A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser
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Title: A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser
Creator: T. T. Jeans
Illustrator: Frank Gillett
Release date: June 13, 2014 [eBook #45960]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45960
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NAVAL VENTURE: THE WAR STORY OF AN ARMOURED CRUISER ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: "AIM LOW, SONNY! AIM LOW. YOU WILL SEE YOUR
BULLET-SPLASHES"]
A Naval Venture
The War Story of an
Armoured Cruiser
BY
FLEET-SURGEON T. T. JEANS, R.N.
Author of "Gunboat and Gun-runner"
"John Graham, Sub-Lieutenant, R.N."
"Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant"
&c.
_Illustrated by Frank Gillett, R.I._
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
1917
*Preface*
In this book I have endeavoured to write a gun-room tale which will give
a general impression of the part played by the Royal Navy during the
Dardanelles operations, and of gun-room life under these conditions.
In writing it I have been greatly assisted by many shipmates--officers,
petty officers, and men--who have been employed away from the ship, on
various occasions, either on shore or in steamboats, tugs, or
motor-lighters. From their accounts it has been possible to bring into
the book descriptions of some interesting incidents and operations which
did not come under my personal observation.
My thanks are due, more especially, to Lieutenant H. A. D. Keate, R.N.,
and to Lieutenant V. E. Kemball, R.N., of this ship, who have read
laboriously through the manuscript as it progressed, corrected many
errors of fact and detail, and suggested very many improvements to the
story as a whole.
T. T. JEANS,
Fleet-Surgeon, R.N.
H.M.S. _SWIFTSURE_,
_27th April, 1916._
*Contents*
CHAP.
I. The "*Achates*" goes to Sea
II. The Gun-Room of the "*Achates*"
III. Ordered to the Mediterranean
IV. The Bombardment of Smyrna Forts
V. The "*Achates*" is Shelled
VI. A Night's Adventure
VII. Off to the Dardanelles
VIII. The Landing on Gallipoli
IX. The "River Clyde"
X. A Night Attack
XI. The Beach Party
XII. Off Cape Helles
XIII. The Army comes to a Standstill
XIV. Submarines Appear
XV. A Peaceful Month
XVI. A Glorious Picnic
XVII. A "Cutting-out" Expedition
XVIII. Bombarding at Suvla Bay
XIX. The Army again comes to a Standstill
XX. Hard Work at Mudros
XXI. The Evacuation of Suvla Bay
XXII. A Terrible Night
XXIII. In "Dug-outs" at Cape Helles
XXIV. The Evacuation of Cape Helles
XXV. The "*Achates*" Returns to Malta
*Illustrations*
"'Aim low, sonny! Aim low! You will see your bullet-splashes'" . . .
Frontispiece
"The Gunnery Lieutenant now flew about, jumping from voice pipes to
range-finder and back again"
"The Lamp-post jumped up, seized the box, hoisted it on his shoulder,
and disappeared ahead"
"'Look! what an extraordinary ship!'"
"Screened lanterns!"
The Gun-room Court Martial on the China Doll
Sketch Map of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles
*A NAVAL VENTURE*
*CHAPTER I*
*The "*_*Achates*_*" goes to Sea*
On one miserably wet and cheerless afternoon of February, 1915, the
picket-boat of H.M.S. _Achates_ lay alongside the King's Stairs at
Portsmouth Dockyard, whilst her crew, with their boat-hooks, kept her
from bumping herself against the lowest steps. The rain trickled down
their glistening oilskins, and dark, angry clouds sweeping up from
behind Gosport Town on the opposite side of the harbour, and scudding
overhead, one after the other, in endless battalions, made it certain
that a south-westerly gale was raging in the Channel.
At the top of the steps, with his back to the wind and rain, his feet
wide apart, and his hands in his pockets, was the midshipman of the
boat, in oilskin, sou'wester, and sea-boots. This was Mr. Vincent
Orpen--commonly known as the Orphan--not very tall, but sturdy and
broad-shouldered in his bulky oilskins. Between the brim of his
dripping sou'wester and his turned-up collar showed a pair of very
humorous eyes, a determined-looking nose and mouth, and a pair of large
ears reddened by the cold and rain.
He was waiting to take the Captain--Captain Donald Macfarlane--off to
Spithead, where the _Achates_ lay, ready for sea, but this absent-minded
officer had very probably forgotten the time or place where the boat was
to meet him.
Near by, taking shelter in the lee of the signalman's shelter-box, the
marine postman and a massive, friendly dockyard policeman were standing
with the rain dripping off them.
Presently the midshipman splashed across to them and spoke to the
postman.
"The Captain did say King's Stairs; didn't he?"
"King's Stairs at two o'clock, sir; I heard him myself; King's Stairs at
two o'clock, and it's now past the half-hour. He was only a-going up to
the Admiral's office, he said; just time for me to slip outside to the
post office and back again, sir."
Down below, in the picket-boat, Jarvis, the coxswain, an old, bearded
petty officer--a Naval Reserve man--was grumbling to one of the crew:
"The Cap'n can't never remember nothink--he'll forget hisself one o'
these fine days."
"This ain't a fine day," the young A.B.--Plunky Bill--answered cheekily.
"Stow it! I'll give yer 'fine day' when we gets aboard: I knows it
ain't. We'll get a fair dusting-down going out to Spithead, and a good
many of you youngsters'll wish you'd never come to sea when we gets out
in the Channel to-night."
"I 'opes we ain't going back to the mine-bumping 'bizz' in the North
Sea, a-waiting for to be terpadoed," Plunky Bill said presently,
viciously shoving the picket-boat's dancing stern off the wall with his
dripping boat-hook.
"That's about our job," growled Jarvis. "Better blow up yer
swimmin'-collar when you gets aboard, and tie it around yer bloomin'
neck."
"A precious lot of good they collars be--with sea-boots and oilskins on,
and the water as cold as charity."
"Nobody's askin' you to wear it. When you feels you wants to drown,
quick, just 'and it over to me--I don't. Dare say you ain't got no one
to miss yer; I 'ave--a missus and six kids," growled the coxswain.
Just then the trap hatch of the stokehold flapped up, and out of the
small square opening emerged the bare head of the stoker of the
picket-boat--an old, grey-headed Naval Reserve man, who actually wore
gold spectacles, the effect of which on his coal-begrimed face was very
quaint. He looked round him in a patient, dignified manner, and sniffed
at the wind and rain.
There was a shout from the top of the steps, and Mr. Orpen, with his
hands to his mouth, called down: "Keep out of the rain, Fletcher--don't
be an ass!"
The old man did not hear; but one of the boat's crew for'ard bawled out
to him: "'Ere, close down yer blooming 'atch--chuck it, grandpa--shut
yer face in--the Orphan's a-singing out to yer--'e's nuts on yer 'ealth,
'e is." The old stoker, wiping his rain-spotted spectacles, meekly
obeyed, pulled the hatch over his head, and disappeared from view.
Then the postman, with his big, leather letter-bag, clattered down,
splashing the puddles on the steps. "The Cap'n's coming at last," he
said, and stowed himself away under the fore peak.
Down came Mr. Orpen, jumped aboard, and took the steering-wheel. A
moment later, and after him came the tall, gaunt figure of the Captain,
the rain trickling off the gold oak-leaves on the peak of his cap,
dripping off his long, thin nose and running down his yellowish-red
moustache and pointed beard. His greatcoat was glistening with
raindrops, and his trousers beneath it were soaked and sticking to his
thin shins.
"I forgot to bring my waterproof," he said. "I'm not late, am I?" and
nodding cheerfully, he stepped into the boat.
Mr. Orpen saluted. "Shall I carry on, sir?"
The Captain nodded again; Jarvis shouted out orders; the boat's bows
were shoved off, the engines thumped, and the picket-boat, starting on
her stormy passage to Spithead, bumped the steps with her stern--the
last time, had she known it, that she would ever touch England.
The crew dived down below under the fore peak and shut the hatch on top
of them, for they knew well what was coming. It came right enough.
Directly the picket-boat left the shelter of the harbour mouth she began
to reel and stagger as she steamed along Southsea beach, past the ends
of the deserted piers, with the sea on her beam, washing over her and
jostling her. Then she turned round the Spit Buoy, and head on to the
wind and rain, plunged her way through the short seas, diving and
lifting, throwing up clouds of spray which smacked loudly against the
oilskins of the midshipman at the wheel and the coxswain hanging on by
his side.
As one wave came over the bows, rushed aft along the engine-room sides
and swirled round their feet, and its spray, tossed up by the fo'c'sle
gun-mounting and by the funnel, covered them from head to foot, Jarvis
roared: "Better ease her a bit, sir."
But the Orphan was enjoying himself hugely. He knew the old boat; he
knew exactly what she could "stand", and he was not going to ease down
until it was absolutely necessary, or until Captain Macfarlane made him;
and the Captain was still sitting in the stern-sheets, tugging,
absent-mindedly, at his pointed yellow beard, apparently having
forgotten where he was, and that if only he went into the cabin he could
keep dry.
The picket-boat throbbed and trembled and shook herself, butted into a
wave which seemed to bring her up "all standing", swept through it or
over it, then charged into another; and as the battered remnants of the
waves flung themselves in the Orphan's face and smacked loudly against
his oilskins he only grinned, shook his head, and peered ahead from
beneath the turned-down brim of his sou'wester.
Jarvis, the coxswain, was not enjoying himself. He hated getting
wet--that meant "a bout of rheumatics", and he had a "missus and six
kids".
Gradually the picket-boat fought her way out to the black-and-white
chequered mass of the Spit Fort, until the four funnels and long, grey
hull of the _Achates_ showed through the rain squalls beyond.
A solitary steamboat, on her way ashore, came rushing towards them--a
smother of foam, smoke, and spray; and as she staggered past, only a few
yards away, with the following seas surging round her stern, Orpen waved
a hand to the solitary figure in glistening oilskins at her wheel--a
midshipman "pal" of his from another ship--who waved back cheerily and
disappeared to leeward as a squall swept down between the two boats.
"A nice little trip he'll have, off, sir--if he don't come back soon,"
the coxswain shouted when the last wave's spray had run off the brim of
his sou'wester and he'd caught his breath. "It's breezin' up every
minute, sir!"
Once past the Spit Fort, the picket-boat was in deeper water; the seas
became longer, not so steep, and she took them more easily. Orpen
needed only one hand now to keep her on her course, and in ten minutes
he steered her under the stern of the _Achates_, and brought her
alongside the starboard quarter.
The Captain, dripping with water, jumped on the foot of the ladder as a
wave swung the picket-boat's stern close to it. Half-way up the ladder
a sudden humorous thought struck him, and, bending down, he called out:
"You did not ease down all the time, did you, Mr. Orpen?"
"No, sir," Orpen sang back, grinning with the happiness of everything.
He didn't worry in the least--so long as the Captain didn't mind--that
he had, by forcing his boat through the seas, wetted him to the skin,
and kept him wet for the last twenty minutes.
The officer of the watch shouted "Hook on!" and the picket-boat was
hauled ahead under the main derrick, until the big hook dangling from
the "purchase" swung above the boat. The crew made the bow and stern
lines fast; Fletcher, the old stoker, drew himself up on deck and
lowered the funnel, steam roared away from the "escape"; one seaman
struggled with the ring of the boat's slings, holding it chest-high;
another waited his opportunity, when a wave lifted the picket-boat, to
seize the big hook hanging above him; the ring was slipped over it; the
midshipman waved his hand and shouted; the slings tautened as the order
"up purchase and topping lift" was given; a last wave lopped over the
bows, and with a jerk she was hoisted clear of the water and quickly
swung inboard.
Up on the quarter-deck the Captain was talking to the Commander--a wiry
little man with a weather-beaten face and a grim, hard mouth. "Same old
job, sir?" he asked.
The Captain nodded ruefully. "It's all the poor old _Achates_ is fit
for."
"You're pretty well soaked, sir. Rather a wet passage off?"
"I forgot to go into the cabin," the Captain laughed.
"We're ready for sea, sir. I shortened in, as you were rather late."
"Was I?" the Captain's eyes twinkled. "Right you are! I'll be up again
in a minute. I must get into dry things, or the Fleet Surgeon will be
on my tracks"--and he disappeared below.
In half an hour the _Achates_ was under way and steaming out into the
Channel and the gale.
This ended her week's "rest"--the second "rest" since the war broke out,
six months before. Now she was off again to the North Sea, with its
constant gales, its mine-fields, its enemy submarines, and the grim
delight of frequent hurried coalings.
It was not a very pleasing prospect.
*CHAPTER II*
*The Gun-room of the "Achates"*
Having seen his picket-boat safely landed in her crutches on the booms,
the Orphan dived down below to the gun-room to dry himself in front of
the blazing stove there.
The gun-room was a long, untidy place on the starboard side of the
main-deck, just for'ard of the after 6-inch-gun casemate. A long table,
covered with a red cloth, of the usual Service pattern, and rather more
than usually torn and stained with grease, occupied most of the deck
space, and was now laden with plates, cups and saucers, and, down the
middle, in one gorgeous line, tins of jam, loaves of bread, fat pats of
butter, and slabs of splendidly indigestible cake.
Long benches, covered with leather cushions, were fixed each side of it,
whilst a few chairs, in various stages of decay, were drawn up round the
stove and the upset copper coal-box. The after bulkhead of this
sumptuous abode was occupied by midshipmen's lockers--rows of them one
above the other--and from the half-open locker doors peeped boots and
books, woollen helmets, sweaters, and safety waistcoats.
Along the foremost bulkhead was a corticine-covered sideboard with
drawers for knives, forks, and spoons, cupboards for bottles, and a cosy
gap for a barrel of beer. Above the sideboard, at either end of it,
there were two little sliding-doors in the bulkhead, for the plates and
food to be passed in from the pantry beyond, and for the dirty plates to
be passed out. Between these two sliding-hatches, pictures of beautiful
ladies taken from the last Christmas Number of the Sketch had been
gummed on to the bare expanse of dirty-white paint, and gave an air of
brightness and refinement to an otherwise somewhat depressing interior.
The outer bulkhead--the outer side--the ship's side--had been
white--once. Along it were five scuttles, at present closely screwed
up, and the tail ends of waves occasionally swished angrily across them.
In the spaces between these scuttles, war maps, most of them torn and
ragged, had been pasted to the iron-work, and one or two pin-flags still
managed to hold fast, though the vast array that had once fluttered
across them had long since disappeared.
At each end of the inner bulkhead was a door leading out into the
"half-deck", and between them were more lockers, the roaring, smoking
stove, its brass chimney, and the upset coal-box. Behind the brass
chimney hung a tattered green-baize notice-board on which were pinned a
few dusty long-forgotten gun-room orders; whilst from hooks above it
hung a cheap alarum clock and five damaged wrist-watches, each in its
strap, and each labelled with an official report of the "scrap" during
which it had met its honourable fate.
Newspapers and magazines littered untidily the corticine-covered deck; a
gramophone box, a couple of greatcoats, and a green cricket bag lay
piled in one corner near the lockers; some sextant boxes and two pairs
of sea-boots filled another.
Overhead, between the deck beams, wooden battens were fixed, and above
them squeezed a motley assortment of greatcoats, golf-bags, cricket
pads, and oilskins. Almost anywhere in the gun-room you could put up
your hand without looking, and pull down an oilskin or a greatcoat,
which, of course, was most convenient, unless you pulled down half a
dozen golf-clubs on your head at the same time, when naturally the
convenience was not so noticeable.
When the Orphan came in, throwing his wet sou-wester and oilskin into
the corner on top of the gramophone box, the only other gun-room officer
there was the "China Doll"--the Assistant Clerk. Only just "caught" he
was, a very youthful young gentleman of, so far, unblemished reputation,
with a pink-and-white face, and a trick of opening and shutting his very
big and very blue eyes so exactly like a doll that he had been
christened "China Doll" directly he had joined the Honourable Mess.
He was engaged busily toasting bread in front of the stove with the long
gun-room toasting-fork, and this was probably his most important duty on
board--the duty of making toast for seven-bell tea; the first piece for
the Sub-lieutenant, the second for the senior snotty, and the third for
that very senior officer--his very senior officer--the Clerk--Uncle
Podger.
He had just finished the first piece as the Orphan entered, and looked
up, blinking his eyes excitedly.
"What's the news, Orphan? Did the Captain tell you what we're going to
do?"
"Late again, China Doll; five minutes after seven bells, and only one
piece of toast ready; you'll catch it when the others come along."
In spite of his protests the Orphan grabbed that piece of toast,
buttered it and began eating it, standing in front of the stove whilst
the China Doll hurriedly began to toast another slice, between the
Orphan's legs, and implored him for news of where the ship was going,
and what she was to do. But the Orphan was much too busy eating to take
any notice; and just as the first slice disappeared and he was licking
his fingers, he heard a clattering of sea-boots down the ladder from the
deck, and as four dripping snotties poured in, he seized the
toasting-fork, pushed the China Doll on one side, and calmly finished
toasting the second slice.
These four new-comers were the "Pink Rat", "Bubbles", the "Hun", and
Rawlins. The Pink Rat was the senior snotty--a small-sized youngster
whom anyone could spot as the Pink Rat, because he had a thin, sharp,
ferrety-looking face, very pink complexion, beady eyes, prominent teeth,
and long mouse-coloured hair brushed straight back from his forehead and
plastered down with grease. Bubbles was half as big again as the Pink
Rat, with a fat, red, honest face, creased with continual chuckling, and
a fat, red neck which always seemed to swell over his collars. He had
something wrong with his nose, and couldn't breathe through it very
well, so that when he was laughing--he generally was--he used to throw
his head back, open his mouth to breathe, and make the most
extraordinary bubbling noises. The Hun, the third to enter, looked a
very gentle snotty, very refined and quiet--quiet, that is, compared
with the others. He was not big or strong; but when he once was
"roused" he would always join the weaker side in a "scrap", and then
became so violently excited that whatever he gripped he gripped with all
his might--like a wild cat. He had nearly choked Bubbles once; and the
Pink Rat never forgot how, at another time, he had nearly pulled out a
handful of his hair. He always apologized afterwards. Rawlins, whose
proper name was Rawlinson--the last of these four--was a brawny youth
with an odd hatchet-shaped head, quite as good-natured as Bubbles, and
the least talkative member of the Honourable Mess. He was always
willing to look out for a pal's "watch" or boat duty, in itself enough
to make anyone very popular.
The Pink Rat, Bubbles, and Rawlins, seeing no toast waiting for them,
dashed at the China Doll, charged him into a corner, threw their wet
oilskins over him, and fell in a heap on top.
"Toast must be ready!" they yelled as they allowed him to get up.
"I can't make it fast enough when the Orphan's here, alone; look at
him--that's his second."
The Orphan had just taken a huge bite out of the new piece; with a rush
they threw themselves on him; in the melee of feet, legs, and chairs the
China Doll captured the toasting-fork, stuck another bit of bread on it,
and crouched in front of the fire again.
The general scramble was terminated by the noise of the pantry hatch
sliding back, and an enormous, purple-faced marine servant, in his
shirt-sleeves, pushed in a big teapot.
"Come along, Barnes, cut us some more bread; open a tin of 'sharks';
where've you put my biscuits?" they called at him.
By this time the third piece of toast was done to a turn; and the Pink
Rat, in the absence of the Sub, on watch, was just going to claim it,
when in came Uncle Podger--the Clerk--a broad-shouldered, squat youth,
with a breezy, cheery countenance, and ruffled hair, who had been
promoted to the exalted rank of Clerk exactly three weeks before, and
had, therefore, been just a year and three weeks in the Service.
His arrival was greeted with shouts of "Uncle Podger, your minion is
slack again at the toast business. The China Doll must be beaten."
The Assistant Clerk dodged the Pink Rat and wriggled free, squealing out
that this piece was for the Sub.
"He'll beat me if it isn't ready. He'll be down from the bridge in a
minute," he laughed, and took shelter behind his superior officer,
explaining that "he'd done one for the Sub, and the Orphan ate that;
another for the Pink Rat, and the Orphan had eaten that too; the Sub
must have this, mustn't he?"
"Then this is the third," Uncle Podger said with mock gravity. "You
were wrong, my young subordinate, very wrong indeed, to give away those
other pieces; this one is mine." He gently removed the beautifully
browned bread from the prongs of the fork.
"Yes--sir," said the China Doll, dropping his eyelids and pretending to
be very humble.
"By the King's Regulations and Gun-room Instructions, there can be no
doubt about it, can there?"
"No--sir; no possible doubt whatever--no possible, probable, possible
doubt whatever."
The Clerk, glaring majestically at his subordinate officer's
familiarity, promptly proceeded to butter and then to eat the slice;
whilst the others, crowding round the stove with bits of bread on the
ends of knives, tried their best to toast them.
Then the Sub did come in--a man of medium height, shoulders broader than
Uncle Podger's, a complexion tanned by exposure to the wind and rain,
black hair over a broad forehead, thick black eyebrows over deep-set
grey eyes which had a knack of looking through and through anyone he
spoke to, a thin Roman nose with a bridge that generally had a bit of
the skin off (the remains of his last "scrap"), firm upper lip, a
tremendous lower jaw, and a neck like a bull. He came in with his
swaggering gait and aggressive shoulders, unbuttoning his dripping
oilskin and roaring loudly.
"What ho! without! bring hither the toasted crumpet, the congealed juice
of the cow, and we will toy with them anon! Varlets, disrobe me, for I
am weary with much watching."
"Hast a savoury dish prepared for me, you pen-driving incubus, you blot
on the landscape?" he roared again at the China Doll, who stood with
eyes opening and shutting and mouth wide open, watching two of the
snotties hauling off the Sub's oilskin.
"Where's my toast?" he roared ferociously.
