On Land and Sea at the Dardanelles Part 10

'Faith, ye didn't do so badly after all, lad,' said O'Brien. 'Ate quickly now, for I'm thinking 'tis us for the top of the cliff before we're a dale older.'

Bread, bully beef, and a drink of water out of their bottles. That was the simple bill of fare. But Ken's exertions during the night had put a sharp edge on his appet.i.te, and he enjoyed the plain meal.

The fog was fast disappearing under the rays of the newly risen sun, and the firing grew heavier every minute. The hills all round were alive with snipers, but their fire was directed not so much on the trench held by the Australians as on the boats which were landing reinforcements on the beach below.

It was in the boats and on the beach that the casualties were heaviest.

The troops that were landed had to run the gauntlet for fully fifty yards before reaching the cover of the scrub on the cliff, and matters were worse still for the bluejackets pulling the empty boats back to the s.h.i.+ps.

They were potted at without a chance of returning the enemy fire.

But they stuck it out finely, and already all the wounded had been taken off, while reinforcements had reached the upper trench, sufficient in number to make up for the first losses.

'What's the colonel waiting for?' asked Dave. 'Why don't we go on up and smoke out those blighted snipers?'

'It's ammunition, I fancy. And there's a couple of maxims coming up. We shall need those if we have to dig ourselves in under fire.'

'More digging--oh, Christmas!' growled Dave. 'I didn't come here to dig. I could do that in my old dad's garden at home.'

Ken chuckled. 'You'll find the spade'll do as much to win this war as the guns and rifles. There's heaps of trenching in store for us, I can tell you.'

There was some delay about the maxims, and time went on without any order to move. The men began to grumble. It was hard indeed to lie and watch their comrades below being picked off, one after another, by these abominable sharpshooters, without a chance of hitting back.

'Look at that!' growled Roy Horan, pointing to a stalwart bluejacket who had just dropped at his oar as the boat pushed off the beach. 'It's murder! That's what it is. Sheer murder! Why the blazes can't the s.h.i.+ps turn loose?'

'Because they've got nothing to fire at. You can't chuck away 6-inch sh.e.l.ls on the off chance of killing one sniper. You wait until the Turks appear in force. Then you'll see what naval guns can do.'

'I don't believe the swine will ever appear in force,' said Roy, who had lost all his good humour and was looking absolutely savage. 'It breaks me all up to see our chaps shot down like rabbits without a chance of getting their own back.'

There was worse to come. From somewhere high up among the scrub-clad heights came a dull heavy crash, and almost instantly the clear air above the beach was filled with puffs of gray white smoke which floated like b.a.l.l.s of cotton wool.

'The guns! The beggars have got those guns up,' ran a mutter along the trench.

'About time for the s.h.i.+ps to get to work,' growled Roy, his big handsome face knitted in a scowl.

'Ay, if they only knew where the guns were,' replied Ken. 'But that's the deuce of it. They can't spot 'em without planes, and there are no planes here yet.'

Cras.h.!.+ A second gun spoke, and another sh.e.l.l burst above the beach. From that time on the firing was continuous. The whole beach was scourged with shrapnel, and landing operations became perilous in the extreme.

The men in the trenches fidgeted and swore beneath their breath. There is nothing more trying to troops than to see their comrades suffering and yet be unable to help them.

'Can't we do something?' muttered Dave, as he saw a boat from one of the s.h.i.+ps smashed to matchwood by a blast of shrapnel, and her crew and contents scattered into the sea. 'Can't we do something? It's enough to drive one loony to watch this sort of thing.'

Almost as he spoke there was a sudden flutter of excitement, as an order was pa.s.sed from man to man down the trench.

They were to advance and take up a new position on the top of the slope.

CHAPTER VI

GUNS!

There was no bugle note, no cheer, but at a whistle the men swarmed out of their trench and went uphill as hard as every they could go.

Their appearance was the signal for a tremendous outburst of firing on the part of the Turkish snipers, and a moment later the two 77-millimetre German guns which had been brought from Gaba Tepe changed the direction of their fire from the beach to the advancing troops.

As the Australians went bursting through the scrub, snipers who had crept in close during the night and hidden in the bushes and behind rocks broke like rabbits out of gorse when the terriers are put in.

They were hunted down remorselessly, and not one of them escaped. Those who were not killed outright were taken prisoners.

It was very fine while it lasted, and the men would have given anything to go on. But Colonel Conway knew the risk too well, and as soon as they had gained the summit of the cliff whistle signals from the sergeants stopped them, and the order came to dig themselves in with all speed.

It is one thing to occupy a trench already made, quite another to dig one under fire. There is no question of standing up and wielding the shovel as if one were digging a garden. Men must lie down and scratch and sc.r.a.pe until they get head cover, then gradually open up a narrow ditch into which they sink slowly.

'I didn't enlist as a blooming navvy,' grunted Roy Horan, who had stuck by Ken and Dave. 'Phew, but it's hot as a North Island beach on Christmas Day!'

As he spoke came an earth-shaking thud, and Ken, who was next to Roy, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down flat on the ground.

Just in time, too, for next instant the earth three yards away in front burst upwards in a fountain of stones and pieces of broken steel. Ken felt a blast of heat and stinging sand across the back of his neck, while the concussion made his head ring.

'What the blazes?' muttered Roy, as he lifted his head and looked round dazedly.

'It was blazes all right,' answered Ken dryly. 'A high explosive sh.e.l.l, my lad. Lucky that it went pretty deep before it burst.'

'And lucky for me that you pulled my head down in time,' answered Roy soberly. 'Thanks, old man. I shan't forget that.'

The next sh.e.l.l burst behind the line, and the third still farther back.

Fortunately for the Australians, the German gunners had not got the exact range, or the losses would have been fearful. High explosive of the kind the Germans use will pulverise the parapet of a trench and kill every one within reach.

The ground was hard, the sun hot, but the men dug like beavers, and within an hour had made themselves pretty safe. But there was no letting up.

Colonel Conway insisted upon a regular trench of the latest pattern with proper traverses, and deep enough to give plenty of head room. The men grumbled, but some, like Ken, realised that the game was well worth the candle.

'He's looking for an attack in force later on,' Ken told Dave and Roy Horan. 'You may be jolly sure that the Turks are bringing up reinforcements.'

'There are quite enough of the beggars already,' said Dave. 'Just listen to the bullets coming over. That scrub in front of us fairly hums with snipers.'

By the time that the trench was finished it was nearly midday. The men were given a rest, and dinner was served out. In spite of the enemy's fire the Army Service men had managed to bring their stores right up to the trench, and there was fresh bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and jam for the hungry fighters.

Down below, engineers were at work, making a path up the cliff, while boats travelled up and down with a dogged and admirable persistence.

The enemy fire in front of the new position grew steadily heavier. If a cap was put up on a cleaning rod over the parapet, it was sometimes struck by two or three bullets at once. It seemed clear that the Germans who led the Turks were concentrating their forces in front of the trench, but whether they were new men or not it was impossible to say. The broken nature of the ground and the heavy scrub hid all that was going on a very little way inland.

'This is getting a bit thick,' said Roy Horan, as a fresh crackle of rifle fire burst from a wooded height about a quarter of a mile inland. A maxim carefully emplaced behind sandbags in the trench replied with a storm of bullets, but it was a poor job, firing at an enemy who were quite invisible, and a feeling of slight depression had begun to settle on the occupants of the trench.

'The colonel's having a pow-wow with the other officers,' said Dave.

'Something's going to happen before long.'