sort of a place is this Gallipoli?" asked one of the young Australians, who had heard something of Frank's adventures.

"A very hard nut to crack," Frank replied. "I don't know much about the coast, which is mainly cliffs with very narrow beaches; but the interior is all rocky hills and ravines, covered with scrub and dwarf oaks. You couldn't imagine finer country for defence, and the Turks are best on the defensive. They've had time for preparation, too. A couple of months ago I saw them dragging a battery up the sides of Sari Bair, a hill nearly 1000 feet high, and since then no doubt they've planted guns all over the place."

"We're in for a hot time, then," remarked Tomlinson. "Well, I was fed up with Egypt. That attack on the canal was a futile bit of stupidity, and I was afraid they'd keep us there on the watch for another attack which not even the Turks would be asses enough to make. If we're in for the real thing now--well, I for one am delighted, I assure you."

At two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 24, the flagship took up her position at the head of the line, and the warships passed down among the slowly moving transports amid cheers from the men on the crowded decks. Two hours later the troops were lined up with the ships' companies to hear the captains read Admiral de Robeck's final order of the day, and to join in the last solemn service conducted by the chaplains. Then the vessels steamed slowly northward, towards the scene of what was to be the most heroic enterprise in the long annals of our history.

All night the fleet made its slow way. On Frank's destroyer the naval officers entertained the troops with their traditional hospitality, and then the men--such of them as excitement did not keep awake--slept through the remaining hours of darkness.

At one in the morning of Sunday the ships hove to, five miles from the fatal shore. The men were aroused and served with a hot meal. The stillness of night brooded over the decks, and the young soldiers, browned, stalwart, eager, chatted in subdued tones. Twenty minutes later came the signal from the flagship for lowering the boats, which had been swinging all night from the davits. Silently the men moved to their appointed places; the boats dropped gently to the water, and out of the darkness glided the steam pinnaces that were to take them in tow. Frank and his new acquaintances were to remain on the destroyer, which would go close inshore and land them in boats after those towed by the pinnaces had reached the beach.

It was still dark when the boats, each in charge of a young midshipman, moved slowly and silently shoreward. The group of officers on the deck of the destroyer followed them with their eyes until they were swallowed up in the darkness. Their hearts were beating fast with suppressed excitement. What was to be the fate of this great adventure? Could their approach have been heard? Would the enemy be taken by surprise? Had the shore at this spot been fortified in anticipation of attack? Nothing was known. The dawn would show.

Three battleships had taken up position in line abreast to cover the landing. The boats stole past them. Through the gloom the outline of the cliffs was just faintly discernible. Frank gazed breathlessly ahead. He could barely distinguish the foremost boats creeping in towards the shore. All was silent; the brooding hush seemed ominous. Suddenly a searchlight flashed from a point on the cliffs, showing up the boats as it moved slowly over the water. Still not a shot was fired. The destroyer, one of seven, began to move. It had barely got under way when there was a long line of flashes at the level of the beach, followed in a few seconds by a sharp crackle. The Turks had opened rifle fire. Then came the faint sounds of a British cheer. The first boats had reached the beach: dark forms could be seen leaping forwards into a blaze of fire. Frank watched them with a quivering impatience. His general instructions were to go ashore when the landing had been made good and to hold himself in readiness to interpret so soon as the first prisoners were brought in. But in his heart he longed to be among the gallant fellows who were braving the perils of the assault; why should he be passive when they were daring so much?

A light mist crept over the sea, almost blotting out the cliffs. Presently the destroyer moved slowly shorewards; it stopped again, and at the moment when rifle fire burst forth with greater intensity the boats were lowered over the side. Frank sprang into the first, throbbing with exultation as it pulled in. The rosy dawn was just creeping over the hill-tops, the mist was dispersing, and he could now clearly see the khaki figures swarming like cats up the shrub-covered almost perpendicular face of the cliffs.

The boat touched shoal water. Frank leapt overboard with its company, and rushed up the beach, strewn with prostrate forms and discarded packs. Just as he reached the first trench, from which the Turks had been hurled at the point of the bayonet, the man beside him reeled, gasped, and fell against him. Frank laid him gently down; then, losing all sense of his non-combatant capacity, he seized the man's rifle and bandolier and sprinted after the others.

For a few moments he ran forward in a blind confusion of the senses. The yellow sandstone crumbled beneath his feet: in front was what appeared to be a green wall streaked with yellow. Bullets whistled around. Here and there men lay huddled in extraordinary attitudes on the slope; now and then he caught sight of a figure clambering up. On he went, through shrubs that grew higher than his head, conscious only of continuous flashes, until suddenly he came face to face with a dark figure that seemed to have sprung up out of the earth. Instinctively he thrust forward his rifle with a fierce lunge, and the next thing he knew was that the Turk had sunk down before him, and that he was leaping into a trench.

Close to his right he heard the murderous rattle of a machine gun. He stumbled along the trench for a few yards, shouting he knew not what, tripped over a man prone in the bottom of the trench, and before he could pick himself up was kicked and trodden by a number of Australians who had followed him. Struggling to his feet, he hurried on, to find himself in a furious melee about the emplacement of the machine gun. Two of the Australians were down, a third was at deadly grips with three big bearded Turks. Frank rushed at the nearest of them, and disposed of him with his bayonet. At the same moment the second fell to the bayonet of the Australian, and the third turned, scrambled out of the trench, and plunging into the scrub disappeared up the hill.

"Got the gun, sir," cried the Australian with a happy grin.

Frank, gasping, trembling, leant against the side of the trench.

"Take it down," he replied.

Another boat's load of men came rushing along the trench. There was no officer among them. Gathering himself together, Frank put himself at their head, and leapt up the hill, in pursuit of the Turks who had been driven from the trench. The ground was broken by ridges, gullies, and sand-pits, and the scrub grew so thickly that they could scarcely see a yard in front of them. To keep a regular alignment was impossible. The men separated, each forcing his own way. None of them had yet so much as charged their magazines. The work had all been done with the cold steel. Here one plunged his bayonet into the back of a fleeing Turk: there another shouted with delight as he discovered that a swaying bush was really a sniper who had tied branches about his body for concealment. As they mounted, friend and foe became hopelessly intermingled. Frank caught sight occasionally of a knot of Turks, then of a group of Australians; next moment nothing was to be seen but scrub and creeper intermingled with bright flowers of varied hue as in a rock garden. Foot by foot he climbed up until presently he found himself at the crest of the hill, and saw the Australians busy with their trenching tools amid a furious rifle fire from the Turks in their main position. His eye marked a steep gully which formed an almost perfect natural trench. Shouting to the men nearest him, he was joined by a score or so, who leapt into the gully beside him. And as the sun rose over the hills on that Sunday morning, Frank, without being aware of it, was within a few hundred yards of his old hiding-place, the sepulchre on Sari Bair.