"Here, sir," and the Assistant Clerk patted the Orphan's stomach, and
fled for safety to the ship's office, where he knew he would be safe
from instant death, because the Fleet Paymaster, though he would "scrap"
with anyone, at any time, anywhere else, would not allow any skylarking
there; nor would the stern Chief Writer, whose sanctum it was; and they
had to keep friends with the Chief Writer, or never a pen-nib or a piece
of blotting-paper would they get when they ran short of these things.
Two more snotties came into the gun-room after the China Doll had
escaped.
These were the "Lamp-post" and the "Pimple", the tallest and the
shortest in the Mess--the Pimple a little chap with a broad flat face,
and a tiny red nose in the middle of it. He was the Navigator's
"doggy", and that communicative and ingenious officer was always giving
him the latest news--news which he, more often than not, invented
himself. The joy of the Pimple's existence was to have some "news" to
tell the others. He was a bully in a very small way, and extremely
deferential to the Sub and the ward-room officers.
The Lamp-post was a tall, stooping snotty with sloping shoulders; his
clothes were always too small for him, and his long thin arms and legs
were always in his own way and in that of everyone else. Set him down
at a piano and he was marvellous; the joy of his life was to be asked to
play the ward-room piano. He could play anything he had ever heard; and
inside his aristocratic head were more brains than the rest of the
snotties possessed between them, the only one who did not know that
being himself.
The whole of the Honourable Mess--with the exception of the escaped
China Doll--being now assembled, seven-bell tea pursued its usual
course--a cross between a picnic and a dog-fight--until the bugle
sounded "man and arm ship", and there was a hurried scramble for
oilskins and caps as all, except Uncle Podger, dashed away to their
stations.
The ship had now cleared the Isle of Wight and felt the force of the
gale. She began to pitch and roll heavily as the heavy seas threw
themselves against her starboard bow and rushed along her side.
A minute or two after the "man and arm ship" bugle had sounded, the
China Doll strolled jauntily in and started afresh with his afternoon
tea.
"When you, Mr. Assistant Clerk, have served as long as I have,"
commenced Uncle Podger gravely, "you may perhaps learn to realize that
cheeking your seniors is punishable by death, or such other punishment
as is hereinafter mentioned."
"Pass us the sugar, Podgy, there's a good chap," grinned that very
insubordinate officer, as a lurch of the ship threw the sugar-basin into
the Clerk's lap.
"Man and arm ship" having passed off satisfactorily, the ship went to
"night defence" stations, and the bugle sounded "darken ship".
Barnes, the purple-faced marine servant, still in his shirt-sleeves,
came in and solemnly closed down the dead-lights, screwing the steel
plates over the glass scuttles, and then proceeded to clear away the
debris of seven-bell tea.
Most of the snotties now trooped down from the upper deck to warm
themselves round the stove.
*CHAPTER III*
*Ordered to the Mediterranean*
Up above, under the fore bridge, the Orphan, looking like an undersized
elephant, with all his warm clothes under his oilskins, tramped from
port to starboard, and back again round the conning-tower. The crews of
his four 6-pounders were clustered round their guns, hunched up in all
sorts of winter clothing. Many of them wore their duffel jackets with
great gauntleted gloves drawn up over their sleeves, and had already
pulled the hoods of their jackets over their heads, giving them the
appearance of Eskimo or Arctic explorers; the others were in oilskins
padded out with jerseys, jumpers, flannels, and thick vests.
Once issue warm clothing to a bluejacket and never will he leave it off,
whatever the temperature, unless he is made to do so.
The chirpy little gunner's mate had reported "all correct, sir, guns
cleared away, night-sight circuits switched on, sir, and four rounds a
gun ready."
The Orphan had reported himself to the officer of the watch, on the
bridge above him, and now had nothing to do, for the best part of two
hours, but walk up and down and keep warm.
"They tells me that one of 'em submarines was nosing round these parts
two days ago, sir," one of his petty officers said, as he stopped at one
gun, looked through the telescope sight, and tested the electric
circuit. "It ain't much weather for the poor murdering blighters."
It was not. Darkness was rapidly closing in, and the gale howled
angrily out of the west, driving masses of dark rain-clouds and a heavy
sea before it.
The _Achates_ dipped her fo'c'sle constantly, and when she lifted and
shook herself, the spray shot up far above her bridge screens.
The Orphan and his guns' crews on the wind'ard side would feel the ship
quiver as a wave thudded against the casemate below them, and then had
just time to duck their heads before millions of icy particles of spray
soused viciously over them.
Presently the Orphan took shelter in the lee of the conning-tower and
leant moodily against it, thinking of the warmth and gaiety of the dance
he had been at the night before, also of a certain little lady in white
and blue.
In peace time it is depressing enough to leave a cosy harbour, and face
a wild winter's night in the Channel; but in war time the chance of
blowing up on a mine and the risk of being torpedoed make the strain
very considerable.
For the first night and the first day or two, most people are inclined
to be rather "jumpy"; though afterwards this feeling wears off quickly,
and one leaves everything to "fate" and ceases to worry.
Only a few days before, Germany had announced to the world the
commencement of her submarine blockade of the English coast, so the
Channel was probably already swarming with submarines; though even the
Orphan, depressed and miserable as he was then, could not have imagined
that these submarines had orders to sink merchant ships and mail
steamers at sight and without warning, and that a civilized nation had
sunk so low, nineteen hundred years after Christ was born into the
world, as to plot the whole-sale murder of inoffensive women and
children.
But he was miserable enough without knowing that, and opening up his
oilskin coat, practised blowing up his safety waistcoat. Then he
wondered whether his guns' crews had their swimming-collars with
them--as was ordered--and went from gun to gun, dodging the spray, to
find out.
It was quite dark now, the foc's'le and the turret below were invisible,
and he had to grope his way along to find the guns' crews by hearing
them talk or stumbling against them.
One or two of the men had lost their collars; another had burst his
trying how big he could blow it; others had left them down below in
their kit-bags or lashed in their hammocks.
Plunky Bill, the cheeky A.B. belonging to the picket-boat, was the only
one who had his. The gunner's mate explained that "Plunky Bill 'ad a
sweet'eart in Portsmouth what was fair gone on 'im, and 'ad made 'im
promise to always wear 'is collar".
Plunky Bill evidently thought he had a grievance, and growled out that
"'E wasn't going to be bothered with young females, not 'im; a-making
'im look so foolish-like".
"Well, they ain't no use, nohow," the gunner's mate grunted, jerking a
thumb towards the heavy sea.
"Any news, sir?" the gunner's mate shouted, when he and the Orphan had
regained the lee of the conning-tower, round which solid icy spray
swished almost continuously. "The Ruskies are giving it to them
Austrians in the neck, proper like, ain't they, sir?"
"Didn't hear any," the miserable Orphan shouted back.
"D'you know where we're off to?" the other asked.
"North Sea again," the Orphan told him.
The gunner's mate had no use for the North Sea--never wanted to see it
again, and said so in blood-curdling language.
"What about the Dardanelles, sir?" he asked a moment later. "That's the
place I'd like to be in. There's a sight of old 'tubs' gone out there.
Any news, sir?"
But the Orphan had heard none, and climbed up on the bridge above to
have a yarn with the midshipman of the watch--the Pimple.
He was full of schemes for "ragging" the China Doll.
"Patting your 'tummy', Orphan; that was cheek if you like! and the Sub
didn't like it either."
The Pimple was very deferential to the Sub--rather too much so; what the
Sub did and what he said made up most of the Pimple's daily existence.
"He'd like us to take it out of the China Doll, wouldn't he?"
"Don't be an ass. Let the China Doll alone--it's too beastly wet and
cold to bother about him. What about that cake you 'sharked' off the
table?" So the Pimple, ever ready to ingratiate himself with anyone,
produced a big wedge of gun-room cake out of his greatcoat pocket, and
the two of them, crouching under the weather screens, munched away
silently.
It was so dark that they could not see the look-out man, who was holding
the brim of his sou'wester over his eyes to shield him from the rain and
the spray, and trying to pierce the blackness of the stormy night in
front of him. Both snotties were startled by a sudden cry from him:
"Something a-'ead, sir! on the starboard bow, sir!" Another look-out
also spotted something; everyone tried to see it; the officer of the
watch dashed to the end of the bridge and peered through his
night-glasses; the gunner's mate, down below, could be heard shouting to
the guns' crews to "close up"; the breeches of the guns snapped to as
they were loaded; and the Orphan, stuffing the remnants of the cake in
his pocket, scrambled down the ladder.
"There it is, sir! There! there!--I can see it!' came excitedly out of
the darkness. Everyone thought of submarines.
"Just like one, sir!" a signalman bawled to the officer of the watch,
who yelled to the Quartermaster "hard-a-port", and rushed into the
wheel-house to see that he did it.
At that moment a bobbing light began flickering out of the darkness
ahead--a signal lamp.
"It's the challenge, sir," the signalman shouted.
"All right; reply; bring her on her course, Quartermaster. Starboard
your helm, hard-a-starboard!" shouted the officer of the watch coolly;
and as the _Achates'_ bows swung back again, she swerved past a long,
black object down below in the water, with its twittering signal light
tossed about like a spark from a chimney on a dark night, and by that
faint light they could just see the outline of three funnels before the
light was shut off and everything disappeared.
It was only a patrolling destroyer. One could not see her rolling, or
the seas breaking over her, but one could realize the horrible
discomfort aboard her.
"Poor devils!--a rotten night to be out in--we nearly bumped into her,"
thought the officer of the watch, jumping to the telephone bell from the
Captain's cabin, which was ringing excitedly.
"Nothing, sir; a patrol destroyer; had to alter course to clear her.
No, sir, the wind is steady, sir."
It was six o'clock now--four bells clanged below--the first dog-watch
was finished, and presently the Pink Rat came up to relieve the Orphan.
"Jolly slack on it!" grumbled the Orphan as he bumped into him and dived
down below.
The easiest way aft was along the mess deck--the upper deck was so
dark--and as the Orphan passed through one of the stokers' messes he saw
Fletcher, the old stoker of his picket-boat, sitting at a mess table,
all alone, under an electric light, his face buried in his hands, and a
Bible before him.
"What's the matter, Fletcher? you look jolly mouldy," he said, stopping
at the end of the table. "What's the matter? Bad news?"
"Yes, sir," he said gently, standing up, one hand pushing his gold
spectacles back on his nose, the other marking the place in the book.
"A letter from my wife. Our last boy's been killed in France, sir.
That's the third; he was a corporal, sir."
His old, refined, tired face looked so abjectly miserable that the
Orphan did not know what to say. "Come and get a drink. That'll buck
you up," he stuttered.
But Fletcher shook his head. "I'm an abstainer, sir; thank you very
much." And the snotty, muttering "I'm sorry", went away along the rest
of the noisy, crowded mess deck towards the gun-room.
There was comparative quiet there. The Sub and Uncle Podger were
sitting in front of the stove, reading.
"You know old Fletcher--the stoker of my boat; he's frightfully
miserable; he's sitting down in his mess looking awful; he's just heard
that his last son's been killed; I wish we could do something for him.
The letter must have come when I brought off the postman."
"How about a drink?" asked the Sub, scratching his head. "I _am_
sorry."
"Who's that?" asked Uncle Podger; "that old chap with the gold specs?"
The Orphan nodded.
"Fancy having to stick it out--all the misery of it--in a mess deck,
with hundreds of chaps cursing and joking all round you," the Sub said.
"I don't see what we can do to help him."
"You've got a cabin," Uncle Podger suggested. "Get him down in it; shut
him in for an hour. What he wants most is to be alone."
"Right oh!" said the Sub, springing to his feet. "I've got the first
watch; he can stay there till 'pipe down';" and he sent Barnes, the
purple-faced marine, to find Fletcher and tell him that the
Sub-lieutenant wanted him at once in his cabin.
The Sub, swinging his mighty shoulders, stalked down to his cabin, and
presently there was a knock outside, and Fletcher peered in. "Yes,
sir?"
"I've just heard, Fletcher," the Sub said, holding out his hand. "We
are all very sorry; you'd like to be by yourself for a while. Stay here
till 'pipe down'; no one shall come near you."
He pushed the old man down in the chair, drew the door across, and went
into the gun-room.
A few minutes later the Pimple, who had been to his chest, outside the
Sub's cabin, came in.
"Old Fletcher's blubbing like anything," he said. "I heard him."
"Get out of it, you little beast!" roared out the Sub. "Get out of the
gun-room till dinnertime. Who told you to go sneaking round?" and Uncle
Podger got in a well-judged kick which deposited the miserable Pimple on
the deck outside.
The Orphan had the "middle" watch that night, so he turned into his
hammock early, and was roughly shaken before it seemed to him that he
had been to sleep a minute.
"Still raining?" he grunted to the corporal of the watch who had called
him, as he climbed out and hunted round for his clothes.
"Raining and blowing 'orrible!"
He groped his way for'ard, only half awake, stumbling on the unsteady
slippery deck-plates, barking his shins against a coaming, and bumping
into the rest of the watch as they came up from the lighted mess deck
like blind men. He "took over" from the snotty of the first watch, and,
as soon as his sleepy eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, began
pacing up and down across the narrow deck.
The gale still howled wildly through the fore shrouds, the wet signal
halyards still flapped noisily against each other, and the rain still
came driving under the bridge; but by this time the _Achates_ had
altered course and was running up-Channel, so had the seas on her
starboard quarter, and though she was rolling heavily no spray came over
her. That was one thing to be thankful for, the Orphan thought, as he
looked into the utter blackness ahead of him.
Presently he leant against the conning-tower. But there was nothing for
his eyes to rest on, and the screaming of the gale and the roaring of
the rushing seas mingling together to make one continual, tumultuous
clamour in his ears, lulled him nearly to sleep.
He started--he thought he was dancing with the little lady in white and
blue--grinned to himself, and went up on the bridge to have a yarn with
Bubbles, who was now the midshipman of the watch; tracked him by his
laugh and his snorting noise; doubled up he was, at some yarn the
Navigating Lieutenant was telling him--he always laughed long before a
yarn came to an end!
"The ass jumped on to the top of the conning-tower--got an arm round the
periscope tube, and began banging away at the periscope with a hammer!"
the Navigator was shouting as the Orphan came up. (Bubbles threw his
head back and roared.) "He'd only got in a few whacks when the old
submarine began to dive; down went the conning-tower and the periscope,
and the last that was seen of him was a hand and a hammer giving one
last whack!"
Bubbles choked and snorted with laughter.
"What was it--a German submarine--was he drowned--did they catch the
submarine?" the Orphan asked.
"Yes, they did. It had been badly hit before. We swept for it, and
found it three days later, and the brave ass was still clinging to the
periscope tube with his feet twisted round the conning-tower rail."
"Who was he?" gasped Bubbles when he could stop laughing.
"No one in particular, only the deck hand of a trawler," the Navigator
said, in his cynical way.
Mr. Meredith, the officer of the watch, a tall, good-looking Naval
Reserve lieutenant with a weather-beaten face, and rather bald-headed,
came up. "It's five bells, you fellows. How about some cocoa? I've
got a tin of gingerbreads."
"That's the ticket, old chap!" the Navigator cried, and Bubbles was sent
off to make the cocoa and bring it up to the chart-house.
Ten minutes later, the cheery chart-house was filled with the fragrant
odour of cocoa, the Navigator's charts had been rolled aside; two were
sitting on the table, the other on the settee which was the Navigator's
bed at sea, all with steaming cups of cocoa in their hands.
"Where's the 'War Baby'? Go and fetch the War Baby," the Navigator
shouted; so off Bubbles went, the light going out as the door slid back,
and coming on again as it closed and "made" the electric circuit.
Presently, in came the youngest-looking thing in soldiers anyone ever
saw, with a face as pink and white as the China Doll's, and the first
buds of a tiny moustache on his upper lip.
"It's perfectly damnable outside," he piped in his girlish voice, as he
seized a biscuit and a cup of cocoa.
"Hullo!" sang out the Navigator, as they all heard a knock on a door
beneath them; "there's someone banging at the Skipper's door." (The
Captain, when at sea, slept in a tiny cabin immediately beneath the
chart-house and above the shelter deck.)
They heard the Captain's voice calling "Come in"; and the Navigator,
seizing his glasses, and singing out that "the Captain would be up on
the bridge in a jiffy--he always does if anyone wakes him," went out,
followed by the others.
In a minute the Captain came up, shouting for him.
"Here I am, sir."
He seized the Navigator by the arm excitedly--the Captain was seldom
anything but calm--and drew him into the chart-house. "Read this," he
said, snapping his jaws together and sticking out his little pointed
beard, as the door was closed and the light glared out.
The Navigator read: "_Achates_ is to proceed with dispatch to Malta,
calling at Gibraltar for coal if necessary."
"That means the Dardanelles, sir! Finish North Sea, sir?"
Captain Macfarlane looked down at him with twinkling eyes and smiled
happily.
In five minutes' time the _Achates_ had ported her helm and was on her
new course; the news had flown round the bridge, been bellowed down
below to the guns' crews, and shouted down the voice-pipes to the
engine-room.
"We're off to Malta!--the Dardanelles!" and everyone who passed the good
news added, "Finish North Sea. Thank God!"
The sober, obsolete old _Achates_ seemed to know where she was bound.
On her new course she once more faced the gale and the seas, diving and
pitching, shaking and trembling, throwing the wild spray crashing
against the weather screens, flying over the bridge and pattering
against the funnels.
What cared she, or anyone aboard her, however wildly the gale blew!
*CHAPTER IV*
*The Bombardment of Smyrna Forts*
The _Achates_ arrived at Gibraltar on the fourth morning out from
Spithead, and went alongside the South Mole to coal, just as the warm
Mediterranean sun rose above the top of the grand old rock.
The gun-room officers---everybody, in fact--were in the highest spirits.
It was grand to have left behind the dreary, cold English winter, and it
was grander still to be on the way to the Dardanelles. Best of all,
they could now go to sea without worrying about submarines and mines.
Two days from Gibraltar the daily wireless telegram from England told
them that the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles had been
silenced, and that landing-parties were being sent ashore to demolish
them.
"Why couldn't they have waited? We shall be too late; we shall miss all
the fun," they cried sadly, down in the gun-room; "just come in for the
tail end of everything; they'll be up at Constantinople by the time we
get there; what sickening rot!"
"If you'd seen as much fighting as I have," Uncle Podger said
solemnly--he'd only been a year in the Service, and seen
none--"you'd----"
But he wasn't allowed to finish. They shouted:
"Dogs of war! Out, Accountant Branch!" and rolled him and the China
Doll on the deck until Barnes banged the trap-door with the
porridge-spoon to let them know that breakfast was ready.
At Malta there was another hurried coaling.
It was here they heard that the _Bacchante_, their chummy ship--a sister
ship--the ship which had been next to them in the North Sea patrol--had
already passed through Malta bound for the Dardanelles.
It was, of course, the Pimple who heard this first, and who climbed down
into a coal lighter alongside to tell the Sub. The Sub, black and
grimy, grinned. "We'll get a chance to knock spots out of them at
'soccer', somewhere or other," he said, joyfully rubbing some of the
coal-dust on his sleeve over the Pimple's excited and fairly clean face.
"I hope they haven't found out about the sea-gulls," the Pimple said;
but the Sub hadn't any more time to talk to him.
The sea-gull incident was rather a sore point with the _Bacchante_
gun-room.
That ship had not yet fired a gun; the _Achates_ had, and the
_Bacchante_ snotties were jealous and didn't believe it. All they could
find out was that their rival's after 9.2-inch gun had fired at a
submarine early one morning.
"What happened?" they would ask. "Did you hit it?"
"Well, we didn't see it again," the _Achates_ gun-room would answer.
"We must have hit it."
They always forgot to mention that this submarine had turned out to be a
dozen or more sea-gulls sitting close together; and they had told the
story so often--of course leaving out the sea-gull part--that they very
much hoped that their chummy ship would never get hold of the proper
yarn. If once they knew, their legs would be pulled unmercifully.
It would not have mattered so much if one of the Lieutenants or the
Commander had made the mistake; but the worst of it was that the Sub had
been on watch at the time, so the snotties, the China Doll, and Uncle
Podger would have perjured themselves for ever, rather than give away
the secret.
At Malta a passenger came on board, a tortoise about eight inches long.
Who brought him no one knew, but in a day or two old Fletcher the stoker
had adopted him as his own. The old man loved to sit on the boat deck
by the hour in the sun, with "Kaiser Bill"--as the men called the
tortoise--and feed the ungainly wrinkled brute with bits of cabbage.
Malta was left behind; the weather grew hot; white trousers were ordered
to be worn, and were scarce--no one had expected to be sent to a warm
climate--but those who had them shared with those who hadn't; the China
Doll borrowed a pair, much too big for him, from Uncle Podger; those who
had none, and would not borrow, wore their flannel trousers. Of course
the Pink Rat turned out in beautifully creased white ducks and spotless
shoes; the Pink Rat always carried about with him a very extensive
wardrobe, though where he stowed it all, no one could imagine.
But no one bothered about clothes. It was so glorious to be warm again,
and to be on their way to "do" something and fire their guns.
"At something better than sea-gulls!" said the Orphan, grinning with
delight. "We'll have shells coming all round us; you'll get plenty of
them, up in your old foretop, China Doll; you and your range-finder will
be blown sky-high in no time. Won't that be fun?"
The China Doll opened and shut his eyes, and simply trembled with
excitement.
"The China Doll has his legs blown off!" shouted the Pink Rat--the
senior snotty. "First aid on the China Doll!"
With a rush the snotties tumbled him on his back. "Lie still!" they
yelled. "Stop kicking--your legs are blown off--you haven't got any!"
"If I haven't got any, you won't feel me kicking!" the China Doll
squeaked, lashing out with his feet.
