THE LANDING

‘Hallo, what’s up?’ asked Dave Burney. ‘We’re off again.’

It was the night of Saturday the 24th of April. For the greater part of the day the ‘Charnwood’ had been lying off Cape Helles, which is the southernmost point of the Gallipoli Peninsula, while the people listened to the thunder of guns, and watched the shrapnel bursting in white puffs over the scrub-clad heights of the land.

Now, about midnight, she had got quietly under way, and was steaming steadily in a nor’-westerly direction.

‘What’s up?’ Dave repeated in a puzzled tone. ’This ain’t the way to Constantinople.’

‘Don’t you be too sure of that, sonny,’ remarked Roy Horan, the big New Zealander who was standing with the two chums at the starboard rail. ’We ain’t going home anyhow. I’ll lay old man Hamilton’s got something up his sleeve.’

‘That’s what I’m asking,’ said Dave. ’What’s the general up to? So far as I can see, there are only three other transports going our way. The rest are staying right here. What’s your notion, Ken?’

‘I don’t know any more than you chaps,’ Ken answered. ’But I’ll give you my opinion for what it’s worth. I think we’re going to do a sort of flank attack. The main landing will probably be down here at the Point. Then when the Turks are busy, trying to hold ’em up, we shall be slipped in somewhere up the coast so as to create a sort of diversion.’

‘What and miss all the fun!’ exclaimed Dave in a tone of intense disgust.

‘You won’t miss anything to signify,’ Ken answered dryly. ’There are more than a hundred thousand Turks planted on the Peninsula, and you can bet anything you’ve got left from the wreck that there isn’t one yard of beach that isn’t trenched and guarded.’

‘Where do ye think we’ll land?’ asked Horan eagerly.

Ken shrugged his shoulders. ‘Haven’t a notion,’ he said. ’There are a lot of small bays up the west coast. Probably we shall nip into some little cove not very far up. There’s a big ridge called Achi Baba which runs right across the Peninsula about four miles north. It’ll be somewhere behind that, I expect. But mind you, this is all guess work. I don’t know any more than you do.’

‘You know the country anyhow,’ said Horan. ’And that’s worth a bit. See here, Carrington, if we can manage it, let’s all three stick together. We ought to see some fun what?’

Ken laughed. ’I’m sure I’m agreeable. But you see we’re not in the same regiment. You’re New Zealand, Dave and I are Australians. Still, I dare say we shall all be pretty much bunched when it comes to the fighting.’

Dave, who had been peering out into the night, turned to the others at this moment.

’Yes, there are only four transports altogether in our lot, and so far as I can make out three battleships and four destroyers taking care of us.’

‘Now, you men, come below and turn in,’ broke in a voice.

It was their sergeant, O’Brien, who had come up behind them.

‘Oh, I say, sergeant, can’t we stay and look at the pretty scenery?’ said Roy Horan plaintively.

‘No, ye can’t,’ was the gruff retort. ’Orders are that all the men are to turn in and take what rest they can. Faith, it’s mighty little slape any of ye will get, once you’re ashore. Go down now and ate your suppers and rest. I’m thinking ye’ll be taking tay with the Turks before you’re a dale older.’

‘Are we going to land, sergeant?’ asked Horan eagerly.

‘Am I your general?’ retorted O’Brien. ’Get along wid ye, and if ye want to know what it is we’re going to do, faith ye’d best go and ask the colonel.’

Orders were orders. The three obediently went below, and, although at first he was too excited to sleep, Ken soon dropped off, and never moved until he felt a hand shaking him by the shoulder.

‘Up wid ye, lad,’ said O’Brien’s voice in his ear, and like a shot Ken was out of his blanket and on his feet.

The screw had ceased to revolve. The ship lay quiet, rocking ever so lightly in the small swell. There was not a light to be seen anywhere, yet all was bustle, and the very air seemed charged with a curious thrill of excitement.

According to orders, Ken had lain down, fully dressed, with all his kit ready beside him. Within a very few moments he was equipped and ready. Then he and his companions were ordered down to the lower deck where the electrics were still burning, and there hot coffee and bread and butter were served out. Also each man received rations for twenty-four hours.

Officers passed among the men, scrutinising their equipment with keen eyes, and presently Colonel Conway himself came along.

He glanced round and his eyes kindled as they rested on the ranks of long, lean colonials.

‘Men,’ he said, and though he hardly raised his voice it carried to the very ends of the big flat. ’You know as well as I do what you have been training for during the past six months. The day you have been waiting for has come. See that you make the most of it. Speed and silence these are the qualities required of you to-night. The boats are waiting.’

