e afternoon sky.

'Hurrah, a plane at last!' said Ken joyfully. 'That means business. She's
spotting for the ships,' he explained. 'You'll see something pretty soon,
you chaps, or hear it anyhow.'

All around the plane, the air was full of the white puffs of bursting
shrapnel, but the dainty man-bird flirted through them unscathed. The
eager Australians, all staring skywards, saw her bank steeply, and at the
same time a long white streak shot downwards from her, like a ribbon
unrolling in mid air. Then she had turned and was going seawards again at
a terrific speed.

'Now look out!' cried Ken, and almost as the words left his lips the
battleships outside let loose.

A score of 6-inch guns spoke out at once with a ringing clamour which
absolutely drowned all other sounds, and their great 100-pound shells came
hurtling inland with a series of long-drawn shrieks.

'Look! Look!' cried Ken again, as great fountains of earth and gravel
spurted from the side of a hill a mile and a half away to the left. That's
plastering them. Now we're getting a little of our own back.'

There was no doubt about it. The German guns shut up like a knife, but
whether they were actually hit or merely silenced, it was, of course,
impossible to say.

For twenty solid minutes the grim battleships and cruisers poured forth
their storm of shells, until the whole hill-side where the German guns had
been posted gaped with brown craters. Then they ceased, and the saucy
aeroplane came buzzing inland again to observe and report upon the damage
done.

What its extent was the Colonials could not, of course, know, but at any
rate the enfilading guns remained silent and the worst danger was at an
end.

'That's saved our bacon,' said Ken, with a sigh of relief. 'We'll get a
little rest now, perhaps.'

'Maybe ye will, and maybe ye won't,' said Sergeant O'Brien, who came past
at that moment and overheard Ken's words. 'But if ye want forty winks,
bhoys, now's your time to snatch 'em. There'll be mighty little slape this
night for any of us.'

'Why so, sergeant?' asked Dave.

[Illustration: '"Hurrah, a plane at last!" said Ken.']

'Because so soon as ever it's dark we'll have the Turks buzzing round us
like bees. And the ships can't help us then, remember,' he added
significantly.

CHAPTER VII

'LIZZIE' LETS LOOSE

Sergeant O'Brien was soon proved a true prophet. Darkness had hardly
fallen before the scrub in front was alive with Turk