Whilst two ran for a bamboo stretcher, the others captured his legs and
tied them together with handkerchiefs and table napkins, so tightly that
the victim cried for mercy. The stretcher was brought; they lashed him
in it; lashed his arms in, to prevent him grabbing at the furniture and
shouting and yelling, ran him aft along the deck to lower him down into
the Gunner's store-room, below the armoured deck, where the doctors set
up their operating table at "Action" station.
Fortunately for the China Doll the armoured hatch leading down to it was
shut down and must not be opened.
On the way back to the gun-room with him, they had to pass the Surgeon's
cabin, where Doctor Crayshaw Gordon was sitting, busy censoring letters.
Dr. Crayshaw Gordon, R.N.V.R.--in private life he had a big consulting
practice in London--hearing the noise and seeing the stretcher, thought
there had been an accident, so jumped out of his cabin. "Hello!" he
sung out, in his funny chuckling way of talking--fixing his gold
eyeglasses on his nose, opening his mouth wide, and pulling nervously at
his little pointed tawny beard. "Hello! what's the matter?"
"The China Doll, sir!" they shouted, dropping him on the deck. "Both
legs blown off!--he can't kick you, sir, we've lashed him up too
tightly."
"It's very painful," the China Doll bleated, all the pink gone out of
his face.
Dr. Gordon went down on his knees and began to unlash him.
"Rather too much--too much," he said in his agitated manner, when he
found how tightly the handkerchiefs had been fastened, and cried out
with alarm when the China Doll's head suddenly dropped back.
"He's fainted, you silly fellows!"
They unbuckled the straps and untied the handkerchiefs in double-quick
time.
"Put him on my bunk," Dr. Gordon told them; and, very frightened, they
laid him there.
The China Doll's eyes opened, and he looked round not knowing what had
happened. "Don't play ass tricks; get out of it; leave him here!" Dr.
Gordon ordered gently; and they trooped away, dragging the stretcher
along after them--rather sobered for the moment--to get a lecture from
the Sub and Uncle Podger when they crowded into the gun-room and told
what had happened.
In half an hour the China Doll was back again--none the worse, except
that the pink had not all come back in his doll's face--rather pleased
with himself than otherwise.
That happened on a Wednesday afternoon. On the Thursday, orders came by
wireless for the _Achates_ to rendezvous off the Gulf of Smyrna; and as
dawn broke on Friday, the 5th March, she found herself half-way between
the islands of Mytilene and Chios.
No one knew what was going to happen except, perhaps, Captain
Macfarlane. "And he's probably forgotten," the irrepressible Orphan
said.
This young gentleman was on watch with his guns, under the fore bridge,
when the rendezvous was reached, and spotted some puffs of smoke rising
above the horizon to the north'ard. Presently he saw through his
glasses the masts of two battleships.
"What are they?" he asked excitedly of one of his petty officers, who
was training a gun in their direction and looking through the telescopic
sight.
"I know them, sir!" he cried. "The _Swiftsure_ and _Triumph_. Look at
their cranes--boat cranes--amidships, sir; there can't be any mistaking
them, sir."
As the Orphan had never seen them before, he had to take his word for
it.
"Trawlers behind 'em, sir--half a dozen or more," the petty officer
called out.
In half an hour the very graceful outlines of these two battleships
could be seen without glasses--easily distinguished from any other ship
in the Navy by their hydraulic cranes for hoisting boats in and out.
The Orphan looked at them with all the more interest, because he knew
that they had just come from the Dardanelles, and he peered at them
through his glasses to try and discover any shell-marks. They looked as
if they had just come out of dockyard hands, and he felt disappointed.
The trawlers followed, like ducklings out for a morning paddle with
their father and mother. Very homely they looked.
Signal hoists fluttered and were hauled down, and soon the three big
ships, with the little trawlers clustered at a respectful distance, lay
with engines stopped.
The Captains of the battleships came across to the _Achates_, and an
R.N.R. Lieutenant--in charge of the trawlers--bobbed alongside in a
trawler's dinghy and scrambled on board. All three went below to the
Captain's cabin.
It was a perfect morning, the breeze a little chilly, the sea calm, and
just beginning to catch the light of the sun as it rose behind the
misty, grey mountains of Asia Minor.
The two spotless gigs and the disreputable dinghy lay alongside, and
their crews were soon busy answering questions, as the quarter-deck men
left off their scrubbing decks and bawled down to know the news, and how
things were going, and what was to be done here. "Have you been hit?"
was the chief question.
"We got an 8-inch in the quarter-deck," the _Swiftsure's_ boat's crew
called up. "Knocked the ward-room about cruel;" and the _Triumphs_,
jealous, told them: "It ain't nothin' compared to Kiao Chau--we got our
foretop knocked out bombarding the forts there; a 12-inch shell what did
that. It's not near so bad here as what it was out there."
In the hubbub of voices the Commander, splashing out of the battery in
his sea-boots, sent the men back to their holystones and squeegees.
The Captains and the R.N.R. Lieutenant went back to their ships and
trawlers, and then the three big ships commenced steaming in line ahead
up the Gulf of Smyrna, the _Achates_ leading, the _Swiftsure_ astern of
her, and the _Triumph_ astern of the _Swiftsure_. The little trawlers
were left behind.
By breakfast-time everyone in the gun-room knew that the forts of Smyrna
were to be bombarded. The Navigator's "doggy"--the Pimple--came down
bursting with this information. "The Navigator says we shall be in
range just after dinner. I heard the Captain tell him they had a big
fort there with 9- or 10-inch guns, and a mine-field in front of it--any
amount of mines."
"We shall get first smack at them, shan't we?" the others said, beaming.
"Our Captain is the senior one, isn't he?" and they hurried through
breakfast and clattered up on the quarter-deck to have a look at the
land.
By this time the ships were well inside the Gulf of Smyrna, steaming
along its southern shore. Green olive-clad hills, rising from the
sparkling, sunlit sea, sloped upwards until their sides, becoming
barren, towered ragged into the cloudless sky. For two hours they
steamed along, until, in front of them, the mountain barrier which
circled the head of the Gulf, and sheltered the town of Smyrna itself,
loomed ahead fourteen miles away.
The three ships were quite close inshore now, and every officer and man
who had no special duties was on deck looking ashore, yarning in the
glorious warm sunshine, pointing out villages, eagerly scanning every
projecting point of land, and wondering whether the Vali of Smyrna knew
they were coming and was prepared.
They were not long in doubt. The tall, aristocratic Major of Marines,
soaked in Eastern lore by many years spent among Arabs and Sudanese,
suddenly spotted a little pillar of grey smoke rising from the shore.
He pointed it out, saying it was a signal, and was much chaffed by the
other ward-room officers, until even they realized that he was right,
when more curled up from projecting points of land as they steamed past.
The news of their approach was being passed along to Smyrna.
"Isn't it exciting? I do feel ripping, inside," the Orphan told the
Lamp-post as they both watched the shore and the signals. "Isn't it an
adventure? my hat!"
"The Greek galleys and the Roman galleys came along just as we are
coming," the learned Lamp-post said excitedly. "I bet the poor
galley-slaves' backs were tired before they fetched up!"
"It must have been beastly for them not to be able to see where they
were going and not to take part in the fighting."
"They didn't want to," the Lamp-post told him. "Let's come for'ard."
So they went along the boat deck, and from there they soon were able to
see a little square shape rising out of the water. It was the fort of
Yeni Kali, which commanded the approach to the Bay of Smyrna and the
town. It was jutting out on low-lying land from the southern shore of
the bay, which here made a broad sweep along the foot of some very high
hills.
Up above, on the bridge, the Navigator was pointing out to the Pimple a
buoy with a flag on it. "That marks the end of the mine-field. I'll
bet anything they've forgotten to remove it, or haven't had time. You
see that low ground to the right of it--all covered with bushes and
things--they've got batteries somewhere there, and there are more of
them half-way up the hills."
The Pimple nervously followed the Navigator's finger as he pointed out
the places, and expected every moment that a gun would open fire. He
had felt very brave at breakfast when he talked about them, but he was
not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself so much as he expected.
The ships stopped engines whilst still out of range, and went to dinner
at seven bells. An excited cheery dinner it was, and the mess deck
hummed like a wasps' nest, the hoary old grandfathers among the men--and
there were many of them--in as high spirits as anybody.
Punctually at half-past twelve Captain Macfarlane went for'ard to the
bridge, the ships commenced to go ahead, and the bugles blared out
"Action stations"--the ordinary General Quarters bugle without the
preliminary two "G" blasts, but what a difference when heard for the
first time!
The China Doll, clambering up the fore shrouds to his dizzy perch in the
for'ard fire-control top, found his little heart thumping so much that
he had to have a "stand easy" half-way up, gripping the ratlines and
getting his breath.
Captain Macfarlane--on the bridge--saw him stop, and guessed the reason.
He had had much experience of shells coming his way--during the Boer
War--and knew how he had hated them, so felt sorry for the youngster.
"A lot depends on you, Mr. Stokes" (that was the China Doll's name), he
called up to him encouragingly; and the China Doll was up the rigging
like a redshank, tremendously proud and happy, clambered into the top,
and began helping the seamen, already there, take the canvas cover off
the range-finder and unlash the canvas screens.
The Gunnery-Lieutenant climbed up after him, and snubbed him for asking
foolish questions. "Were they going to fire? Who was going to fire?
How do I know? You'll know soon enough. Just hang on to those
voice-pipes and don't talk."
So for some time the China Doll, humbled again, had nothing to do but
look round him. Right ahead was the fort, standing square and bold at
the end of the low-lying land. Three miles or so behind it, sloping up
the mountains, were the white houses of Smyrna; over to the northern
shore, to his left, long heaps lay dazzling in the sun--salt heaps these
were; and on the right, the high hills with their concealed batteries.
He looked behind at the two ships following astern, and down below at
the _Achates_ beneath him, and wondered, if the mast were shot away,
whether he would fall clear of her in the water or on top of the boats.
The "top" where he was, looked so small from down below, but when he was
actually in it, it seemed so big that he thought shells couldn't
possibly miss it.
He looked down at the bridge, and saw the Pimple shadowing the tall
Navigator as he dodged from side to side of the bridge--they would both
go into the conning-tower presently; he saw Mr. Meredith's bald head
showing out of the turret on the fo'c'sle, and Rawlinson squeezed his
head out too. For a moment he rather wished he could change places with
them.
But then the orders came up through the voice-pipes. The Captain wanted
the range of the fort. The seaman at the range-finder fumbled about with
the thumb-screws and sang out: "One--six--nine--five--o" (the o is
sounded as a letter, not as a figure). These were yards. The China Doll
shouted down his voice-pipe: "One--six--nine--five--o". Nothing more
came up for a quarter of an hour; he noticed how the "top" shook with
the vibration of the engines. Then he had to sing down his voice-pipe:
"One--five--five--o--o"; another interval; the range came down:
"One--four--one--o--o", and the Gunnery-Lieutenant began shouting orders
through his voice-pipes about degrees of elevation and the kind of shell
to be used.
A bell tinkled close to him, and the red disk showed that the
transmitting-room was calling him. Uncle Podger was there, he knew,
sitting in the little padded room below the armoured deck and the
water-line, with his head almost inside a huge voice-pipe shaped like
the end of a gramophone, listening for orders, and waiting to pass them
on to the various guns. And it was Uncle Podger's voice which came to
him: "What's happening? Are we getting close in? It's beastly hot down
here; aren't we going to fire soon?"
Before he could answer, a long signal hoist nearly knocked off his cap,
flicking against the side of the "top" as it went up to the mast-head.
Down it came again; a corner of a yellow-and-red pendant caught in a
voice-pipe; he released it, and saw the signalman haul the flags down,
in a gaily coloured heap, on the bridge below him. When he looked
astern again, the two ships were spreading out; the vibration of the
"top" ceased. He knew that the engines had stopped, and presently all
three ships lay in line, with their starboard broadsides turned towards
the old fort.
The Gunnery-Lieutenant now flew about, jumping from voice-pipes to
range-finder and back again, reporting to the Captain. "Aye, aye, sir!"
he shouted, and then called down, "Fore turret!--fore turret! try a
ranging shot--common shell--one--four--o--five--o, at the left edge of
the fort. Fire when you are ready!"
[Illustration: "THE GUNNERY LIEUTENANT NOW FLEW ABOUT, JUMPING FROM
VOICE PIPES TO RANGE-FINDER AND BACK AGAIN"]
The China Doll felt funny thrills running up and down his backbone as he
watched the fore turret move round, and the long chase of the 9.2-inch
gun cock itself in the air. Mr. Meredith's bald head disappeared
through the sighting hood. He heard the snap of the breech-block and
the cheery sound of "Ready!" Mr. Meredith's head came out of his hood
as he gazed at the distant fort through his glasses. He heard the word
"Fire!" and at the same moment the fighting-top swayed as if a squall
had struck the mast, a great cloud of yellowish smoke blotted out the
foc's'le, and the _Achates_ had fired a gun for the second time in the
war--on this occasion not at sea-gulls!
In a few seconds a column of water leapt into the air behind the
fort--the shell had fallen in the bay beyond. The Gunnery-Lieutenant
roared down: "One--three--eight--five--o; fire as soon as you are
ready!"
Off went the gun again; another wait, and a black-reddish splash
appeared on the face of the fort, and up shot a cloud of dirty smoke.
"Hit, sir!"
After that he was too busy to notice anything; he only remembered, later
on, that the Turks had not fired back. More signals were hoisted; the
_Swiftsure_ and _Triumph_ commenced firing, and in a very short space of
time hits were being rapidly made on Yeni Kali fort.
Then the after turret of the _Achates_ opened fire, and with her second
round landed a lyddite shell square on one corner of the fort--brick
dust and masonry going sky-high.
The Turks did not return the fire.
When, eventually, the bugle sounded the "secure", the China Doll could
hardly believe that he had been there for two and a half hours, and at
the order to "pack up" he climbed down below, and ran to the gun-room,
where Barnes, the big marine, in his shirt-sleeves, was already laying
the table for afternoon tea.
The snotties and Uncle Podger came trooping in, jabbering like magpies;
the Pink Rat, who was in the after turret, and Rawlinson, who had the
foremost one, each claiming that his own gun had made most hits. They
both were getting angry--the Pink Rat cool and cynical, Rawlinson's
temper getting the better of him.
They seized the China Doll. "You saw; which gun did best?" but the
Assistant Clerk was much too wily to take sides, and wriggled away.
They pounced on the Pimple, who had been on the bridge all the time.
He, flattered to have his opinion asked, thought that Rawlinson's gun
had made more hits.
"That rotten, worn-out pipe of a gun of yours," the Pink Rat sneered,
"couldn't hit a haystack at a mile; yours were dropping short all the
time!"
"Yours may be the slightly better gun" (it was more modern), "but if you
had anything to do with it, it wouldn't hit the Crystal Palace, a
hundred yards away," Rawlinson snorted, getting red in the face. "Ours
_didn't_ go short."
"Contradiction is no argument," the Pink Rat said loftily; and
Rawlinson, who was half as big again as the senior snotty (that was why
the Pimple had backed him), would have given him a hiding, had not the
Sub come in and stopped them.
"What the dickens does it matter? We've given old Yeni Kali a fair
'beano'; its own mother wouldn't know it. Hurry up with the tea booze;
I've to go on watch; out, both of you, if you can't keep quiet!"
Barnes brought in the big teapot, slices of bread and jam and butter
disappeared marvellously as they all ate and gabbled. "Why didn't they
shoot back?--the mean beggars--I expect we've knocked out all their
guns," Rawlinson gurgled with his mouth full. "You didn't, anyway,"
sneered the Pink Rat.
"I wish we'd gone straight in--don't put your sleeve in my butter--I
don't believe those mines would have gone off--wouldn't they?--a bally
lot you know about mines--you pig, Pimple, you've taken half that tin of
jam--the Captain knows all about them--that's what those trawlers are
for--shove across the bread--they'll sweep a passage through them--why
didn't they let us fire more of our 6-inch--your old guns, Orphan--they
ain't as much good as a sick headache--look at that slice of cake the
Pink Rat's cut--put the Pink Rat down for two slices, Barnes, and bring
along the teapot."
The Hun put his head in at the door. "Twenty-five minutes past four,
sir."
"All right! Curse it! I'm coming," and gulping down what was left of
his tea, and grabbing his telescope and cap, the Sub went up to relieve
the watch amidst a babel of "Hun! Hun! hold on a jiffy! You were on
the bridge all the time; which 9.2 made the most hits? What did the
Captain say?"
"The after gun; that's what the Captain said," he told them, and went
out again.
"I told you so!" laughed the Pink Rat; and Rawlinson, crestfallen and
angry, shouted "that he didn't believe it, and if it was true, that it
was all due to the China Doll passing down the wrong ranges".
The poor Assistant Clerk flushed with mortification, and squeaked out:
"I know I didn't make any mistake--I just repeated the figures after the
Gunnery-Lieutenant--they were right at my end of the voice-pipe."
"Well, don't cry!" Rawlinson growled. "You've got such a silly
voice--you can't help it--the figures must have come wrong at our end."
They seized the luckless China Doll, stuck him on a bench at one end of
the mess, twisted one of the long white table-cloths into a rope, and
made him hold one end, whilst the Orphan held the other to his ear and
pretended to listen.
"Now pass the range," they laughed; "try one--five--nine--o--o."
"One--five--nine--o--o," the China Doll called into the end of the
table-cloth, not quite certain that he was enjoying himself.
"One--four--seven--six--and a half," repeated the Orphan very solemnly.
"There you are! China! try again!" and they made him give the order.
"Train seventeen degrees on the port beam."
The Orphan, thinking hard, shook his head and shouted back "Repeat!"
"Train seventeen degrees on the port beam," the China Doll repeated.
As solemn as a judge, the Orphan sang out, "Tame seven clean fleas in
the cream;" and as the poor Assistant Clerk squeaked, "Don't be silly!"
there were yells of "He called you silly, Orphan; you aren't going to
stand that. Go for him, Orphan. We'll hold him; he shan't hurt you."
But Uncle Podger told them all to stop fooling and smooth out the
table-cloth. "We can't get things washed properly on board," he said.
*CHAPTER V*
*The "Achates" is Shelled*
Next morning, the 6th March--a glorious sunny morning it was--the three
ships and the trawlers again moved in towards battered Yeni Kali. The
trawlers went ahead to sweep through the mine-field under the protection
of the _Triumph_, whilst the _Achates_ and _Swiftsure_ followed astern.
Breakfast was at seven o'clock--a hurried meal--and everyone bolted down
his food in order to get on deck quickly and see the fun.
"Rotten bad form of 'em not to fire at us yesterday," Uncle Podger
remarked, emptying half the sugar basin on his porridge. "In all the
wars I've been in, we've fired first, then the enemy fired back; we
spotted their guns and knocked them out."
"And landed for a picnic afterwards," suggested his neighbour, skilfully
bagging the sugar basin.
"Generally," replied the Clerk.
"In the last war I was in," began the China Doll, "we generally asked
the enemy to lunch. The Captain said that made them so happy."
"If we're to have breakfast at this silly time," Bubbles chuckled, "I
call it a rotten war."
They heard shouts on deck. The half-deck sweeper put his head in to
tell them that the Turks were firing, and they all stampeded on deck.
Right ahead, the little trawlers could be seen, in pairs, close in to
the old fort and the low-lying land to the right of it. Right on top of
the mine-field they were, and spurts of water were splashing up, every
other second, among them. Flashes twinkled out from the scrub on the
low-lying ground, three, four, five at a time, and the splashes of their
shells sprang up, one after the other, between the trawlers.
Everyone held his breath and expected to see a trawler hit, directly.
There was a shout of "The _Triumph's_ started!" A yellowish cloud shot
out from her, then another; they shot out all along her broadside, and,
right in among the scrub, where the Turkish guns had been firing, burst
her 7.5 lyddite shells.
Then splashes began falling close to the _Triumph_
herself--short--short--far over her--right under her stern. "Hit under
the fore bridge!" someone shouted. The "Action" bugle blared out in the
_Achates_; officers and men rushed to their stations; and the last thing
Uncle Podger and the Lamp-post saw was the trawlers turning round and
scuttling back, followed by columns of water leaping up close to them.
Uncle Podger, sedately excited, and the long, thin Lamp-post made their
way along the mess deck, pushing through the crowds of men scurrying to
and fro; guns' crews squeezing into the casemates and closing the
armoured doors behind them; the stoker fire-parties bustling along with
their hoses, and the lamp trimmers coming round and lighting the candle
lanterns in case the electric light failed.
To get to the "transmitting-room", which was their station, they had to
go down the ammunition hoist of "B2" casemate--the for'ard one on the
port side of the main deck,--and so many men of the ammunition supply
parties had to go down it that there was a squash of men squeezing
through the casemate door.
"Early doors, sixpence extra," Uncle Podger grinned, as they waited
whilst man after man climbed down the rope-ladder in the hoist. This
hoist was simply a steel tube some fifteen feet long, big enough for a
broad-shouldered man to crawl through, and the rope ladder dangled down
inside it. When the bottom rung of the ladder was reached, there was a
jump down of some five feet or so into the "fore cross passage"--a broad
space, from side to side across the ship, under the dome of the armoured
deck. The magazines were below this fore cross passage, and men
standing in them handed up the six-inch cordite charges through open
hatches.
Into this space ran the ammunition passages, running aft along each side
under the slope of the armoured deck, with the boiler-room bulkheads on
the inner sides, and the bulkheads of the lower wing bunkers on the
outer. When, as was now the case, the shells in their red canvas bags
hung in rows along both these bulkheads, there was precious little room
for two people to pass side by side.