Ken repressed with difficulty a violent desire to cheer. Next moment came a low-voiced order from his company commander, and he found himself one of a long line hurrying up the companion to the deck.

There was no moon, but the stars were bright, and it was not too dark to see the cliffs that seemed to rise abruptly out of the sea, about half a mile away to the eastward. They, like the ships, were dark and silent.

Without one unnecessary word, the troops dropped quietly down the ladder into the waiting boats, and presently were being pulled rapidly inshore. Boat after boat came stealing out of the gloom, all loaded down to the gunwales with fighting men, yet all moving with a silence that was positively uncanny. The oars were carefully muffled and no one spoke aloud.

Dave sat next to Ken, but Horan was not with them. He had been ordered into another boat with his company.

Dave put his mouth close to Ken’s ear.

‘Don’t believe there’s a Turk in the country,’ he muttered. ’Looks to me as peaceful as a picnic’

‘Looks are precious deceitful sometimes,’ Ken whispered back. ’For all you or I know, that brush is stiff with the enemy.’

‘Then why don’t they fire at us?’

’A fat lot of good that would be in this light. No, Dave, they know their job as well as we do, and perhaps better. I shall be pleasantly surprised if we’re allowed to land without opposition.’

But the boat neared the shore, and still there was no sign from those silent cliffs and thickets. As soon as her bow grated on the shingle, the men were out of her, wading knee deep to the shore. They were as eager as terriers. The only anxiety of their officers was lest they should get out of hand and start before the order to advance was given.

Boat after boat glided up, and men by scores formed up at high tide mark.

’Told you we’d fooled ’em,’ whispered Dave. ‘This is going to be one o’ your bloodless victories.’

The words were hardly out of his mouth before there was a loud hissing sound, and right out of the centre of the precipitous slope facing them something like a gigantic rocket shot high into the air and burst into a brilliant white flame.

It lit up the whole beach like day, throwing up the long lines of troops in brilliant relief. Next instant there was a crash of musketry, and rifles spat fire and lead from a long semicircle behind the spot from which the star shell had risen.

The man next but one to Ken threw up his arms and dropped without a sound. A score of others fell.

‘Gee, but you were right, Ken!’ muttered Dave. ‘Fix bayonets!’ Colonel Conway’s voice rang like a trumpet above the crackle of the firing.

Instantly came the clang of steel as the bayonets slipped into their sockets. Men were falling fast, but the rest stood straining forward like greyhounds on a leash.

’Not a shot, mind you. Give ’em the steel. At the double. Advance!’

Almost before the words were out of his mouth the whole line rushed forward. A second star shell hissed skywards, but before it broke the men had reached the base of the cliff. Its white glare showed the long-legged athletes from the sheep ranges and cattle runs sprinting up the steep hill-side.

The enemy rifles rattled in one long, terrible roll. Men dropped by dozens and scores. Some fell where they lay, others rolled helplessly back down the steep slope to the beach. But those left never paused or hesitated. They scrambled desperately upwards through the pelting storm of lead, guided by the flashes from the muzzles of the Turkish rifles.

Ken was conscious of nothing but a fierce desire to get to close quarters, and he and Dave Burney went up side by side at the very top of their speed.

Before they knew it, a dark hollow loomed before them. A rifle snapped almost in Ken’s face so close that he felt the scorch of the powder. Without an instant’s hesitation he drove his bayonet at a dark figure beneath him, at the same time springing down into the trench. The whole weight of his body was behind his thrust, and the Turk, spitted like a fowl, fell dead beneath him.

With an effort he dragged the blade loose. Only just in time, for a burly man in a fez was swinging at his head with a rifle butt. Ken ducked under his arm, turned smartly and bayoneted him in the side.

The whole trench was full of struggling men. The Turks fought well, but good men as they are, they were no match for the long, lean six footers who were upon them. Inside three minutes it was all over. Most of the Turks were dead, the few survivors were prisoners.

‘Lively while it lasted,’ panted Dave’s voice at Ken’s elbow.

‘You, Dave. Are you all right?’

’Lost my hat and my wind. Nothing else missing so far as I know. Are you chipped?’

’Not a touch. But keep your head down. This is only the first act. There’s another trench above this one.’

During the struggle in the trench the firing had ceased entirely, but now that it was over a pestilence of bullets began to pour again from higher up the slope, and Ken’s warning was useful to say the least of it.

‘What comes next?’ asked Dave, as the two crouched together against the rubbly wall of the trench.

‘Get our second wind and tackle the next trench,’ said Ken briefly.

His prophecy was correct. A couple of minutes later the order was passed down to advance again.

