rt of landing places are they?' asked Dave.

'Just beaches--little bays with cliffs behind them. And the cliffs are
covered with scrub, and so are the hills inland. Ideal ground for the
defence, and rotten to attack.'

'You talk as if you'd been there?'

The speaker was a big, good-looking young New Zealander, with a face burnt
almost saddle colour by wind and sun. His dark blue eyes gleamed with a
merry, devil-may-care expression which took Ken's fancy at once.

'Yes, I've been there,' Ken answered modestly, and was at once surrounded
by a crowd all eager for any information he could give. Luckily for him,
at that very minute some one shouted.

'We're off, boys. There's the signal to weigh anchor.'

Instantly all was excitement; the cable began to clank home, smoke poured
from the funnels, and in a very short time the whole fleet of transports
was moving in a long line out of the harbour, escorted by a bevy of busy,
black destroyers.

As the 'Charnwood' passed into her place, the men lined the sides and
cheered for all they were worth.

'What day is this?' said Ken to Dave, as the big transport passed out of
the mouth of the bay.

'Friday, the twenty-third,' was the answer.

'Twenty-third of April,' said Ken. 'St. George's Day. Then I tell you
what, Dave, this is going to be a Sunday job.'

'You mean we'll be landed on Sunday?'

Ken nodded.

'That's about it,' he answered.

CHAPTER III

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,