The ammunition hoists from all the 6-inch guns, farther aft, opened into
these passages, and under each hoist an electric motor and winding drum
was placed to run the charges and shells up to the casemate which it
"fed". All these spaces and passages were very dimly lighted by
electric lights and candle lanterns.
As Uncle Podger and the Lamp-post crawled down the tube and dropped into
the "fore cross passage", they were hustled by men dashing out of the
ammunition passages, seizing charges and shells from the men standing in
the magazine hatches, and dashing back again to their own hoists. These
were the "powder-monkeys" of the old days, most of them, now, big
bearded men; one, the biggest down there, a man nearly fifty years of
age, had been earning five pounds a week, as a diver, before the
outbreak of war brought him back to the Navy. And no one was more
cheery than he, as he dashed backwards and forwards from his hoist to
the magazine, laughing and joking, and wiping the sweat off his face.
It was very warm down there, and the smell of sweating men soon made the
air heavy.
A bearded ship's corporal came down with the key of the
transmitting-room, opened the thick padded wooden door in the bulkhead,
and went in. The Fleet-Paymaster and the tall, depressed Fleet-Surgeon
followed him down the tube. They scuttled out of the way of the
trampling men.
"A nice little place for you to work in, P.M.O.," chuckled the Pay as
they wormed themselves into a corner.
"Rats in a trap!" grunted the P.M.O., and drew in his feet and cursed as
a seaman trod on them.
The chief sick-berth steward and his assistants had already come down,
but vainly looked for a place to stow their surgical dressings. They
had to hang them from hooks in the bulkheads.
Uncle Podger and the Lamp-post stood waiting for the Chaplain, the Rev.
Horace Gibbons; and when they saw his shoes and scarlet socks dangling
from the lower end of the ammunition hoist from "B2" casemate in a
helpless, pathetic way, they dashed to his assistance; each seized a
foot and guided it to safety on top of a convenient motor-hoist, and as
the Padre let go the ladder and jumped feebly, they softened his fall.
This was always their first job, for he hated that rope-ladder and that
hoist with a deadly hatred, and, most of all, hated falling those last
few feet, suddenly dropping, as it were, from heaven, and appearing in
an undignified manner among all the men there.
The Lamp-post and Uncle Podger dusted down the little pasty-faced Padre
and put his hat on straight.
"Thank you so much! I'm afraid I've broken my pipe in that hoist."
"Hallo, Angel Gabriel!" grinned the Pay, as the three of them passed
into the transmitting-room. "Paying a call in the infernal region?"
As they shut the felted door they shut out all the noise.
This transmitting-room was a tiny little place, perhaps fifteen feet
long and five wide, with four camp-stools, and rows of telephones and
brass indicator boxes with their little red and white figures showing
through the slits in them. Voice-pipes, too, everywhere, and in one
corner, over a camp-stool--Uncle Podger's camp-stool--projected an
enormous brass voice-pipe with a gramophone-shaped end.
Every instrument had its label above it: Conning-tower--After
Turret--Starboard 6-inch--Y group--X group--scores of them; and in front
of the Padre's camp-stool was a little table, like a school table, with
paper lying on it and a pencil chained to it.
"Nothing happened yet, sir," the ship's corporal sang out, as they
closed the door and seated themselves on their camp-stools with their
backs against the after bulkhead and the door.
Uncle Podger, sitting with his head in his gramophone trumpet, could
hear people talking in the conning-tower. "Signal to the _Swiftsure_ to
stop engines"--that was Captain Macfarlane's clear, incisive voice; then
the Navigator's infectious laugh, "The trawlers are safe, sir; out of
range, sir. They've had the fright of their lives, sir."--"Port it is,
sir," came the gruff voice of the quartermaster at the wheel. "Steady it
is, sir."
He rang up the fore-control top, where the China Doll was perched, and a
bell at his side tinkled. "What's going on, China Doll?" he called into
his loud-speaking navyphone, giving the mouthpiece a shake.
"Stop that confounded ringing!" it bleated out, in the peculiar nasal
tone these navyphones always have. That was the Gunnery-Lieutenant's
irritated voice, so Uncle Podger kept silent.
Then he heard, loud and clear through the trumpet mouth:
"Transmitting-room! Transmitting-room! Tell the Major and Mr.
Meiklejohn" (one of the Lieutenants) "that the port 6-inch will fire
first."
"Aye, aye, sir! Port guns will fire first."
He passed on the message to the Lamp-post, and the Lamp-post, who was in
charge of the port broadside gun instruments, commenced telephoning to
the Major, aft, and Mr. Meiklejohn, up in B1 casemate, above them.
Then more orders came down, rapidly, one after the other; ranges, worked
from the foretop, ticked themselves off in the slits of the little brass
boxes, were verified, and passed on to the port guns and the turrets.
"Commence with common shell," sounded the trumpet mouth. Uncle Podger
repeated it.
"It's showing all right on my dial," the Lamp-post said, a little
bothered with so many telephones asking him questions.
"All right, Lampy. Don't lose your wool. Pass it on to the guns."
"What range is showing?" called the trumpet.
"One--two--nine--five--o." "One--two--nine--five--o."
"One--two--nine--five--o," the Lamp-post, the Padre, and the ship's
corporal told Uncle Podger.
"One--two--nine--five--o," he spoke into his navyphone.
"What range are the guns showing?" asked the trumpet. It was the
Gunnery-Lieutenant, anxious to know, at the last moment, whether all the
instruments were recording properly.
This meant ringing up each gun, and took time. Presently all the replies
were received.
"Y3 shows One--two--nine--o--o, sir," Uncle Podger telephoned. "The
others are correct."
"Confound Y3!" he heard the Gunnery-Lieutenant say angrily.
Then the figures in the slits in the brass boxes began to move--the
"five" gave way to "o", the "nine" disappeared and "eight" took its
place; the range was decreasing. The little labels bearing the types of
shell to be used--armour-piercing, common, lyddite--revolved, and came
to a standstill with "common" showing.
All these changes down in the transmitting-room repeated themselves in
similar instruments at the different guns, but to make doubly sure that
they were correctly known there, the order "Common shell" was also
passed by telephone. "Tell B1 to stand by to fire," bawled the big
trumpet, and the Lamp-post calmly passed on the order.
"Fire!" yelled the trumpet mouth. The Lamp-post pressed the key which
rang the fire-gong in B1 casemate. There was a dull thud from above,
and B1 had fired.
Then orders came down one after the other; the whole battery began
firing. The two turrets started, the fore-turret gun making the
transmitting-room rattle, whilst the after 9.2 only made it wriggle.
The Padre was busy jotting down times and ranges, the ship's corporal
was helping the Lamp-post with his instruments, and Uncle Podger was
taking in and passing orders to them all. They had no time to think of
what was going on elsewhere.
Outside, in the "fore cross passage", the noise of the for'ard guns, B1
and B2, coming straight down their hoists was very loud. The breeze,
too, blew the cordite smoke down the hoists when the breeches of the
guns were opened to reload, and made the air and stench more
disagreeable than ever. The ammunition supply parties were busy; empty
red shell-bags were brought back and flung into the magazines; filled
ones were handed up, and the men ran away with them.
The Fleet-Surgeon and the Fleet-Paymaster flattened themselves out of
the way.
"Cheer up, P.M.O.! We'll all be dead soon," the Pay chuckled.
"Indeed and we shall," snarled the P.M.O. "Listen to those beastly
engines--they've been going ahead for the last hour--we'll be hitting
the mines in a minute."
"Well, we shan't know much about that, old chap; we're right on top of
the magazines. You'd be an angel before you could say 'knife'."
"Rats in a trap! Dry up!" growled the P.M.O. "Rats in a trap! That's
what we are."
"A-climbing up de golden stairs," hummed the Pay, pointing to the end of
the rope-ladder dangling from the hoist above them. "Hullo! That's
something new," the Paymaster broke in cheerfully, as there was a noise
just behind them--on the outer side of the coal bunker--a different
noise to any they had heard before.
"Do you hear the coal jumping about?"
"That's summat 'it the harmour," men shouted gleefully.
"Two more!" Called out a gunner's mate as two more crashes came, a
little farther aft, and the coal jumped and rattled behind the bulkhead.
A cloud of black smoke poured down one of the hoists. "Black powder,"
said the men, sniffing, as it drifted along the passage and made them
cough. "A shell's burst somewhere."
A man from B3 slid down the rope of his hoist, and sang out that one had
just burst against the side of the gun port. "No one hurt," he added,
with a little tinge of regret.
A few seconds later a very cheery voice bawled down one of the starboard
hoists to say that shells had come into the mess deck and burst there.
The men were genuinely pleased that their old ship had at last been hit.
"Anyone killed?" they shouted up.
"Don't know yet. The whole blooming place is on fire; port side, half a
dozen knocked out. Old Cooky got one in his leg. No one badly hurt."
Rumours flew up and down these hoists. No one knew what had actually
happened. A lot more smoke came down the hoists. The Fleet-Surgeon
fidgeted lest he ought to go up, but he had to wait for orders, and stay
there until he was sent for.
"They're giving it 'em back, a fair treat," the men sang out, as the
guns up above fired very rapidly and the whole ship shook.
The engines had stopped their rumbling during this time, but now they
started again. No more crashes came against the armoured side, the guns
ceased firing, and presently a message came down: "The Captain wants the
Fleet-Surgeon."
"Now for it," growled the Fleet-Surgeon, and swung himself awkwardly up
the dangling ladder through the hoist up into the casemate, and so out
to the wrecked mess deck.
Two shells--5.9-inch shells--had come in through the ship's side and
made a terrible mess of things. The first one had burst in the stokers'
mess deck, smashing mess tables and stools and setting fire to them.
Flying fragments had wounded the chief cook, who, against all orders,
was in the galley, and five men belonging to the "fire" and "repair"
parties. The rest had dashed along with their hoses, and, whilst they
were putting out this fire, the second shell had burst in the next mess
aft on the other side of a bulkhead, and without fuss or worry they had
dragged their hoses along and put this out too.
Both messes were now ankle-deep in black water, the blackened and
smashed wooden tables and benches lying higgledy-piggledy all over the
deck; pipes and stanchions were torn and twisted; the iron cap and
ditty-box racks hung down fantastically from the blackened beams and
plates overhead, and the whole place was littered with the men's
crockery smashed into the tiniest pieces.
"I'll give you an hour and a half for the wounded, and then we're going
in again," the Fleet-Surgeon was told, when he found the Captain and
Commander wading about among the wreckage.
Off went the Fleet-Surgeon to find his wounded; they had already been
dragged into cosy corners and roughly bandaged.
Dr. Gordon came along, from his station aft, to help him.
By this time all the ships had withdrawn out of range. The "Secure" and
the "Disperse" were sounded, and everyone hurriedly dashed down to see
the damage and hunt for bits of shell.
"And there's another on the boat deck," the Pimple, absolutely off his
head with excitement, screamed to the Lamp-post and Uncle Podger as they
came out of B2 casemate, up the hoist of which they had just climbed.
He dragged them up to see the damage done, and even Uncle Podger went
into raptures when he saw the beautiful hole in the wooden deck, and the
fifty or more small holes which fragments of shell had made in the
engine-room uptakes and in one of the funnels.
"It doesn't matter if the _Bacchante_ does find out about the sea-gulls,
now," he said, and gloated at the lovely sight.
The Orphan came up, anxious lest any of the flying pieces had hit his
beloved picket boat; Bubbles came along, chuckling and laughing, and
they all craned their necks over the side to see the holes where two
shells had come in, and where those that had struck the armour had
knocked off the wood sheathing and the paint.
"Come along or we'll miss lunch," Bubbles gurgled; and they romped aft,
passing old Fletcher, the stoker, coming up, grimy and unwashed, from
his watch below.
"I've just brought 'Kaiser Bill' up for an airing, sir," he said, as the
Orphan stopped to speak to him. "I took him down out of mischief," and
he carefully placed the idiotic tortoise down on the iron plates, and
tried to tempt him with a piece of cabbage leaf to put out his ugly
head.
Lunch in the gun-room was a very rowdy meal. If the Sub hadn't been
pretty severe, precious little more crockery would have been left there
than in those two stokers' mess decks.
"Just fancy! Six times hit--no, eight times--I counted them--all right,
eight times--so much the better--and six wounded. Fancy old Cooky being
knocked out--jolly hard luck; he oughtn't to have been there. You
should have been in B3 when the shell hit the gun port, it did make a
noise. They did make a funny noise all round (this from the China
Doll). I had my cap blown off--one went between my turret and the
shelter deck (this from Rawlinson).
"We're going back again," the Pimple, who had had to go back to the
bridge and now came down, shouted. "I've just heard the Skipper tell
the Navigator. Give me some soup, Barnes, quick--I say, you chaps,
leave me a bit of pudding. We did get it hot. You should have been on
the bridge."
"Bet you were safe and sound in the conning-tower," the others cried.
"I was only there part of the time. They kicked me out--it was too
crowded. When that shell burst on the boat deck, bits came right over
me. A bit hit a signal locker and dropped quite close to me. I've got
it here," and the Pimple produced a bit of scrap iron out of his pocket
and held it up.
"That isn't a bit of shell," they laughed, as they handed it round;
"it's a bit of a deck plate."
"Well, it was jolly hot when I picked it up," said the Pimple, rather
distressed. "I say, Barnes, do hurry up with some grub."
"Oh, you chaps, did you hear?" and the Pimple brightened again. "That
shell which hit the _Triumph_ killed a snotty."
At first they thought, and rather hoped, he might be someone they knew;
but the Pimple, who got all his news from the talkative Navigator, told
them he was an R.N.R. midshipman, so they were a little disappointed,
because they could not possibly have known him.
That afternoon the ships again steamed in almost to the edge of the
mine-field, and all of them opened a very heavy fire on the Turkish
guns; but these were so widely dispersed, and so cleverly hidden in the
scrub of the low-lying ground, that hitting them was a matter of pure
luck.
Two trawlers also made another plucky attempt to sweep through the
mine-field, but had to retire when more guns fired at them--guns which
it was impossible to locate from the ship.
It was evidently hopeless to clear the mine-field during daylight, so
ships and trawlers retired again.
A small steamer--the _Aennie Rickmers_--(she had been captured from the
Germans) met them outside. She carried some scouting hydroplanes, and as
she turned out suitable to accommodate the wounded, these were sent
across to her.
On the Sunday and Monday the ships bombarded Yeni Kali and also a
battery on a ridge, without doing much damage. The hydroplanes went up
on both these days, and circled over the low ground where the batteries
lay hidden, and also over the bay inside. No one in the _Achates_ had as
yet seen air-craft reconnoitring an enemy position, so everybody came up
to have a look when the first one left the water with its pilot and
observer and commenced to climb higher and higher in huge spirals.
When it had risen sufficiently high, it flew away towards Yeni Kali with
its hydroplane floats beneath it, looking, for all the world, like a big
bluebottle which had stuck its feet in something sticky and could not
fly well for the weight of it.
As they eagerly watched it, suddenly a puff-ball of white smoke showed
against the blue sky--below it--then another nearer, two more a long way
behind; field-guns were firing shrapnel at it.
Not a soul on board had seen anything like this; everyone simply stood
and held his breath, and watched the hydroplane and the white puff-balls
following it.
"Gosh! I'd like to be those chaps, young Orphan," the Sub roared. "My
jumping Jimmy! There's excitement for you! Ten minutes of it worth a
life-time. Eh, you jam-stuffing sybarite?"
"Very pretty to watch, but give me dry land," Uncle Podger declared
solemnly.
The little Padre, sucking a big pipe, his face twitching with
excitement, muttered "bother"--a fearful swear-word for him--and spat
out the end of his mouthpiece. He had bitten it off in his agitation.
The China Doll stood with his pink-and-white face gazing upwards, his
mouth wide open, and his big eyes opening and shutting.
"My jumping Jimmy! Life! Life! We're seeing life, my jumping Doll,"
and the Sub lifted the Assistant Clerk off the deck and dropped him
again.
"Do you want to go back to the North Sea patrol--my young Blot on the
Landscape?"
"No, sir;" and the China Doll curtseyed disrespectfully, and bolted
behind the stolid figure of Uncle Podger.
"By the King's Regulations and Gun-room instructions, disrespect to
superior officers is punishable by death or such other punishment as is
hereinafter--" began the Clerk, but was interrupted by a shout of "Look!
She's coming down now!"
The hydroplane was coming back, the puff-balls had ceased, and with long
spiral swoops she slid down on the water and spun along the surface to
the _Aennie Rickmers_.
"Old Yellow Beard wants you, sir," a young A.B.--it was Plunky
Bill--interrupted, saluting the Sub.
"What! Who?" roared the Sub, glaring at him.
"Beg pardon, sir; I forgot myself, sir. I means the Captain, sir.
Wants you in his cabin, he does."
The Sub, with a glare which froze poor Plunky Bill, stalked aft.
Some half-hour later, the half-deck sentry put his head into the
gun-room: "The Sub-lootenant wants Mr. Orphan--in his cabin."
That young gentleman had wagered that he could drink a bottle of soda
water more quickly than Bubbles could, and happened to be employed in
the process of deciding this. The first trial had resulted in a dead
heat, but the second had ended rather disastrously for both; and though
the others patted him on the back with any heavy, unsuitable article
they could find, he had not quite recovered himself when he burst into
the Sub's cabin.
The Sub was excited again. When he was excited his eyes burnt like
coals and his mouth was a slit, tightly shut--shut like a rat-trap.
"Orphan! my jumping Orphan! we've got it--you and I and your rotten old
picket-boat. Guess what we've got to do, my 'JJ.'! It's simply too
grand!"
He lighted his pipe. The cabin was already so full of smoke that the
Orphan was coughing.
"What is it?" he gasped--the soda water inside him still busy.
"Have a cigarette?" the Sub said, shoving a box towards him.
"I'm not eighteen yet!" the Orphan said, thinking that the Sub perhaps
had forgotten and might beat him afterwards.
"You'll have to be twenty-eight to-night, my jumping Son--thirty-eight;
you've got the chance of a lifetime. Squat down on the wash-stand."
"Jumping Moses!--you and I have to go in to-night and stick a light on a
mark-buoy--a Turkish mark-buoy they've fixed in the wrong place, close
inshore it is, under the old fort. What do you think of that?"
"What mark-buoy?" asked the Orphan. "How ripping!"
The Sub drew a few rough outlines on a piece of paper. "There's the
fort, and that's the line of the low bit of land sweeping away to the
right. It sticks out a bit farther along, and just off the 'stick out'
place the mark-buoy should mark a shoal, but the Turks have shifted it
farther in--just about there"--and he marked a cross on the paper--"to
bother us. And we've got to find it to-night, and stick a red light on
it. How's that for 'good'?"
"They'll see us, won't they?" the Orphan said, catching his breath
again, for he knew that at least three search-lights swept the approach
and the minefield--a big one on Yeni Kali itself, "Glaring Gertrude",
and two this side of the mine-field, from somewhere down by the water's
edge--"Peeping Tom" and "Squinting Susan"; two much less powerful lights
these were.
"I bet they'll see us. If they don't before, they will after we've
fixed up that red light. The trawlers are going to sweep through behind
us, and that light's to guide 'em," and the Sub smote the table with his
great clenched fist. "What price that for a good night's work? Better
than boarding ships in the North Sea, eh?"
"Right in under the fort we'll have to go?" asked the Orphan, his breath
still rather short; "and right in under all those guns along the beach?"
"Right in, my jumping Orphan! Rifle range! pistol range! biscuit range!
The _Swiftsure's_ coming in to have a bang at "Peeping Tom" and his pal.
My jumping O.! what a job!"
"When d'we shove off?" asked the Orphan, his eyes blazing.
"Seven o'clock--seven sharp. You bring the grub--shark sandwiches--and
a couple bottles of beer. You're not rattled, my young Orphan?" he said,
springing up and clutching the midshipman's shoulders.
As a matter of fact the Orphan was rather taken aback, and though he did
his best to look frightfully happy, it was not an absolute success.
The Sub altered his voice. "Look here. Those confounded trawler
fellows have done their job two days running, under heavy shell-fire,
whilst we've been behind armour. It's time we showed them the
way--understand? It's our turn to-night, yours and mine."
"I'm all right," the Orphan said. "It was rather a startler, that's
all. I'd been getting up a sing-song, and we were going to court
martial the China Doll."
"Warn your boat's crew," the Sub continued, perfectly satisfied and
absolutely happy. "Tell 'em to take some grub."
"How about old Fletcher?" the Orphan asked. "He's rather old for the
job."
"You know him best. Sound him. Off you go!"
So Fletcher was sent for and told all that was going to happen.
"If you'd rather a younger man----" the Orphan began, not knowing how to
best say what he meant.
"Me, sir! Don't leave me behind. I'm as strong as a horse," the old
stoker broke in.
"Right oh! The boat will be 'turned out' about six-thirty. Don't
forget to bring some grub."
"I won't, sir, thank you," and Fletcher went for'ard.
"I don't think we'll court-martial the China Doll after all," the Orphan
said when he went back to the gun-room.
"Oh! Rather! What rot! Of course we will! Mustn't we, China Doll?"
the others cried.
"Well, I'm not going to be there, anyway. You'll have to find someone
else for prisoner's friend."
"What's up?" they asked. "Got the blight?"
"Oh, I've got a bit of a job on this evening, you chaps!" And the
Orphan did his best to look unconcerned, but they saw that he was
bubbling over with excitement, and dragged the news out of him.
"He might be captured, if they don't kill the poor little chap first,"
Bubbles gurgled. "Fancy the Orphan being a prisoner," the others
shouted. "Poor old Turks--hard luck on them--you'll have to wear a
fez--and be able to smoke all day--a nubbly-bubbly--won't that be
nice?--and have a dozen wives--and get sixpence a day to keep them"
(this was from Uncle Podger).