In grim silence the men sprang out of their shelter and dashed forward. There were no more star shells, but from up above began the ugly knocking of a quick-firer. It sounded like a giant running a stick along an endless row of palings, and the bullets squirted like water from a hose through the thinning ranks of the Colonials.

It was worse than the first charge, for not only was the slope steeper, but the face of the hill was covered with low, tough scrub, the tangled roots of which caught the men’s feet as they ran, and brought many down. The result was that the line was no longer level. Some got far ahead of the others.

Among the leaders were Ken and Dave, who struggled along, side by side, still untouched amid the pelting storm of lead.

But although the ranks were sadly thinned, the attackers were not to be denied. In a living torrent, they poured into the second trench.

There followed a grim five minutes. The Turks who were in considerable force, made a strong effort to hold their ground, shortening their bayonets and stabbing upwards at the attackers. It was useless. The Australians and New Zealanders, savage at the loss of so many of their comrades, fought like furies. Ken had a glimpse of a giant next him, literally pitchforking a Turk out of the trench, lifting him like a gaffed salmon on the end of his bayonet.

It was soon over, but this time there were very few prisoners. Almost every man in the trench, with the exception of about a dozen who had bolted at the first onset, was killed.

‘That’s settled it,’ said Dave gleefully, as he plunged his bayonet into the earth to clean it from the ugly stains which darkened the steel.

‘That’s begun it,’ corrected Ken.

‘What do you mean?’

’That we’ve got to hold what we’ve won. You don’t suppose the Turks are going to leave us in peaceful possession, do you?’

‘I I thought we’d finished this little lot,’ said Dave rather ruefully.

’My dear chap, I’ve told you already that Enver Bey has at least a hundred thousand men on the Peninsula. By this time the news of our landing has been telephoned all over the shop, and reinforcements are coming up full tilt. There’ll be a couple of battalions or more on the top of the cliff in an hour or two’s time.’

‘Then why don’t we shove along and take up our position on the top?’

’We’re not strong enough yet. We must wait for reinforcements. If I’m not mistaken the next orders will be to dig ourselves in.’

‘But we are dug in. We hold the trench.’

’Fat lot of use that is in its present condition. All the earthworks are on the seaward side. We have little or no protection on the land side.

‘Ah, I thought so,’ he continued, as the voice of Sergeant O’Brien made itself heard.

’Dig, lads! dig! Make yourselves some head cover. They’ll be turning guns on us an’ blowing blazes out of us as soon as the day dawns.’

Blown and weary as they were, the men set to work at once with their entrenching spades. It was in Egypt they had learnt the art of trench-making, but they found this rocky clay very different stuff to shift from desert sand.

The order came none too soon, for in a very few minutes snipers got to work again. There were scores of them. Every little patch of scrub held its sharpshooter, and although the darkness was still against accurate shooting there were many casualties.

‘They’re enfilading us,’ said Ken. ’They’ve got men posted up on the cliff to the left who can fire right down this trench. It’s going to be awkward when daylight comes.’

It was awkward enough already. The Red Cross men were kept busy, staggering away downhill with stretchers laden with the wounded. There was no possibility of returning the enemy’s fire, and in the darkness the ships could not help. All the Colonials could do was to crouch as low as possible, flattening themselves against the landward wall of the trench.

‘Those snipers are the very deuce, sergeant.’

The voice was that of Colonel Conway, who was making his way down the trench, to see how his men were faring.

‘They are that, sorr,’ replied O’Brien. ’’Tis them over on the bluff to the left as is doing the damage. I’m thinking they’ve got the ranges beforehand.

As he spoke a man went down within five yards of where he stood. He was shot clean through the head.

‘It’s Standish,’ said Ken. And then, on the spur of the moment,

‘Sergeant, couldn’t some of us go and clear them out?’

There was a moment’s pause broken only by the intermittent crackle of firing from above.

‘Who was that spoke?’ demanded Colonel Conway.

‘I, sir,’ answered Ken, saluting. ‘Carrington.’

‘Aren’t you the man who knows this country?’

‘I have been in the Peninsula before, sir.’

‘Hm, and do you think you could find those snipers?’

‘I do, sir.’ Ken spoke very quietly, but inwardly he was trembling with eagerness. Was it possible that his impulsive remark was going to be taken up in earnest?

The colonel spoke in a whisper to O’Brien, and the sergeant answered. Then he turned to Ken.

’You may pick three men and try it. You’ll have to stalk them, of course. If you can’t reach them come back. No one will think any the worse of you if you fail.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ken, his heart almost bursting with gratitude. His chance had come, and he meant to make the most of it.