below,
screamed overhead and burst beyond the rise. The jabbering rose into
an impassioned chanting to Allah. The searchlight switched off, the
shells fell less frequently, the Oriental obligato fell away in a
diminuendo of pathetic cries and a staccato of terrified jabbering.
Mac's knees again kinked frequently.

In his state of alternate consciousness, the minutes dragged wearily,
he lost all count of time, and the whole business merged into a vivid
distorted dream. The drama was repeated, the mutterings of the
assembling Turks, the long-searching beam coming up from the sea, the
sudden tearing and crashing of the artillery, and the agonized howlings
of the enemy. Then came another period of quiet and deep drowsiness.

There may have been a third enactment, though on this point Mac has
always been hazy. At any rate, in due course came the dawn. The sky
brightened behind the Turkish lines, the searchlights faded away, and
gradually the spasmodic rifle fire of the night fell to occasional
single shots along the line. "Stand to" laboured by on leaden wings.
A single sentry was posted at the sap-head; then, in awkward attitudes
and angles, like the corpses on the ground above, they fell asleep in
the bottom of their sap.

CHAPTER XVI

VARIOUS MISFORTUNES

Mac, minus most of his clothing, squatted on a heap of rubble, keenly
following through his glasses naval tactics on the sea below. One
favourable point about Anzac was that, if one was bored with everything
else, there was always plenty to look at, especially with a good pair
of glasses. This morning, coming out on to the little flat top behind
his position, he discovered all the shipping in a turmoil. The whole
fleet of twenty or more transports was going helter-skelter for Imbros
harbour, the winches of a few laggards still rattled as they laboured
with their anchors, cruisers patrolled uneasily up and down,
fleet-sweepers moved about nowhere in particular, while destroyers
dashed round in wide circles, leaving behind them trails of heavy black
smoke and foaming white water. Only a couple of white hospital-ships
remained undisturbed.

"Submarines--damn them!" thought Mac. This was a new and unpleasant
development and not to his liking at all. He descried through the haze
the anchorage at Cape Helles, and noted that the vessels there--among
them a huge four-funnelled Atlantic liner--were also making off.

Towards evening all transports had d