And when it was time for him to prepare the picket-boat, they called
after him: "If you don't come back we'll finish your ginger nuts--oh,
you pig, you're taking them with you--that's not playing the game--we'll
write such a nice letter home--how we all loved you--with all our names
to it--p'raps your daddy will send us a present--wouldn't a barrel of
beer be nice--good-bye, Orphan, we'll never forget you--if he does send
us one--not till it's finished."
Then they settled down to revise the list of officials at the China
Doll's coming court martial. Bubbles would have to do prisoner's
friend, although he was not much good at it, because when he did think
of something funny to say, he couldn't say it for laughing at what
somebody else had just said.
*CHAPTER VI*
*A Night's Adventure*
The Orphan went up on the "booms" and found Jarvis, the bearded
coxswain, and Plunky Bill busy touching up with black paint any bits of
brasswork on the picket-boat which might show in the searchlights. They
had already done this once, and were making certain, by the aid of a
lantern, that no shiny place had been missed.
As he climbed into her he heard Plunky Bill say saucily: "'Ow about the
missus and the six kids? Ain't you going to back out of this 'ere lark
in the dark?"
"'Ere, get on with yer black paint," growled Jarvis. "'Ow about yer
sweet'earts--five of 'em as I knows on. You ain't going to get yerself
killed, are you, and break five bleeding 'earts? Eh, young
feller-my-lad?"
They were so cheery that the Orphan lost that funny feeling in his
inside that had been so uncomfortable. He climbed on board and went
for'ard to have a yarn with old Fletcher, who was busy in the stokehold
getting up steam.
"No sparks out of the funnels to-night," he said, stooping down.
"I'll take good care of that, sir," Fletcher answered.
It was a very dark night, with a gentle breeze blowing in towards
Smyrna, and as the Orphan straightened himself he saw the glare of the
search-lights over the mine-field, and that unpleasant sensation in his
stomach would come back. He tried to pretend it was only indigestion,
but knew it wasn't.
"Peeping Tom", the nearest, was flickering here, there, and everywhere,
but it was a very poor light, and he didn't mind that one; "Squinting
Susan" shone, twice as brightly as her brother, right across where the
picket-boat must pass; occasionally she swept round to help him, as if
she knew he wasn't of much use.
Then right behind these two was that beastly "Glaring Gertrude"--a
splendid light. She was lighting up the salt-heaps on the opposite
shore most of the time; but when she did turn to have a look out
seawards, her beam lighted up the _Achates_, although the ship was at
least five miles away, making the men's faces quite plain to see, and
outlining the masts and funnels and rigging in a most unpleasant manner.
A signalman came along with the lantern and some "cod" line. "That will
be strong enough, sir, to lash it to the buoy," and he held out the cod
line in the dark for the Orphan to feel.
Everything being ready, the picket-boat was lifted out of her crutches,
dangled over the side of the ship, and lowered into the water. At seven
o'clock she was alongside the darkened ship, and the Sub, in
monkey-jacket, blue trousers, and sea boots, climbed down and gave the
order to "shove off".
"What ho! my Explorer of Mine-fields--my Lighter of Beacons--this beats
the band!" the Sub shouted, as the picket-boat left the shadow of the
ship's side, cleared her bow, and headed for the glare of the
search-lights and the mine-field.
Close to the _Achates_ lay two trawlers and the _Swiftsure's_
picket-boat--the Orphan could just make out their obscure shadows.
"They're going in to sweep," the Sub told him. "The _Swiftsure's_
picket-boat is going to show them the way. My jumping Jimmy!" he
roared, unable to suppress his boisterous excitement. "Isn't this a
grand show?"
The steamboat pushed her way along, and soon the dark mass of the
_Triumph_ loomed up against the blackness of the high hills behind her.
On she went towards where they knew the _Swiftsure_ herself was lying,
and as the Orphan strained his eyes to pierce the darkness in towards
the land to find her, a match was struck in the bows, and a splutter of
tobacco sparks trailed down over the side. Jarvis shouted angrily: "Put
out that pipe!"
"No smoking, you fools!" barked the Sub to the men crouching in the
bows; and Jarvis growled: "It's that 'ere Plunky Bill, 'e's a fair
terror. 'E's been an' gone an' blacked 'Kaiser Bill'," he added after a
pause. "'E said 'e was that shiny 'e'd give the show away. 'E's a
comic, that Plunky Bill."
"You haven't brought the tortoise?" the Orphan asked incredulously.
"Grandpa 'as; 'e's got'im down in the stoke'old, the old 'umbug; 'e's
fair wild with Plunky Bill; 'arf an 'our it took 'im to get the paint
off 'im with a drop of turps and a sweat-rag."
"Hullo! There's the _Swiftsure_, sir," and the Orphan saw her masts and
funnels and cranes ahead of him lighted up for a moment by a quick flash
from "Peeping Tom". Almost immediately a flame shot out from her
side--a roar--and a shell burst with another splash of flame close to
the shore end of that search-light.
"Peeping Tom" disappeared at once.
Then "Squinting Susan" twisted round to see what had fired at her little
brother; waggle waggle went her beam trying to find the battleship.
Bang! Flash! Another gun--another shell blazed up somewhere near her,
and she too disappeared. "They've doused their glim for 'em," Jarvis
grunted.
"My jumping Jimmy! that's good work," the Sub muttered joyously.
But in a second or two out shot "Peeping Tom" and hunted about
nervously, to switch off again as another shell burst somewhere near
him.
As he switched off, "Sister Susan" switched on again, only to vanish as
still another shell came along her way.
"What a jest, my Galloping Orphan! We'll get past them both and not be
seen."
And so they did. "Peeping Tom's" beam flashed on them once, and they
held their breath, but it swept astern and left them in darkness, and
before it worked back the _Swiftsure's_ gun had blazed out, and it was
switched off even before the shell burst.
"Squinting Susan" was much too anxious to help her brother to find the
_Swiftsure_, and didn't bother her head about anything else; her crew,
too, had nerves--very badly.
"We're past them both," the Sub said, chuckling quietly, shaking his
huge fist at them, and guffawing loudly as he watched first one and then
the other switching on and then switching off--out would shoot one light
from shore--bang would go a gun--off switched the light--darkness--the
other light would try--and disappear again. "Peeping Tom's" crew were
even more flustered than "Squinting Susan's"; they hardly waited to be
fired on before switching off.
It was the funniest sight in the world.
"Bet Bubbles is nearly choking himself," the Sub said, "and Uncle Podger
making funny remarks."
"They're 'court-martialling' the China Doll in the gun-room," the Orphan
told him.
"Oh, of course; I forgot that."
The picket-boat was now steaming in darkness, made more intense by the
glare, two miles ahead of her, of "Glaring Gertrude's" huge beam. This
light, by a lucky chance that night, never seemed to leave the white
salt-heaps on the opposite shore.
"We're right on top of the mines now, sonny. Feeling gay?"
"Ra--ther!" answered the Orphan, the uncomfortable feeling in his
stomach entirely forgotten.
"Worth a guinea a minute! My jumping Jimmy, it is!" the Sub kept saying
to himself. "Starboard a little! That's the ticket. Keep her as you
go. We're nearly past the mines now."
Presently the Orphan could see a dark line to starboard--perhaps a
thousand yards away--and knew that this was the low-lying ground which
swept along to the right of Yeni Kali fort, the land from which the guns
had fired on the trawlers last Saturday.
If only "Glaring Gertrude" would stay where she was and amuse herself
counting the salt-heaps all would be well. Once or twice she swept away
from them, and the Orphan caught his breath lest she would swing right
round on the picket-boat; but every time, just at the critical moment,
back she would go to see if the salt-heaps were still there.
The picket-boat throbbed along; hardly any smoke was coming out of her
funnel, and only very seldom a spark; old Fletcher might be a humbug, as
Jarvis said, but he _could_ stoke.
Then the Sub pointed out, right ahead, the square dark shape of Yeni
Kali itself, its upper edge--broken and jagged where shells had crumbled
it--silhouetted against "Glaring Gertrude's" beam.
"They're working it from somewhere in the fort itself," he said,
speaking very quietly, "and the fort gives us a shadow. Splendid!"
"We've come too far; port your helm and ease her a bit, Orphan. Get
that lantern ready--stand by to light it," he told the signalman.
The picket-boat turned in towards the darkness of the land, and moved
through the black water with just a little rippling gurgle under her
bows, whilst the crew, for'ard, strained their eyes to find the
mark-buoy--the mark-buoy which the Turks had shifted.
"We ought to see it--it's white," muttered the Sub impatiently, but
their eyes were rather blinded by looking at "Glaring Gertrude", and
they could not pick it up.
The Sub kept his eyes shut for a minute, and then looked again.
No result.
The line of shore was very close now, and it was inconceivable that the
Turkish look-outs at their guns, all along it, could not see the
picket-boat. Round and round, first this way and then that, she
steamed, hunting everywhere for that mark-buoy--without success.
To seaward the _Swiftsure_, "Peeping Tom" and his sister were still
keeping up their noisy game of "Peep Bo", I spot you!--Bang! No, you
don't!
But for that, and the gurgling under the bows, and the soft grating of
the engines, there wasn't a sound. Not a sound came from the shore close
to them, not even a dog barked.
The Sub grew restless. He knew that the two trawlers and the
_Swiftsure's_ picket-boat must already be sweeping through the
mine-field and expecting to see the red light to guide them.
He swore at the Turks, cursed himself, and above all he cursed "Glaring
Gertrude" and the fort for making the darkness so pitch black round the
picket-boat.
He steered out towards the opposite shore until he almost ran into the
big search-light's beam, swung her round, and made another "cast", but
the blackness away from the glare and in the shadow of the fort was
absolutely inky.
No buoy could he find.
He looked at the luminous face of his wrist watch. "It's getting on for
eleven," he said bitterly. "The trawlers must have nearly finished."
"There's a light, sir! Look, sir! To seaward!" a man called excitedly.
"Keep quiet, you fool," growled Jarvis, "or you'll wake them Turks."
They all looked back towards the mine-field, and saw a small white
light--like a small star twinkling low down on the water--between them
and the _Swiftsure_.
"The trawlers have finished--that's the signal," the Sub swore angrily,
"and we've not helped them. Go back to the ship, Orphan. Curse it
all!"
And then at last the Turks woke up. Flash! Bang! Flash! Bang! Guns
began firing one after the other, and the Orphan ducked as he heard
shells whistling through the darkness.
He could have kicked himself for ducking, because the shells were not
really coming his way, but bursting hundreds of yards beyond the little
white light. It was that the Turks had seen, not the picket-boat. She
had, however, to pass it on her way back.
"Which side shall I pass the light?" he asked nervously.
"Keep inside; they won't see us, and they won't hit us if they do--I
almost wish they would," the Sub growled miserably. "Shove her along!"
As the picket-boat increased speed and approached the light the noise of
shells came much nearer. One especially seemed to be very close, and
burst in the water not a hundred yards ahead.
"Confound you! Keep your head still; you aren't a jumping marionette,"
swore the Sub as the Orphan ducked again.
"Sorry!" he stuttered. "I try, but I can't help it."
"Shove her along! Open her out! Let her rip!" roared the Sub. He was
more happy now that there was some danger.
The picket-boat dashed through the water. She came abreast the white
light, swinging from a pole on a buoy quite unconcernedly.
"That marks the end of the channel they've swept," the Sub bellowed; but
the Sub was much too interested in the shells which were humming and
shrieking, right over the boat now, some of them bursting as they struck
the sea, others falling in with a "flomp". Another moment and the white
light was left behind, wriggling excitedly as the wash of the steamboat
made the buoy dance. Another hundred yards and they were out of the
line of fire.
There was a sudden shout from the bows: "Something ahead, sir!" and out
of the darkness came cries and shouts for help. They steered towards
them, stopping engines, and found two men in an almost sinking dinghy--a
trawler's dinghy--one of them trying to paddle with bits of bottom
board.
They hauled them in and left the boat behind.
The men were numbed and half dazed. One, a signalman, had a cut on his
head and was bleeding freely.
"285's blown up, sir; we're the only ones left."
Neither knew anything, except that there had been a great heave under
their trawler and they'd found themselves in the water, swum about,
found the dinghy, and got into her. One man had started feebly baling
her out with his hands, whilst the other had ripped up one of her bottom
boards and tried to paddle to the ships.
"She was only a-goin' round in circles and a-drifting inshore," he said.
They hadn't seen any more of the crew, but the Sub stopped engines and
halloed into the darkness. No answer coming back, he returned to the
_Achates_ at full speed. "Squinting Susan" and "Peeping Tom" had to be
passed, but they and the _Swiftsure_ were still busy with their little
game, and so no one bothered about them.
Until the Sub brought the news, no one knew of the disaster to trawler
No. 285--not even the second trawler, which had already returned. Some
of the crew of the _Swiftsure's_ picket-boat had seen a sudden glare on
the water---like a flash running along the surface--which they thought
was a shell bursting. Nobody had heard any explosion.
In case there were any more survivors, the _Swiftsure's_ picket-boat
went back to search the mine-field, and luckily found the skipper of the
trawler and two more men drifting about on wreckage. Even they could
give no definite account of what happened. One thought he heard a
noise; another that he'd seen a flash; they all remembered a great heave
under them and finding themselves in the water.
And so, in this sad way, the night's adventure ended; and the
picket-boat having been hoisted in, the Orphan, very miserable,
undressed and turned in to his hammock.
The Sub was wretched. He had not found the mark-buoy, and had done
nothing to help in any way, and he cursed himself for not searching the
mine-field area thoroughly, and for leaving the trawler skipper and
those two men.
He wished someone would kick him very hard.
Next forenoon the Orphan was busy in his picket-boat collecting the
crews of the other trawlers--some men from each--and bringing them
aboard the _Achates_. He also had to fetch from the _Aennie Rickmers_
her captain--a positively enormous man--and the flying officers, one of
whom was a jovial burly Frenchman with a red beard, very proud of being
called "Ginger".
On the quarter-deck, officers and men fell in, bare-headed, whilst the
little pale-faced Padre read the burial service for those missing from
the blown-up trawler.
Nothing more happened that day, but on the Wednesday the wind rose, and
by nightfall was blowing hard--a very black night it was--and at about
two o'clock in the morning an explosion occurred under the bows of the
_Aennie Rickmers_.
She made signals of distress, and began to sink rapidly by the head.
There had been rumours for some days that two Austrian submarines had
escaped from the Adriatic; it might be a torpedo from one of them, or
perhaps from some Turkish torpedo-boat. Some suggested floating mines;
others that an explosion had occurred inside the _Aennie Rickmers_
herself. No one knew exactly what had happened. All that anyone did
know, when Captain Macfarlane took the _Achates_ close to her, was that
she was sinking; that her "dago" crew of Levantine nondescripts had
deserted in all her boats; and that her English officers, the flying
officers, their men, and the four wounded from the _Achates_ were left
without any means of saving themselves.
A most unpleasant hour-and-a-half followed.
The first the China Doll knew of it was being roughly punched in the
ribs and shaken. He woke to hear men passing from hammock to hammock,
singing out: "Turn out, sir, turn out; submarines about; all hands on
deck, sir!"
He didn't lie long after that. He was down, had pulled on his trousers,
found a coat and cap, fumbled in his chest until he found his
swimming-collar, and was blowing it up round his neck before he was
really awake.
Bubbles, whose hammock was slung next to his, had gone to sleep again.
He prodded him feverishly. "Submarines, Bubbles! All hands on deck!
Get your swimming-collar!" he squeaked.
"Oh, bother! Curse you!" grunted Bubbles. "You aren't pulling my leg?
Oh, hang it!" he grumbled, as he saw all the other snotties tumbling
into their clothes, officers coming out of their cabins into the dark,
crowded "half-deck", and heard the banging down of armoured hatches. "I
do hate this beastly war. Breakfast at seven; then a cold bath at two
in the morning. Beastly!"
The China Doll went up on the dark quarter-deck and hunted round for
someone to talk to. His teeth were chattering and his knees were
trembling--it was so dark and cold.
"What's happened?" he asked, stumbling across Uncle Podger.
"Something blown a hole in the _Aennie Rickmers_, and the Sub's gone
across in the cutter to bring back our wounded."
"What did it? Was it a submarine?"
"Don't bother; no one knows. Come and have a look at her."
He took him round to the other side of the turret, into the wind, and
out in the pitch-black night they could just make out the darker mass of
the hydroplane ship, apparently tipped up by the stern, and a
signal-lamp flashing on board her. They heard shrieks coming from her,
and the China Doll's heart beat fearfully fast.
Near them, on the quarter-deck, the querulous voice of Dr. O'Neill, the
Fleet-Surgeon, was lamenting that he had ever come to sea. "Mother of
Moses!" he groaned, as "Glaring Gertrude" turned her light towards the
_Achates_ and everybody's face showed up, and the turret and the
superstructure, the masts and the funnels, stood out clearly against it.
"Mother of Moses, they'll torpedo us next if we wait here much longer!
They _must_ see the ship every time that beastly thing passes across
us."
As "Glaring Gertrude" swept away, and everybody and everything was left
in darkness again, the Fleet-Paymaster's loud, cheery voice bellowed:
"Cheer up, old 'C.D.'; if you have to take to the water, you won't find
any whisky in it!"
The officers and men standing by tittered, for they well knew that Dr.
O'Neill was a rabid teetotaler, and that "C.D." stood for "Converted
Drunkard".
"I've never tasted the beastly stuff in my life, and know it you do!"
snapped the Doctor furiously.
"Sadly lacking in the sense of humour you are, old C.D. What could be
funnier than the whole seven hundred and fifty of us to go drifting
ashore, under those salt-heaps, with swimming-collars round our necks?"
The Fleet-Surgeon stalked away, muttering angrily: "I hate fools."
By this time everything that could be done to make the _Achates_ safe,
in case she was attacked, had been done; water-tight doors and hatches
were all closed; the Orphan was under the fore-bridge with his 6-pounder
guns' crews; Bubbles was on the after-shelter deck with his; look-out
men, all round the quarter-deck and fo'c'sle, peered into the darkness;
the Sub had gone across to rescue the wounded men and, if need be, bring
back everybody from the _Aennie Rickmers_, and all the officers and men
who had no jobs to do stood waiting for whatever was going to happen.
To those who realized what might happen, and who thought it more than
probable that whatever had fired a torpedo at the hydroplane ship--and
by now everybody said it was a torpedo which had blown a hole in
her--would come back out of the darkness, wait for that search-light to
show up the _Achates_, and then take a pot-shot at her;--to those, that
next hour-and-a-half was probably the most trying, and longest, in their
lives. The wind blew so fiercely, and the water was so cold and dark,
that there was very little chance of anyone being picked up once the
_Achates_ did sink, as there was every prospect of her doing--the poor
old ship--once a torpedo got home.
Fortunately most people have not vivid imaginations, and to go into the
battery during this time no one would have imagined that anything at all
out of the way was happening. The men crowded there, just discernible
by the blue-stained fighting-lights, walked up and down or stood in
knots, smoking, and talking quietly about everything under the sun
except what was going on. It was only when that hateful search-light
passed along the ship, and one saw that practically all these men had
their swimming-collars blown up round their necks, that one realized
that they did know what the next few moments might bring them, and that,
knowing this, they did not worry about it.
All had been done that could be done; of course, the _Aennie Rickmers_
and their own wounded messmates aboard her could not be left in danger,
and old "Yellow Beard", as they called Captain Macfarlane, was on the
bridge up there above them.
So why bother?--and they didn't.
Uncle Podger, going up on the boat deck--really to get away from the
China Doll, who would worry him with questions--stumbled against someone
crawling on his hands and knees. The search-light sweeping round just
then, he saw that it was Fletcher. "What are you hunting about there
for?" he asked him.
"I can't find the tortoise, sir," the old man said. "I did not want to
leave him behind if anything happened."
"He can swim, can't he? You'll be able to hold on to him, and he'll tow
you ashore!" Uncle Podger laughed, and tried to help find "Kaiser Bill",
waiting for "Glaring Gertrude" to come back again and throw a little
light into the corners the "savage" beast most frequented. He left
Fletcher still looking for him, and on his way for'ard to pass the time
with the Orphan, collided with the Pimple stumbling along from the
bridge.
"She's safe--she's only got her fore compartment flooded---the
bulkhead's holding. Our wounded are coming across in the cutter. The
Captain's sent me to tell the Fleet-Surgeon," and away the Pimple
dashed.
A few minutes later the cutter with the wounded splashed alongside.
They were hoisted in and taken to the sick-bay. Two of these--Cookey,
the chief cook, and the leading stoker--both of whom had had their legs
smashed, were very big men indeed; and no one who has not had to do it
can imagine the difficulty of handling helpless men of that great size
and weight, and lowering them into, or hoisting them out of small boats
even in daylight. In darkness it is much more tedious and awkward; yet,
abandoned by their crew, and with the ship apparently sinking under
them, the first thing the officers of the _Aennie Rickmers_ and the
French and English flying officers and men did, after they had been
thrown out of their bunks by the force of the explosion, was to get the
wounded ready to be lowered over the side, and, directly the _Achates'_
cutter had come alongside, to lower them safely into it. This was an
incident of quiet, unostentatious coolness and courage which deserves
recording. It is, perhaps, easy to be courageous at 2 p.m.; at 2 a.m.
it is a very different matter.
And another thing must be put down. As the first of those two helpless
men was being carried for'ard, an officer--the first he met, and it was
not the Fleet-Surgeon--took off his own swimming-collar, pushed it into
his hands, and disappeared in the dark before he could give it back.
Shortly afterwards the miserable "dago" crew came screaming alongside
and begged to be taken on board. They were; and they'll never forget
the "feel" of the ammunition boots of the tender-hearted marines who
shepherded them that night into a casemate and locked them up inside.
Then off went the _Achates_ to get out of the limit of "Glaring
Gertrude's" range of vision, and to lose herself in the pitch-black
night, where neither torpedo-boat nor submarine could find her.
The Sub had been left behind in the damaged ship, to shore up that fore
bulkhead and to keep an eye on it all night. He was as happy as a
"fiddler" to be able to make a good job of it and "wash out" the
recollection of his bad luck and judgment two nights previously.
The remainder of the Honourable Mess crowded down into the gun-room with
the joyous relief of danger past, demanding sardines, onions, and beer.
They got them, too, at that unearthly hour of half-past three in the
morning, for the purple-faced Barnes and the miserable little messman
knew from long experience what would be wanted, and had spent the last
half-hour preparing for them. It all went down as "extras", so the
messman didn't mind.
The Pimple brought the news that it was a torpedo-boat that had attacked
the _Aennie Rickmers_. "A signalman saw her dropping astern directly
after the noise--the Navigator says he saw it too," he told them.
"Have an onion, Pimple?" they jeered.
The China Doll, at the first rumour of "sharks and onions", had dashed
down from the quarter-deck, entirely forgetting that his swimming-collar
was still round his neck; and they made him keep it there--blown up,
too--so that he had the very greatest difficulty to swallow his fair
share of the food--as for his glass of beer, Rawlinson drank half
that--before the Commander sent the sentry to tell the Pink Rat to "'out
lights' in the gun-room and stop that confounded noise!"
Then they crept noisily to their hammocks in the half-deck, and,
marvellous to relate, slept like tops.
This finally concluded the operations off Smyrna--they were only
intended temporarily to divert the Turks' attention--and a few days
later the _Swiftsure_ and _Triumph_, with the trawlers, were recalled to
the Dardanelles, and the _Achates_ ordered to Port Said to repair her
small damages, leaving "Peeping Tom" and "Squinting Susan" to play "I
spy you" by themselves, and "Glaring Gertrude" to go on counting her
salt-heaps on the opposite shore or not, just as she pleased.
*CHAPTER VII*
*Off to the Dardanelles*
The _Achates_ arrived at Port Said on the 18th March and made fast, head
and stern, to the Senior Naval Officer's buoys, off Navy House.
It was on this date that the combined French and British fleet made the
attack on The Narrows--the attack which ended so disastrously with the
loss of the _Ocean_, _Irresistible_, and _Bouvet_, and the crippling of
the _Inflexible_ and _Gaulois_.
A very bad day it was, only relieved by some daring acts of bravery, of
which none so roused the admiration of the whole fleet as the courage
displayed by those destroyers which went alongside the mortally wounded
_Ocean_ and _Irresistible_, and removed their crews under a concentrated
fire from many heavy guns.
It was magnificent.
But the _Achates_ lay comfortably at Port Said all that tragic day,
making preparations for repairing the damage caused by the Smyrna
shells, and talking by wireless to her chummy ship the _Bacchante_,
anchored off Suez, at the other end of the Canal.
Barely six weeks ago the Turks had made their feeble attack on the Suez
Canal, and of course the first thing that the Honourable Mess decided to
do was to visit Kantara and Tussum, where the fighting had taken place.
The Lamp-post had an elder brother on the staff at Ismailia, the Pimple
had a long-lost cousin in an Indian regiment at Kantara, and by dint of
much worrying of these two unfortunate young soldiers, everyone had the
opportunity of visiting these places and picking up a few bullets.
Anyhow, they had a very joyous three weeks, only slightly damped by the
almost entire disappearance of the damage done by the Smyrna shells; but
a few holes remained in one funnel, and they looked forward intensely to
showing these to their chums in the _Bacchante_. Eventually that ship
came back through the Canal, the _Achates_ followed her outside, and
both of them steamed away to join the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron at
its base at Mudros, the harbour in the island of Lemnos, sixty miles or
so from the end of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the commencement of the
Dardanelles. At last they were to take a hand in "The Great Adventure".
At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 12th April they both slipped
through the "gate" in the submarine net, and anchored in that great
land-locked harbour.
It was extraordinarily impressive to see the enormous assemblage of
ships there--both French and British ships of every kind--battleships,
cruisers, destroyers, submarines, huge transports, store ships,
colliers, auxiliaries of all sorts, two white-painted hospital ships,
trawlers, and tugs.
At the top of the harbour lay the little white town of Mudros, with its
white twin-towered Greek church, and its row of spidery windmills on the
ridge behind it; though the Honourable Mess had not much time to gaze
open-mouthed at all these things, and to grin with pleasure when the
_Bacchante_ anchored in the wrong place and was obliged to shift billet;
because a collier came alongside almost immediately, and down they had
to go, get into "coaling rig", and, for the rest of that bright sunny
afternoon, "coal ship".
Everybody knew that the next attack on the Dardanelles would be a
combined naval and military operation, and as transport after transport
came steaming into Mudros harbour, the enthusiasm and excitement
increased.
Also the Honourable Mess dined their pals of the _Bacchante_, and
proudly showed them the few traces still remaining of the damage done to
the ship at Smyrna. This was a beautiful occasion, because it washed
out all memory of the incident of the "sea-gulls"--not one of them
mentioned it--and also because the _Bacchante_ snotties introduced a
delightful new form of "drag" hunt round the "half-deck", the "drag"
being a piece of decomposed cheese (which they brought with them) and
some Tabasco sauce and Chile vinegar dropped discreetly at intervals.
As a special privilege, the "War Baby" was invited to the "meet", and
the "Youngest Thing in Marine Subalterns" joyfully left the exalted
atmosphere of the ward-room, unbuttoned the trouser-straps under the
soles of his boots--the straps which kept his trousers and their broad
scarlet stripes so beautifully straight--and prepared for the fray.
Blindfolded, and on hands and knees, these young gentlemen enjoyed a
famous "run"; and though the Padre did object to the "drag" being placed
on the pillow in his cabin bunk, even that did not seriously diminish
their enjoyment. As a matter of fact, it slightly added to it.
Exactly what part the Navy would take in the approaching "landing" on
the Gallipoli Peninsula no one exactly knew; but when the news came that
men were being told off for "beach parties", and then when the Pink Rat,
Bubbles, and the Lamp-post were ordered to be prepared to land with them
and provide themselves with some sort of khaki uniform, excitement rose
to fever pitch.
Within half an hour the Pink Rat appeared in the mess in proper
soldiers' kit--beautifully fitting--which, he explained, "he'd brought
out with him in case of accident".
"If you went to Heaven you'd turn up at the gate, and sign your name in
old Peter's book with a pair of wings on and a mouth-organ!" the Sub
snorted when he saw him; and Uncle Podger suggested that "he probably
had a tail, with a sting on it, and a brand-new shovel, stowed away
somewhere on board, lest, "in case of accident", he found himself in the
other place."
The whole Honourable Mess concerned themselves with the fitting out of
Bubbles and the Lamp-post. Proper khaki was unobtainable--at that
time--so they dyed their white uniform in Condy's fluid, and as it
shrunk in the process, and the resulting colour was a dirty yellow,
streaked with brown, the effect was not good.
"Most unsatisfactory!" said Uncle Podger, when they first tried it on
and he saw the Lamp-post's ankles and wrists sticking out far beyond the
ends of trousers and sleeves, and Bubbles hardly able to breathe in his.
"Most unsatisfactory! It will be an insult to the Honourable Mess if
either of you are found 'corpsed'."
"You mustn't tell them you belong to the _Achates_ when they come to
bury you," the others shouted. "You must promise that!"
"You're perfect scarecrows," roared the Sub when he saw them--"a pair of
confounded convicts!"
Everybody laughed at them and devoutly envied them--and they laughed at
each other.
Rawlinson, who prided himself on being a really great poet, burst out
with:
"Two little convicts going out to fight,
One had his clothes too short, the other much too tight!"
There was a roar of laughter as the Honourable Mess lifted up their
voices, chanting this, and dancing round the quaint pair, whilst
Rawlinson, exhausted with the production of this exquisite couplet,
retired to a corner to think out something which would rhyme with khaki.
The Lamp-post, grimacing, and trying to twist himself so that he could
get a back view, didn't know or care what he looked like, but said he
felt "like a prize idiot".
"How nice to feel natural for once, Lampy!" that insubordinate officer,
the China Doll, squeaked.
This was simply asking for trouble. The two convicts chased him round
the table, just missing him as he dashed out into the half-deck.
Piercing shrieks for help followed, and the others rushed out to rescue
him.
A glorious scrap followed.
"At any rate," said the Sub, when they'd come back again to repair
damages, and the Hun had apologized for tearing the Pink Rat's
coat-collar, "you'll both frighten the old Turks. That's one comfort."
There were so many things to keep up the excitement during those days of
preparation. The transports, with their cheering loads of British,
Australians, New Zealanders, French, and Algerian troops; the quaint old
battleships from home, the dear old "mine bursters", with their clumsy,
projecting spars and tackle, over the bow, for booming off mines; the
balloon ship practising its funny, yellow gas-bag at the outer
anchorage, and the enemy aeroplanes and their bombs. These last were,
at first, a source of immense delight to the Honourable Mess, but
eventually they became a little sorry for them--they flew so high and
dropped their bombs so very unsuccessfully.
"How very disappointing!" said the Lamp-post one day. "Just fancy
having brought along those bombs, to drop 'em harmlessly, and then have
to fly back, all that way, without having done any damage."
He was quite serious about it, and, as a matter of fact, one could not
but feel sorry for the poor chap, up there in his Taube, who, having
expended all his four bombs uselessly, found he had to fly back some
sixty miles to wind'ard, before he could go and "turn in" and try to
forget about it.
Then, one day, they heard that their old friend the torpedo-boat, down
at Smyrna, had come out to sea and fired three torpedoes at a crowded
transport without hitting her; and by nightfall came the news that she
had been chased, driven ashore, and destroyed by gun-fire. That was
very good "business".
Next came the order that steel plates were to be built round the
steering-wheels of the steam pinnace and the picket-boat, to protect the
midshipmen and coxswains from rifle-fire. Almost at the same time the
Orphan and the Hun (who was in charge of the steam pinnace) had been
ordered to provide themselves with khaki, and told that their boats
would be required to tow the soldiers to the beaches, on the day of the
grand attack.
It was a great moment for both of them; and what a mess they made of
their hands and clothes with Condy's fluid, and what prize burglars they
looked when at last they showed themselves arrayed for war!
Every ship had to supply one or more steamboats, and each ship devised
its own rifle protection. The _Achates'_ boats had a steel plate about
five feet high bolted to the deck, in front of their steering-wheels,
with a narrow, horizontal slit just below the upper edge, so that when
those behind it stooped down under cover they could steer through this.
The ends of the plates curved back a couple of feet, so as to give side
protection.
Some ships built regular steel boxes with "all round" protection, others
carried the side plates so far aft that they protected men standing in
the stern-sheets; and the snotties in the boats with the least
protection made great fun of those who had more. Probably, among the
hundred thousand men in that harbour, during the days prior to the
landing, the twenty or thirty snotties in charge of these steamboats
were the most supremely happy of all.
The Hun and the Orphan went away, several times, and practised towing
the transports' boats. Each steamboat had to tow four of these, one
behind the other. On one day the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers came on board
the _Achates_, and practised climbing down into the boats, down
specially constructed wooden ladders, and were then towed ashore in
twenty-four packed boats, each four being towed by a steamboat, and all
six steamboats steaming in line abreast.
On another day all the snotties and men "told off" to land as beach
parties, or as crews of boats, were fallen in on the quarter-deck, and
Dr. Crayshaw Gordon, mounting the after capstan, gave them a few words
of advice and instruction in case any of them were hit.
"Don't frighten them, Doc," the Commander had hinted previously--and he
didn't. He had such a funny way of "putting" things that he had the men
laughing in no time.
He explained how the little first-aid dressing should be used, tearing
open the cover, showing them the pads to go next the wounds, the pieces
of waterproof to cover the pads, and the bandage to wrap round all. He
held up the safety-pin which is in every packet--held it so that all
could see--and finished up with: "You men will probably come under heavy
fire; some of you will get bullets through you; but if any of you come
back wounded _without_ your safety-pins, there will be the devil's own
row." He had such a quaint, nervous, amusing way of talking, and was so
kind-hearted and so popular with the men, that they grinned and guffawed
with amusement.
Of those men who stood there that afternoon, fifteen were killed on the
day of landing, and some twenty-five or thirty wounded.
"Thank God, they have no imagination," Dr. Gordon told the Commander,
"and can't realize what is in front of them!"
"They simply don't bother to think about it, Doc."
On the 23rd April the first move began. Transports crammed with
cheering troops, cruisers, and battleships slipped out through the
"gate" in the net. The _Achates_ spent the night at sea, and anchored
off Tenedos Island next morning. Here were gathered the men-of-war,
transports, fleet sweepers, and trawlers told off for the landings at
the end of the Peninsula. It was a dull, grey-looking day, and a fresh
breeze rising in the morning made the sea choppy, and must have caused
intense anxiety to those in command, because the great landing was to
take place next morning, and unless the sea was absolutely smooth,
boat-work would be much more difficult.
That afternoon the Sub was ordered to go in the Orphan's picket-boat as
"second in command" of the six steamboats which were to tow the
battalion ashore. He was dumb with delight, and the Orphan almost as
pleased.
In the afternoon the breeze did die down, and the Turks sent an
aeroplane to see what was going on. It dropped a few bombs from a great
height into the water between the ships, and flew back again.
Later on, the _River Clyde_ came along and anchored close to the
_Achates_. Poor old _River Clyde_! She was to make her last voyage
that night, with 2000 troops on board, to run herself aground under the
mediaeval castle of Sedd-el-Bahr early next morning, and make her name
famous in the annals of the British Navy and Army for many ages.
Large square openings had been cut in her side, and under these ran
plank gangways, meeting at the bows, where a hinged platform was all
ready to be lowered into the hopper and the lighters which were to fill
the gap between her stem and the shore.
Her soldiers were intended to pour out of these openings, along the
planks, down into the hopper and lighters, and so ashore.
At dusk the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers came on board--old
soldiers all of them. Very silently and quietly they "fell in" on the
quarter-deck and in the batteries, unslung their packs, laid their
rifles alongside them, and were dismissed.
This was the moment for which the bluejackets were waiting. They had a
great feast prepared on the mess deck, and hustled them down to it.
Five of the subalterns were grabbed by the Honourable Mess and brought
down to the gun-room; the remaining officers were entertained in the
ward-room.
"Thank God!" roared the Sub, "I'm coming in with you chaps to-morrow, or
I couldn't face you. Buy up the place--beat the China Doll--break the
blooming furniture--chuck your gear on the deck outside. Bless you,
we'll give you a better dinner than you had in that old transport of
yours. And there's my cabin for two of you--the bunk for one, and a
shake-down for another. Barnes! Barnes! Bring round the sherry, and
tell 'em to hurry up with the dinner."
Every delicacy the gun-room store possessed appeared on the table. The
soldiers swore it was the best dinner they'd had since they left
England; and the Honourable Mess spun them yarns about Smyrna--by order
of the Sub, who had forbidden them to mention the morrow.
Dinner over, Uncle Podger took charge or the five subalterns, and
piloted them into the crowded ward-room, where a "sing-song" had already
been started. The Sub, the Pink Rat, Bubbles, the Lamp-post, the Orphan,
and the Hun changed quietly into their war gear. The Sub, the Orphan,
and the Hun climbed down into the two steamboats, went across and made
fast to the trawler which was to tow them and their eight transport
boats (empty) across to the Peninsula during the night. The other three
snotties, laden with leather gear, water-bottles, field-glasses,
revolvers, ammunition-pouches, haversacks with food for twenty-four
hours, and blankets rolled up in their straps, were taken across to the
_Newmarket_--fleet sweeper--along with all the men of the beach parties.
The sing-song in the ward-room was in full swing as the last crowded
boat pushed off, and up through the open ward-room skylights came the
rousing, roaring chorus of "John Peel", following them in the darkness
until they were almost alongside the _Newmarket_. Many of those who
sang it were singing it for the last time.
At ten o'clock the _Achates_ weighed anchor.
The sing-song went on until nearly eleven, but breakfast had been
ordered at a quarter to four, so older heads suggested sleep. The
"Lancashire" officers were stowed away in cabins, beds were made up for
them on the deck; the ward-room cushions and arm-chairs all helped, and
the men of the battalion lay down on the upper deck, with their heads on
their packs.
At 3.15 everyone turned out, and half an hour later breakfast was ready
for the soldiers--eggs and a good helping of bacon, bread and jam and
butter to fill up corners, and as much coffee, tea, or cocoa as they
wanted to wash it down.
This was all the _Achates_ could do for them, and, little though it was,
everyone felt happy that each officer and man of that grand battalion
started on The Great Adventure with a good breakfast under his belt.
The little Padre, whose gentle soul had been in anguish all that night,
was not the only one who wished that their mothers and wives could know
this.
At half-past four the _Achates_ stopped engines; the Lancashire
Fusiliers "fell in", and out of the darkness covering an absolute calm,
almost unruffled sea, came the six steamboats and the twenty-four
transports' boats, each with its crew of five bluejackets.
Into these the soldiers filed, down the long ladders, and in twenty
minutes the last boats had been filled and towed away.
There are no words which will properly and soberly describe the
admiration felt by the officers and men of the _Achates_ for that
battalion. When the last boat had shoved off, and the transports' boats
and their six steamboats had taken up their stations in line abreast and
began to move slowly away, Captain Macfarlane turned to the Commander
and said gravely: "I've seen, Commander, a good deal of war on shore,
but I have never seen anything which has stirred me so greatly as the
quietness and discipline of those fellows--as the majesty of their
bearing."
He went up on the bridge, and the _Achates'_ engines rumbled slowly
ahead.
It was now a quarter to five on Sunday morning, the 25th April, the
greyest of shadowy dawns--the formless clouds were grey--a darker streak
of grey, where grey sea and sky met, was the Gallipoli Peninsula; and
three grey patches, darker still, were the _Swiftsure_, _Cornwallis_,
and _Albion_, close inshore, waiting for the moment to commence
bombarding.
Behind the _Achates_, like a shoal of minnows, followed the steamboats
and their twenty-four transports' boats; behind them were fleet
sweepers, and looming indistinctly in the distance, as wide as the eye
could pierce, came transports and store-ships in great numbers, the
_River Clyde_ among them.
On board the _Achates_ the fo'c'sle and after shelter deck were crowded
with officers and men anxiously gazing ahead.
"You know that R.H.A. officer," the China Doll kept on telling anyone
who would listen to him--"that cheery chap who's going in with them to
make signals. He promised to send me off a Turk's rifle. Wasn't that
decent of him?"
On the bridge Captain Macfarlane, tugging nervously at his pointed
beard, and standing next to the Commander, muttered to himself: "Thank
God! they had a good breakfast."
"Every one of them, sir," the Commander jerked out, in the most
matter-of-fact way.
"There's nothing like having your stomach full to keep up your pluck,
Commander. It makes all the difference."
"I expect it does, sir. The books say so, at any rate."
"I know it does," the Captain said, thinking of what he had been through
himself, and turning to speak to the Navigator, busy taking bearings.
The thudding of heavy guns broke the stillness, and splashes of flames
lighted up the greyness of the daybreak.
"Hullo! they've started!" said the Commander. "They're three minutes
late by my watch. I expect the blessed thing is losing again. I'm
hanged if I know what's wrong with it."
The Great Adventure[#] had commenced.
[#] The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps had already effected a
landing beyond Gaba Tepe, 15 miles to the north-east.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*The Landing on Gallipoli*
For half an hour there was one constant rumbling of guns fired by the
_Swiftsure_, _Cornwallis_, _Albion_, _Prince George_, _Lord Nelson_, and
_Agamemnon_; and shells from the first two of these, bursting in scores
on the last half-mile of the Peninsula, hid it almost continuously under
a cloud of lyddite smoke.
The six picket-boats steamed in steadily towards this smoke cloud with
the Lancashire Fusiliers behind them, not advancing very rapidly because
the current, flowing out of the Dardanelles, was against them, and the
transports' boats were so heavily laden.
The crews of these boats had already tossed their oars--four in each
boat--in readiness to pull in to the land when the steamboats should
cast them off.
The Orphan steered his picket-boat--the fifth boat from the left--with
one hand; in the other he held a half-eaten sandwich. Jarvis stood one
side of him, the Sub the other, all three behind the bullet-proof
protecting shield. Jarvis had slept a little through the night; the
other two had not.
"Practise stooping and steering through the slit," the Sub ordered. "If
you keep standing up and looking over the top, you'll get a bullet in
your head when the time comes."
"But there can't possibly be anyone left alive there," the Orphan
protested, as he watched the shells bursting.
"Just wait! You'll soon find out!" the Sub answered grimly, and
noticing that the picket-boat was forging ahead of the line, sung out to
the stoker petty officer to "ease her". This man was looking out of the
engine-room hatch, just in front of the bullet-proof screen, and popped
his head down to give another twist to the steam-valve. Old Fletcher,
peering out of the stokehold hatch, farther for'ard, thought he, too,
had been told to do so, and also bobbed his head down.
"Has the tortoise come along with us this time?" the Sub asked. The
Orphan did not know; but Jarvis snorted: "Yes, 'Kaiser Bill's' 'ere all
right; the old 'umbug!"--though whether he meant the tortoise was a
humbug, or the old stoker, he didn't say.
The picket-boat fell back into line, and the Hun, standing behind his
bullet-proof screen in the pinnace on the right, waved cheerfully across
to the Orphan.
It was now clear daylight--about a quarter-past five.
The battleships still pounded the end of the Peninsula, and the six
steamboats drew ahead of the _Achates_, which had now stopped engines.
Behind them followed the trawlers, and the _Newmarket_, fleet sweeper,
with the Pink Rat, Bubbles, the Lamp-post, and their beach parties, and
behind her--far behind--came many transports.
"There's the _River Clyde_," called the Orphan, pointing away over the
starboard quarter to where she was coming along, very slowly, towing the
hopper and lighters which were presently to bridge the gap between her
bows and the shore. After her, and with difficulty keeping pace with
her, more ships' steamboats towed half a battalion of the Dublin
Fusiliers.
"That's Cape Tekke--that high end bit, and that's Cape Helles--the
higher cliff to the right, with the white lighthouse 'affair' on top,"
the Sub explained. "We've to land in between them. There's a bay
there--'W' beach--underneath that smoke."
The sun itself had not yet been visible, but now it shot up from behind
a distant ridge, humped like the back of a huge pig, and blazed straight
in their faces.
"Old Achi Baba," said the Sub, shielding his eyes. "If they get as far
as that to-night, they'll be able to look down on the Narrows and on the
forts there."
"The Navigator told the Pimple that the soldiers expect to have dinner
at Achi Baba," the Orphan said. "I jolly well hope they will. Isn't
this sun beastly? I can't see where I'm going."
"Well, don't get too far ahead, and don't look into it," the Sub
growled. "This isn't a race; ease down and give the pinnace a chance."
They were now about a thousand yards off the smoke cloud which concealed
"W" beach, and the incessant crash of high-explosive shells bursting
there, and on the high ground above it, made the most infernal din. At
this point the two left-hand steamboats diverged from the other four and
steamed towards the rocks under the actual end of the Peninsula; the
Sub, with the remainder, maintained the original course. But "W" beach,
and the scooped-out gully which led upwards to the high ground, and the
cliffs at each side of it were hidden in dense clouds of lyddite smoke
and by a thick morning haze which lay on the water. Unfortunately the
sun, shining over Achi Baba, shone full on this smoke and mist, and
lighted it up to such a dazzling extent that from the boats one could
see nothing whatever of the shore, and judging distances was impossible.
The boats were now drawing very near their destination, and the Sub had
all the responsibility on his shoulders of judging the moment when to
slip them. A blast from his steam-whistle was to be the signal for all
to be cast off, and Jarvis picked up the whistle lanyard and only waited
the order to tug it. Plunky Bill, in the bows, kept a sharp look-out
for'ard, and every now and then dipped the boat-hook in the water to
find its depth.
The Sub, his face set and anxious, seized a megaphone and shouted: "Out
oars!"
The transports' boats' crews immediately dropped their tossed oars into
the rowlocks, and the soldiers in these boats turned round to have a
look where they were going. They had, until then, been sitting stolidly
in the boats with only their packs and the backs of their caps visible,
and this sudden swinging round of heads as the oars dropped, and the
almost simultaneous appearance of five hundred faces, made an
unforgettable sight. Nothing could be seen through the dazzling smoke
and mist.
"It's twenty to six," the Sub jerked out, looking at his wrist watch.
"We're a few minutes late. We ought to be right there now."
Not a shot had been fired from shore, and the ship's shells were still
bursting--very close the explosions seemed to be. "They must be able to
see us," the Orphan whispered, nervously peering through the steering
slit.
Then there was a yell from Plunky Bill: "Stakes right ahead, sir! Only
four foot of water, sir!" Others took up the cry--the crew of the Hun's
steam pinnace had seen them and were shouting and pointing.
The Sub looked under the bows and saw them himself.
"We're there!" he roared. "Pull, Jarvis; one long blast! Let go aft!
Full speed astern! Hard a-starboard!"
The steam spluttered out for a moment--the Orphan thought the whistle
would never clear itself--then it shrieked--the echo came back from the
shore almost immediately, proving how close they must be--splash went
the tow-rope into the water--the other steamboats slipped their
tow-ropes--the stern of the picket-boat swerved to port and trembled as
the screw went full speed astern, and the oars of the transports' boats
splashed madly in the water.
Not a rifle-shot came from the shore.
As the picket-boat gathered stern-way, the crowded transports' boats
splashed past on either side; their coxswains, perched in the sterns,
yelling: "Go it: give way! Pull hard! Shove your backs into it!"
"Good luck to you all!" the picket-boat's crew shouted.
The soldiers turned round with grim, set faces, their hands on the
gunwales gripping very tightly, ready for the moment when they would
have to jump out. The leading boat wavered; she had come up against the
stakes and the barbed-wire netting stretched between them. These
checked her for a moment, but her weight carried her through, and she
almost disappeared in the very thick and dazzling haze. The other boats
dashed after her.
In the bows of one--with his machine-gun--was a very cheery subaltern
who had dined in the gun-room the night before, and also his equally
cheery chum the subaltern of Royal Horse Artillery--the brigade
signaller. The latter, as he passed, called out: "Tell your China Doll
I won't forget his rifle." "Good luck!" shouted the Sub, "I'll tell the
little beggar."
"Turn her round! Take her out to the trawlers!" he roared to the
Orphan. Round the picket-boat swung, and just as she commenced to steam
out there was a shout of "The first one's beached herself, sir! The
soldiers are scrambling out, sir!" And then from behind the haze and
smoke clouds, from both sides and above, there burst out the most
terrific rattle of maxims, and rifles and the bark of something heavier
than either.[#]
[#] One-inch Nordenfeldts.
The picket-boat steamed out at full speed, whilst stray bullets hit the
water near her and others pinged overhead. The Orphan and the Sub
looked back. They could only see indistinctly through the haze with the
sun on it; they could not see what was happening, but neither of
them--down inside them--could imagine that any men in those crowded
boats could pass through that fire and live. The Orphan held his breath
and gripped the steering-wheel. His heart seemed to stop beating: the
Sub's face was set, and he had bitten his lip. "They're getting it in
the neck--my God, they are!" Jarvis said, as the awful rattling and
banging went on without a moment's pause.
The steamboats reached the trawlers, a thousand yards or more from that
glare of mist and smoke which hid "W" beach and its tragedy, and there
they waited until, suddenly, first one and then another, then half a
dozen--a dozen transports' boats, some with three oars working, others
with only two, one with only one, scarcely any had all four, came into
view, emerging from the mist, and bullet splashes leapt up in hundreds
around and among them.
For one horrible second they thought that the boats had been beaten off,
but then they saw that they had no soldiers in them, and knew that, at
any rate, the soldiers had managed to land; the haze still made it
impossible to see what had happened to them.
Breathlessly the crews of the steamboats, clustering round the two
trawlers, watched these boats struggling off. The boat with only one
oar working, and no coxswain, was turning circles, but drifting slowly
out with the current. The man himself was evidently sitting on the
bottom boards, because only his hands appeared above the gunwales, and
he kept changing the oar from side to side.
Another boat near this one had two oars working, and they watched the
coxswain in the stern crouching down and trying with his free hand to
make these two keep time.
Just picture to yourself a stream with a tin floating some ten yards
from the bank, and half a dozen boys, with their caps full of stones,
throwing stones at it as fast as they can. Picture to yourself that tin
with the splashes round it, and you will be able to realize something of
what the Sub and the Orphan saw; only, instead of one tin, there were
sixteen crippled boats--some of them already half filled with dead and
wounded--and the bullet splashes leapt six feet and more out of the
water.
Then imagine that, instead of a tin, it was a struggling cat the boys
were trying to drown with their stones, and that you were making up your
mind to slip off your clothes, swim in, and rescue it, knowing that the
boys on the banks would throw stones faster than ever, and bigger ones
too, which would really hurt.
Well, at this moment the Sub decided to steam into the hail of bullets
and rescue those boats.
He roared out: "We can't sit here doing nothing. Go in and help them!"
The Orphan, pale and staring, rang "full speed ahead", turned the
picket-boat's bows round, and dashed back towards the boats. The Hun,
yelling and half mad with excitement, followed in the pinnace, and so
did some of the other steamboats. The Orphan hardly knew what happened.
Bullets hit the protecting screen, a chip of wood from the gunwale hit
his cap; splashes leapt up all round him; his ears hummed with the
whistling noise. He remembered hearing the Sub roar: "Go for those two
over there!" and feeling him grip his hand on the steering-wheel to turn
towards the two most crippled boats. He got alongside one--saw Plunky
Bill and another hand get hold of her--had a picture of grey faces
looking up at him from the bottom of her, and a muddle of khaki lying
there across her thwarts; towed her across to the boat with only one
man; saw the Sub get hold of her painter, and then found himself, dazed
and horribly shaky and sick, back again at the trawler. Plunky Bill
came aft, grinning: "There's a 'ole in the funnel, sir, slap-bang
through!" and proudly showed a bullet which he had found lying on the
deck.
No one who looked into those transports' boats as they were towed
alongside the trawlers will ever forget what he saw: men dead, dying,
and wounded, all huddled and jumbled together on the thwarts of the
boats and on the bottom boards, with legs and arms twisted strangely;
wounded unable to free themselves from the weight of dead bodies on top
of them--those grey, placid faces and sightless eyes which, ten minutes
before, had glowed with excitement as they turned them to the sun; the
blood-stained, torn khaki; the blood-stained water lapping round them,
and the one, two, and in some boats three bluejackets, in their
Condy's-fluid-dyed jumpers, sitting among them, flopping, exhausted,
over their oars.
In one boat there was a Scotsman, in gold spectacles--not unlike
Fletcher the stoker--a St. John's Ambulance man, and now a Territorial
ambulance orderly. He had already dressed all the wounded in his boat,
and now stepped into another, working away quietly, as if he was doing
it in the accident-room of a hospital.
"We must get a doctor," he told the Sub; and as the trawlers had not
one, the boats requiring most urgent assistance were towed across to the
_Newmarket_ anchored near. Here the wounded--most of them--received
further treatment.
There was no time for sentiment. The boats were all urgently required
to take more men ashore; three of them, those with the most dead and
wounded, were told off to take on board the wounded from the others;
bluejackets were told off to take the places of those of the crews who
had been killed and wounded; and then the beach parties, Bubbles, the
Pink Rat, and the Lamp-post, tumbled down into them. Bullets began
flying round them and the _Newmarket_, but no one was hit. "Shove off!"
was shouted; "land them under the rocks to the left of the beach;" and
the Sub and the Orphan towed them inshore.
There was much less rifle-firing now, but many bullets came over and
splashed round the picket-boat. The mist and smoke had cleared away, and
the _Swiftsure_ was still firing very rapidly at the Turks' trenches on
the edge of the cliff, to the right of the beach, the _Achates_
assisting with her small guns. Their shells burst along it one after
the other, all along the dark line which marked the trenches, and
scarcely a Turk dare expose himself to fire down at the beach.
The Sub, as he approached, saw through his glasses two Turks close
together, leaning over and pointing their rifles down at the beach, and
saw spurts of sand fly up where the bullets struck among a line of men
lying prone, half in and half out of the water, in front of lines of
barbed wire. One of the shells from the _Achates_ burst close to them,
and when the smoke had drifted away the two Turks were still
there--motionless--in exactly the same attitude, but their rifles were
sliding down the rocks. He cast off the boats with the beach parties,
and waved to them as they pulled past him inshore. The three snotties
crowded in the stern, and looking up at the cliffs with eyes wide open,
were, however, too excited to take any notice of the Orphan's shout of
"Good luck, you chaps!"
Back he went to the _Newmarket_, meeting steamboats towing in boats
packed with more troops. Another trip ashore with sappers and "details",
and then he towed those three boats with the wounded to the _Achates_,
where they were taken on board.
It was exactly half-past seven when he got alongside her, busy firing
her small guns in the port battery, and her for'ard 9.2 turret-gun.
The Captain wanted to see the Sub, so he climbed up and went for'ard to
the bridge.
The Orphan, left to himself, was sent off to a transport to tow more
soldiers ashore; and on the way to her he saw, over against the Asiatic
shore and the fort of Kum Kali, the French fleet, the _Jeanne d'Arc_
with her six quaint, squat funnels, and the Russian _Askold_ with her
five thin, tall ones, and two battleships, all firing very rapidly.
Behind them lay big transports, and dozens of boats loaded with
dark-coated infantry on their way ashore.
He reached the transport, got his orders, and steamed back to "W" beach
with a long string of crowded boats behind him.
It was then, whilst he waited for them to be emptied, that he had the
first clear view of "W" beach and the broad gully leading up to the
green ridge above it.
No bullets--or only very few--came near him, and he could look on
undisturbed. On the right, where the barbed wire was thickest, a row of
dead Lancashire Fusiliers lay as if they had all been swept by the same
torrent of maxim bullets. He knew that they were dead, because other
men, springing into the water and wading ashore, stepped over them,
looked down at them, and left them.
Higher up the beach, men were hanging on the barbed wire itself. At
first he thought it was only clothes hanging there; then he saw that
they had been men. Fresh troops were scaling the cliffs; soldiers
advanced up the green slope above, singly and in little groups. Away to
the left, under the rocks, more men clustered; and as some of them
limped along to the boats, some with bandages, some without, he knew
that these were wounded waiting to be dressed. They crowded into the
boats he had just brought ashore, and many were carried down--among
these being a wounded Brigadier shot through the leg. He saw nothing of
Bubbles, the Pink Rat, or the tall, lanky Lamp-post; but he did feel
certain that the landing had been made good.
Trawlers, loaded with stores, approached as close inshore as they could
get; boats of every description were flocking in, and already the
sappers were lashing pontoons together on the left, under the rocks, to
make a temporary pier.
Then the boats he had towed in came out to him, and he towed them and
their wounded back to the _Achates_. For the remainder of that morning
the Orphan was employed taking Staff Officers backwards and forwards
between the ship and "W" beach.
The beach parties had laid down six buoys at about ten yards apart and
some fifty yards from the beach, and had led ropes from these to the
same number of stakes driven into the beach opposite to them. The
intervals between these ropes made waterways into which the big lighters
could haul themselves ashore without colliding with each other. But
there was a certain amount of jostling just beyond the buoys, and the
Orphan had his work cut out, whenever he went near the beach, to prevent
his boat being damaged by the crowds of steamboats "mothering" the big
lighters into position. She had a big rope fender projecting across her
bows, another lashed across her stern, and two lengths of six-inch
"grass" hawser secured all round her side to protect her from bumps;
but, in spite of these, she soon had one corner of her stern crushed,
and her steering gear was jammed. The Orphan managed to take her back to
the _Achates_ safely, and, very sad about it, reported the damage to the
Commander.
The Commander, at his wits' end for boats, was very angry.
"I'll take you out of her, Mr. Orpen, if you can't manage her," he said
angrily, but then sent him away to get his boat coaled and watered
whilst the repairs were being made. "You and your crew can come
in-board and get some food," he called after the miserable Orphan.
So presently he was able to dash down to the gun-room, where Barnes had
some cold meat and pickles waiting for him. He had had nothing to eat,
except a couple of sandwiches, since the previous night, and the sight
of food made him realize that he was ravenously hungry. It was now
half-past one. The China Doll--the only one there--lay fast asleep on
one of the cushioned benches; and he ate his food in peace, with the
burly Barnes waiting on him. He was nearly as hungry for news as he was
for food; but the old marine would not talk or tell him anything. "Just
you go on with your food; there ain't no time for talking," and he gave
him a cup of strong coffee afterwards. "That'll keep you awake," he
said, as he cleared away.
The Orphan looked at the China Doll and longed to throw himself down on
a cushion and sleep; but heavy firing broke out again, and, too excited
to think of doing so, he went up on the quarter-deck to see what was
going on.
"Your boat will be ready in half an hour," the officer of the watch told
him.
The _Cornwallis_, _Swiftsure_, and _Albion_ were now firing at a small
knoll which showed up above Cape Helles, the big cliff half-way between
"W" beach and Sedd-el-Bahr. This knoll was known as Hill 138, and
barbed-wire entanglements round its slopes were plainly visible through
the Orphan's telescope.
He asked the Fleet-Paymaster and the Navigator, standing on the
quarter-deck and looking through their glasses, what was happening.
"The Turks still hold it," the Navigator said. "Our chaps are preparing
to rush it when the ships have finished their bit of work."
"How are they going on down in the _River Clyde_?" he asked.
"Badly; they've been terribly cut up; haven't landed a man since nine
this morning; something went wrong when they tried to get the lighters
in position under her bows. Look through your glass! You see those
chaps there under the little bank on top of the beach, this side of her;
those are all who are left of some six or seven hundred who tried to get
ashore early this morning. They can't budge; they have been there all
the time. And those are their dead, those brownish lumps scattered
along the beach. Those two transports' boats, stranded under Cape
Helles, drifted there. Every man aboard them was killed before they got
near the shore. They've been drifting about all the morning, and
fetched up on the rocks. Look at that splash jumping up close to the
_River Clyde_--that's another 8-inch shell from the Asiatic shore. They
hit her three times before she took the ground, but have missed her ever
since. Ah! There goes a salvo from the _Prince George_--she's looking
after the Asiatic guns--that'll quiet 'em."
"Any news from the Australians, sir?" the Orphan asked, feeling horribly
miserable.
"They and the New Zealanders have done grandly," the Fleet-Paymaster
answered cheerily. "Pushed inland a devil of a way. They'll be across
the Peninsula in no time--with luck."
No news had come from the French on the Asiatic side. "They seem to be
doing all right," the Navigator said; "but it's precious difficult to
make out what's happening there."
Some men came through the battery door carrying a stretcher with a man
on it, his face covered with a cloth. They bore it right aft on the
quarter-deck, lifted back a tarpaulin, which the Orphan then noticed for
the first time, laid the body on the deck, drew the tarpaulin over it,
and went for'ard.
"That's the seventeenth," the Navigator told him; "most of them
soldiers."
Dr. O'Neill, capless and haggard, came up the after hatchway. "By the
powers that be, but the General has a bad leg!" he said as he hurried
past them on his way to the sick-bay.
"That's the General you brought off this morning," the Fleet-Paymaster
explained.
The Sub and the China Doll came up from below, the China Doll just
wakened by the heavy firing.
"That R.H.A. chap promised to send you off your rifle, China Doll; he
called out to us just before he landed," the Orphan said; but the
Assistant Clerk shook his head sorrowfully. "No, he's dead; he died as
they brought him on board; he and that chum of his are both there," and
he pointed to the tarpaulin.
"Someone told me," said the Sub, "that the R.H.A. chap got ashore all
right, fixed up his signal things, and sent off one or two messages
before he was knocked over. He was more lucky than a good many of those
there; they never got out of the boats."
"Why did the Captain want you?" asked the Orphan.
The Sub took him aside, his eyes very bright. "He'd forgotten why he
sent for me, but then wanted to know if we'd had orders to go after
those crippled boats that time. I told him that we hadn't, but that I
couldn't stand by and do nothing. I thought he was angry; he said that
if the steamboats had been disabled it would have meant a serious delay.
I told him we'd only had a bullet through the funnel and a bit chipped
out of the gunwale. He looked me up and down, tugged at his beard, and
I saw that he was smiling. So that's all right, my jumping Orphan!"
"Did he know that the Hun went in too?"
"I told him."
"What did he say?"
"Oh, you know that funny, slow way he has of talking when he's trying to
be humorous. He just tugged his beard and said: 'I thought I noticed
that young officer's boat'. Gosh! what a morning it's been!"
The picket-boat's steering gear having been reported repaired, the
Orphan was sent away again, and kept busy until nightfall, backwards and
forwards between "W" beach and the ships. Once he took Captain
Macfarlane on board the _Queen Elisabeth_, now anchored off the _River
Clyde_, and waited for him whilst the big ship fired salvoes of 6-inch
shell into Sedd-el-Bahr village and the earthwork on Hill 141 above it.
Another time he went alongside the sappers' pontoons, and Bubbles dashed
down to speak to him. "My dear chap, it's a great game; we're having a
ripping time!" he gurgled and snorted, looking a terrible brigand in his
clothes--already very dirty. "Oh, that's nothing!" he laughed, as he saw
the Orphan smile. "We lay in the old Turks' trenches for two blessed
hours this morning. It was a great time. If you get a chance, bring us
in some butter and some sausages--and, my hat! old chap, I'm dry--dry as
a lime-kiln, and my water-bottle's been empty for the last three hours."
The Orphan had some water in the boat and gave it to him. The next time
he went back to the ship he got a barricoe filled and took it inshore;
but there was too much of a crush for him to go alongside, so the
Lamp-post waded in up to his waist and fetched it. "We've almost run
out of it; all our people gave their water to the wounded, and there are
any amount more coming down now. We've just heard that the Worcesters
have rushed Hill 138, and they and the Lancashires are going to try and
take Hill 141. Yes, there they come," and he pointed up the gully, down
which many stretchers were being carried. He shouted to a couple of the
beach party, and seizing the barricoe of water, they ran it up the beach
towards a little tent under the rocks to the left, with a Red Cross flag
flying near it, and crowds of men in every attitude of weariness
gathered round it. These were all wounded men.
At this time, about a quarter to five, there was a period of comparative
quiet. The Worcesters had cleared the Turks out of Hill 138, so that
"W" beach was practically free from rifle-fire; and now they and the
Lancashire Fusiliers were forming up to attack the earthwork on Hill
141. This dominated both Hill 138 and "V" beach, where the _River
Clyde_ lay, so that, until it was captured, it was impossible to join
hands with the remnants of the Dublins on "V" beach. A very brave
attempt was made about half-past five to take this earthwork; but the
two gallant regiments were almost exhausted after their hard day's
fighting under a hot sun, and they met more wire entanglements, so
thickly laid, and commanded by such a heavy fire, that they were unable
to advance farther. At nightfall the Turks still held Hill 141, and
separated the troops who had landed on "W" beach from those who had
landed on "V" beach.
These poor chaps had suffered terribly all day, and still remained
crouched under the low cliff or bank there, unable to move.
During the fighting for this last hill, the Orphan towed in two
horse-boats with two field-guns and their limbers. They were covered up
with tarpaulins, and he was not certain whether they were English
18-pounders or French 75's. At any rate, the beach parties soon got
hold of them with hook-ropes and drag-ropes, hauled them ashore, and
"man-handled" them up the gully. The Orphan knew, in a general sort of
way, that things were not "going" as well as had been hoped, but he was
kept so busy, and was so fatigued, that by sunset he could hardly keep
his eyes open. Several times he had to hand over the wheel to Jarvis;
but at last, after having spent nearly an hour hunting in the dark for
an important transport which had anchored in the wrong place, he found
himself at nine o'clock back again alongside the _Achates_.
The Sub, on watch, told him that he would not be wanted for some time.
"Go and get something to eat, and a rest," he said; "you've had a pretty
hard day of it."
He stumbled down into the gun-room, where he found the Hun fast asleep
with his head on the table. Barnes brought him a glass of beer, and he
swallowed it in one draught. "Give me a biscuit--anything--I'm too
sleepy to eat."
But Barnes had some sandwiches ready. "Plenty of mustard on 'em--made
'em myself--mustard'll ginger you up. Just you lie down on the
cushions, and I'll stick the plate alongside you."
The Pimple found him, and wanted to tell him the latest news. The
Orphan told him to "chuck it". The China Doll came in and would have
asked him questions, but the Orphan pretended to be asleep, so he
tiptoed out again like a mouse. Uncle Podger strolled in, smoking his
pipe, and began to play patience. He watched him shuffling and dealing
the cards, and then fell asleep.
He woke. The corporal of the gangway was shaking him.
"The Commander wants you, sir."
He dragged himself up. The gun-room was empty. The alarum-clock on the
notice-board showed a quarter to eleven, and he went up to the dark
quarter-deck, where he found the Commander and reported himself.
"Oh! there you are, are you? I've been sending all over the ship for
you. The 'wounded' launch is going down to the _River Clyde_; I've no
one else to send with her; Rawlinson has gone away in a cutter and I
can't trust anyone else; the steam pinnace will tow you down, and the
doctors are going with you. I've sent four hands into the launch
already, and she's at the starboard boom; drop her astern and alongside
the port gangway. Hurry up!"
Still half asleep, the Orphan found this big pulling boat (fitted to
transport wounded, she had been), dropped into her, and five minutes
later brought her alongside.
The Hun, in the pinnace, came along out of the dark, bumped into her,
and got her painter made fast to the towing-cleat. "They're having a
jolly lively time down at the _River Clyde_!" the Hun called across.
The Orphan, turning his sleepy head in that direction, listened, and
heard a good deal of rifle-firing, and occasionally the spluttering of a
maxim.
"Right into it," he thought, and forgot his tiredness.
Dr. O'Neill and Dr. Gordon scrambled down the ship's side into the
launch; the big chief sick-berth steward came down after them. Bags of
dressings were passed down; and Dr. O'Neill cursed irritably when a bag,
fumbled owing to the darkness, slipped through the hands of the people
on the gangway above, fell into the boat, and only just missed falling
overboard.
The Commander called down to the Doctor: "Keep the steam pinnace if you
want her." The Sub roared out orders to the Hun, and he started his
engines and towed the launch away from the ship's dark side.
Six bells struck on board her--it was just eleven o'clock.
*CHAPTER IX*
*The "River Clyde"*
The night was not very dark, a pale moon--past the quarter--appeared
occasionally between slowly drifting clouds, and the sea was still quite
smooth. The Peninsula showed as a dark wall rising gradually from Cape
Tekke to the high cliffs at Cape Helles, beyond and under which the
_River Clyde_ lay.
The Orphan--wide awake now--steered the big clumsy launch, and listened
to the two weary doctors talking of their day's work and the job in
front of them. Dr. O'Neill, the Fleet-Surgeon, had a grievance--he
generally had. This time it was with the Padre and the Fleet-Paymaster.
They had tried to make out a list of the men killed and wounded--the men
who had been brought on board the _Achates_--but the sights and sounds
in that crowded sick-bay, with the for'ard turret-gun firing directly
over it, every two or three minutes, had been too much for them. Their
stomachs would not "stick it".
"The only job they have, and they can't do it," he growled. "It took me
another two hours getting in all the names and the official numbers on
their identity disks."
"It was pretty beastly in there, P.M.O., and they've never seen anything
like it," Dr. Gordon said soothingly. "They did their best; the Padre
fainted outside, and the Fleet-Paymaster was sick."
"Never seen anything like it before! Nonsense! Nor have I! Did you get
them all safely to the hospital ship?"
Dr. Gordon told him that he had only just returned from doing so. "The
whole thing's silly, confoundedly silly, and this is the stupidest of
all--this trip of ours," the Fleet-Surgeon snapped.
"It's not much of a joy ride, is it? You must be awfully tired," Dr.
Gordon said in his nervous, self-disparaging manner, as if he too had
not been hard at work the whole day.
Silence followed for some time, until the steam pinnace, swerving
suddenly to port to pass two trawlers, indistinct in the darkness,
jerked the launch after her and waked the Fleet-Surgeon. "Why the devil
can't that young imp in the pinnace steer properly?"
The noise of furious rifle-firing coming from Sedd-el-Bahr stopped him
for a moment, but then he went on again with his dismal groan. "A nice
little job at this time of night. Running straight into it we are."
As the boats had altered course so much to port, they presently found
themselves close under the high cliffs, and whilst being towed along in
front of them, the moon, peeping out for a few moments, made them
conspicuous.
Dr. O'Neill had just asked angrily: "Why the devil they wanted to go in
so close! Didn't they know the Turks still held the end of them!" when
ping! went a bullet over the stern of the boat and plunked into the
water.
Another came, and another.
"Keep down, under cover!" growled Dr. O'Neill, more savagely than ever,
and he and Dr. Gordon, the chief sick-berth steward and the four men of
the crew, sat themselves down in the bottom of the boat. The Orphan,
sitting exposed in the stern-sheets, wished he was ten sizes smaller.
They were close to the _River Clyde_ now; its dark shape loomed just
ahead of them, and the noise of firing crackled fiercely, tiny spurts of
flame from hundreds of rifles lighting up the water's edge.
They ran under the starboard quarter and gained shelter; the launch
scraped against a rough wooden ladder and stopped; the doctors scrambled
up it, followed by the chief sick-berth steward; their surgical
dressings and lantern were handed up to them, and they disappeared
through the dark gangway port in the ship's side--one of those ports
which had been cut to allow her troops to pour out quickly. The Orphan
and his crew in the launch, and the Hun in his steam pinnace, were left
to themselves.
A maxim rattled--fired somewhere from the _River Clyde_ herself; and
when it stopped, Dr. O'Neill's harsh voice could be heard asking: "Where
the wounded were; what he could be expected to do in that damnable
darkness! and calling for a match to light the lantern." A head peeped
out from the gangway port, and a voice called down: "That's not a very
'ealthy spot, mate. The trawlers, what comed for the wounded, were
sniped something 'orrid down there. They 'ad to shove off out of it."
"We've come for the wounded," the Orphan sang out.
"Well, you bally well won't get 'em. All that are left are hup on the
hupper deck, and can't be got down whilst this 'ere shooting's going
on--they're quite all right up there--be'ind the bulwarks they are."
From inside the ship came shouts of: "Put out that light! Curse you!
We don't want any light here!" Evidently Dr. O'Neill had managed to
light it, and was looking round for wounded.
"They'll begin sniping again--they starts directly they sees a
light--better keep down in those boats. Off they go--I'm 'opping it!"
sang out the man above.
Ping! Ping! Ping! Three twinkles from somewhere to the right--a
bullet hit the water, another clanged against the pinnace's steel
wheel-screen, another hit the side of the ship just under the ladder,
slid down and fell into the water.
The Hun, from behind his shield, sang out to the Orphan to know if he
was enjoying himself. The shouts from inside grew louder; then there
was silence. Evidently the lamp had been extinguished.
The voice from the gangway called down: "'Ave they stopped? Hany one
got a souvenir in 'im?"
"Where are they firing from?" asked the Orphan.
"That old castle sticks hout in the sea, this 'ere side," called back
the voice, "and them there snipers 'ave been doin' themselves something
proud."
The Orphan strained his eyes and could just distinguish, about two
hundred yards away--ahead of the _River Clyde_--the battlemented outline
of the castle walls and, farther to the right, a much more indistinct
and blurred mass sticking out into the sea. This was actually the sea
walls of Sedd-el-Bahr castle, jutting out on a reef.
No more shots came from there, and there was quietness everywhere for a
few minutes. He began to feel sleepy, but then one or two solitary
rifles rang out on the cliff side of the ship, five or six followed,
thirty or forty seemed to chip in, and, almost before he knew it, a
perfect pandemonium of rifle-fire burst out, making a ruddy glow against
which the stern of the ship and the masts stood out quite plainly.
Presently maxims started on shore, whether English or Turkish he could
not know; and then, up above, from the foc's'le of the ship herself,
several maxims added their voices to the din. The snipers from the sea
walls did not take part in this "show". It died down after a while; a
few crashes of musketry, then a few scattered shots apparently answering
each other, and silence--silence which seemed absolutely
extraordinary--as if it was something tangible.
What had happened, the Orphan had not the faintest idea. He could only
stay where he was, and hope that Dr. O'Neill would decide something
shortly.
Presently he heard the Doctor's voice in the darkness: "Steam pinnace!
Steam pinnace!" and the Hun calling back "Aye, aye, sir!" "Go back to
the ship and ask the Commander to send for me half an hour after the
next attack ceases."
"Right, sir!" and jeering at his pal, the Hun, shoved off and
disappeared back to the _Achates_, drawing a solitary twinkle from the
sea wall of the castle and a solitary bullet which hit the ship's side,
above the Orphan's head.
In a few minutes a voice called down: "You've got to make fast and come
along inside 'ere--you and your crew," so he clambered up the wooden
steps with his four men. Very willingly he did this, for he was anxious
to be able to say that he had been aboard the _River Clyde_, and he felt
lonely and very exposed, waiting alongside.
Inside her was absolutely pitch dark; a man who bumped against him could
not be seen. The Orphan heard Dr. O'Neill's voice, and elbowed his way
towards him, stumbling across something which he knew was a stretcher,
but evidently not waking the man asleep on it.
"Sit down, and keep out of the gangway," Dr. O'Neill snapped, "unless
you want a bullet in you. There's nothing any of us can do. There they
go again, curse them!" as more rifle-firing started, just as it had done
before--one or two shots, then more, then apparently a whole line
blazing away as if they had millions of rounds of ammunition to spare.
This time he heard hundreds of bullets pattering against the opposite
side of the ship, and the glare showed him another gangway port opposite
the one by which he had just entered.
"It's blocked up with boards, and you can see the light between them,"
someone sitting next him said; "and those blighted Turks can see a light
inside here, through them, too."
This burst of firing died away very rapidly; and as he sat there, jammed
among a lot of soldiers, his eyes gradually became accustomed to the
darkness, and he made out that he was close to a big hatch leading down
into absolute blackness--the hold probably--and that above him was
another hatchway, with a coaming round it, the edges of which stood out
quite clearly against the clouds. A broad wooden ladder--the foot of it
quite close to him--led up to this and, as he knew it must, to the upper
deck, where the remaining wounded lay. The gangway port through which
he had come, showed as a lighter patch than the ship's side, and anybody
moving across it could be just distinguished; but people did not move
across it more than they could help, because a lot of bullets had
already come through it from the sea wall. Under this, his launch
lay--at the foot of the ladder he had just climbed up. Dr. Gordon kept
on talking, evidently trying to pacify Dr. O'Neill, and a man near him
kept rattling something--a ship's lantern it sounded like--so he guessed
that the chief sick-berth steward sat quite near. People conversed all
round him, in a drowsy sort of way, as if to prevent themselves being
nervous or of going to sleep; farther away, hundreds of people seemed to
be snoring. A soldier leant against his back; he knew it was a soldier
because a bayonet kept pressing against his thigh; someone slid down
across his legs, snoring loudly; he pulled up his knees, and the man
went on snoring peacefully; out from a distant corner came the sound of
a man in pain, in his sleep.
Some men were sitting at the foot of the ladder, and, because he heard
Dr. O'Neill talking to them, he guessed that they were officers. He was
evidently suggesting the possibility of getting down the wounded now
that the firing had died away, but they kept on saying: "They'll start
off again in a minute! It can't be done." Every now and then came the
noise of heavy boots trampling hurriedly across the deck above; a figure
would appear over the coaming, silhouetted against the clouds for a
moment, and then someone would come hastily clattering down the ladder
as if he were glad to get away from there. The whistle of an occasional
bullet over that hatch explained this.
Another burst of firing broke out, swelled to a perfect fury of noise,
and then subsided just as the others had done.
During a comparatively quiet interval which followed, several men
scrambled down the ladders. They called out: "Worcesters to go ashore at
once!" and then went back again, screwing themselves over the coaming
and disappearing along the deck. The group of officers stirred
themselves and stood up wearily--a tired, lackadaisical voice kept
repeating "Sergeant-Major! Sergeant-Major!" then seemed to wake
properly, and yelled it out.
Men began to stir. '"Ere, wake up, Major! You're wanted," came out of
the dark; the sound of a man waking irritably from his sleep, scrambling
to his feet, a long yawn, and then a sharp, decisive "Yes, sir!
Sergeant-Major, sir!"
"Fall in, the Worcesters! Worcesters! The Worcesters have to go
ashore," the officer shouted.
"Fall in, Worcesters! Fall in, Worcesters! Fall in! Fall in round the
ladder!" Men all round took up the cry, waking those asleep. Men
cursed and yawned, and yawned and cursed again.
"Who are you a-shaking of? I ain't a ruddy Worcester," growled someone.
The darkness was full of bustle and noise as the Worcesters dragged
themselves to their feet and groped round for their packs and rifles.
Rifles clattered to the deck; men jostled, cursing, against each other,
and the Sergeant-Major's voice kept calling out: "Come along, lads!
We've got to go ashore! Hurry up, Worcesters! This way, Worcesters!
Fall in near the ladder!"
Men began humping on their packs. The Orphan--by this time on his feet,
to keep out of the way--had a rifle shoved into his hands. "'Old on to
it, mate, while I shoves my blooming pack on." He helped the man whilst
he secured the webbing-straps. Then a plaintive voice came out of the
dark: "I cawn't find me pack! Where's me pack?"
There was a titter of amusement as the Sergeant-Major yelled for the men
to help him find it.
"'Ere it is, you blighted idiot!" someone shouted. "You was a-sittin' on
it."
"'Elp me on! 'Elp me on!" the idiot pleaded.
"You'll 'ave to 'ave a lady's maid, that's what you'll 'ave to 'ave. We
cawn't go waiting for you, Bill 'Awkins," bawled the Sergeant-Major; and
to judge by the silly cries of Bill Hawkins, they were strapping him up
too tightly.
"Where's me rifle? I 'ad it in me 'ands, and now I cawn't find 'e," the
company idiot stammered helplessly; and the man whom the Orphan was
helping chuckled: "'E's a fair treat, that 'ere 'Awkins; 'e can never
find nothink."
The rifle had to be found. The Captain with the lackadaisical voice was
getting impatient. Matches were struck to look for it.
"Come along, Worcesters! Get up on deck!" shouted the Captain; and they
began clattering up the wooden ladder, actually bandying jokes as they
disappeared over the coaming, and went pattering along the deck. The
company idiot, who was in a pitiable state of terror lest he should be
left behind, found his rifle at last, and, clutching it, he rushed up
the ladder after them.
"Now 'old on to it, and don't let it out o' yer 'ands. You'll 'ave to
look arter yerself now," said the Sergeant-Major kindly, as he followed
him.
Whilst these men had been getting ready, another outburst of firing had
commenced, and the fusillade on shore sputtered furiously.
"I shouldn't care to have to go ashore, out into that," Dr. Gordon said;
and Dr. O'Neill answered: "I wouldn't go as cheerfully as they seemed
to. Grand chaps those!"
"That's the first time I've heard him praise anyone," thought the
Orphan.
Firing died away again, until only an occasional shot broke the silence;
and with that company of Worcesters gone, there was much more room.
The two doctors talked in a low voice. The Orphan heard Dr. O'Neill say
cynically: "You can't get a night like this in Harley Street;" and the
volunteer reserve doctor laughed, in his funny, nervous manner: "No, I
can't. I expect my old butler wouldn't sleep much if he knew how I was
spending my night. He looks after me as though I were a baby."
Someone came down the ladder--the Orphan thought he had on a naval
cap--sat with his back against a stanchion, and went to sleep. A man
coming down presently, knocked against him and woke him--a perfect
torrent of oaths, in a very childish voice, following.
"Why, that's old Piggy Carter from the _Queen Elizabeth_," thought the
Orphan. "I'd know his voice anywhere." He went across and shook him,
for he had fallen fast asleep again. "Carter! You are Piggy Carter,
ar'n't you? I'm Orpen; you remember me?"
He did; and listened sleepily to the Orphan telling him all about the
shell and splinter holes in the _Achates_ deck and funnel, until Dr.
O'Neill called out irritably: "Stop chattering!"
"Look here, Piggy, I want to go up on deck and have a look round," the
Orphan whispered; but Piggy said he'd spent all day there, and in the
water, with the lighters, and if the Orphan wanted to go along, more
fool he, and he could go by himself. He--Carter--wanted to sleep, and
didn't want to hear any more of "W" beach, or "X", or "Y", or "A", "B",
or "C", or the whole tomfool alphabet of beaches.
And he went to sleep, with his back against the stanchion; and the
Orphan, left to himself, sat on some sacks, watched the clouds moving
across the open hatchway, and listened to the firing ashore, the
pattering of bullets against the ship's side, and the snoring of tired
men.
He went to sleep, and woke in the midst of a tremendous din. There was
a perfect scream of rifle- and maxim-firing. He longed to go on deck,
and wondered whether Dr. O'Neill would see him. Perhaps he was asleep
too.
There was a new noise now--a much louder boom following a glare which
lighted up the clouds, and then a smaller glare and a lesser sound;
nearer they were, much nearer. "Those are field-guns," he said to
himself; and after listening to them for some minutes, judging the
distances of the different sounds, realized that they were our own guns.
They began firing two shots, one after the other. "Two guns," he
thought; and then felt certain that these were the very same guns which
he had towed ashore that afternoon at "W" beach. He _must_ see what was
going on.
He wriggled cautiously to the foot of the ladder--Dr. O'Neill's voice
didn't call out to him--he went up it on hands and feet. As he reached
the top a bullet whistled by; he ducked, and threw himself over the
coaming, clung there, found himself on deck--the noise seemed louder
there--and doubled himself up as he ran across to the shelter of the
bulwark. He waited for half a minute to pull himself together, and then
drew himself up and peered over.
Right in front of him was the dark mass of the cliffs--they seemed to be
not 200 yards away--and twinkles of flame sparkled out all along the
tops of them. As he looked, there was the glare of a field-gun flash
which outlined the whole cliffs--the crash--and then a glare farther
inland, and a fainter report of a shrapnel bursting. For an instant he
saw before him a narrow strip of beach with a dark shadow above it.
Then it was dark again; but all along it, all the time, spurts of
rifle-flame, ten times as distinct and large as those twinkles of the
Turks' rifles on the cliff, marked an irregular, uneven line, where he
knew our own troops must be--those Worcesters, who had just landed,
probably among them.
A little to the right, down in the centre of that spluttering line of
flashes, there was a regular spout of flame--a maxim was rattling;
farther away inland, twinkles darted out everywhere--the whole air
seemed full of noises. Then he jumped nervously, for suddenly two or
three maxims at the other end--from the bows of the _River
Clyde_--opened fire at something or other, just as they had done before.
He could see nothing moving; it was all very uncanny, and fearfully
exciting. He forgot that bullets occasionally pinged overhead or
splattered against the side of the ship, and waited there until that
attack had been beaten off--or perhaps, after all, it had been a false
alarm--and gradually first the maxims, then the volleys, then the
individual firing died down, and left only a few snipers trying to find
each other.
Then he had time to look round the deck. Close to him he saw
something--some queer shape--moving in the shadow of the bulwark, and he
put out his hand and felt the rough hair and the long, smooth ears which
could only have belonged to a donkey. There were two of them, both tied
up behind a little deck-house. They were glad for anyone to touch them;
they nosed at him, as if he gave them comfort, and stamped their little
feet on the deck to show their pleasure, and to make him understand how
they wanted to be taken on shore.
He gave them each a friendly pat and scratched their ears, wondering
what they were doing there.
But what he wanted to see were those maxims, away at the other end of
the ship; to be actually behind them when they next opened fire, and to
find out what was happening, and what they were firing at. So he crept
along the deck, along a row of stretchers, with shapeless forms on them,
lying close under the bulwark. One or two groaned, but they all seemed
to be asleep, and then he gained the entrance to the dark passage or
alley-way under the superstructure. In it a man was smoking--he saw the
glowing end of his cigarette.
"Can I get along here?" the Orphan asked. "I want to get to the
maxims."
A rough Yorkshire voice told him the passage was full of people asleep.
"You'd be doing better to go up along; keep away t'other side, it's
safer so."
So the Orphan retreated, crossed the open deck in front of the mast and
cargo winch, found the ladder leading to the superstructure, and was
just going up it, to the shelter of the starboard side of the
deck-house, when he saw a stooping figure bending over a stretcher, and
Dr. O'Neill's harsh voice growled out: "Here, you! come and lend a hand.
Lift that corner of the stretcher."
A wounded man lay on it, very heavily asleep; and as the Orphan lifted,
the Doctor pulled free a blanket which had caught under the stre
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