“It was all splendidly planned, Jack,” said Amos. “I give the Colonel credit for having a long head. Still, the result might not have come just as easily as it did were it not for Frank—well, whoever the brave pilot of that aeroplane may turn out to be.”
“He certainly did help a whole lot,” admitted Jack. “Let’s hope he proves to be your brother; also that he settles down on Gallipoli tonight instead of flying across to that Greek island where the rest of the pilots have their headquarters.”
“Oh! I guess he will stick here,” Amos hastened to say, as though the wish were father to the thought. “Especially after he’s been able to do such great stunts for the Kangaroos.”
“I suppose now they will be pushing their line further, if they can only hold those trenches up on the hill,” Jack suggested.
“And so this is going to be the way the peninsula will be won in the end, if it ever is won?” Amos questioned, as though he found it hard work to believe all those massive battleships, capable of throwing tons and tons of mighty shells, were unable to force a passage through the Dardanelles.
“That has to be left to the future to decide,” Jack told him. “There’s a big ‘if’ connected with everything undertaken these days. You can’t tell what a week will bring on, with these Balkan States hanging in the balance. If they could only settle their differences, and join the Allies, it would mean the beginning of the end.”
“Someone is calling to us, Jack, and I believe they mean that lunch is all ready to serve. Come to think of it, I’m really hungry! Suppose we walk over and sit down. I wonder how those tired chaps up there will get anything to eat.”
“I’m thinking of something else, Amos,” ventured the other, seriously. “We must get through with our bite as soon as we can for it strikes me two husky fellows like ourselves ought to make themselves useful as well as ornamental in such a crisis as this.”
“Do you mean we can help carry some of the wounded down where they can be looked after in the temporary field hospital?” asked Amos, showing decided interest in the matter.
“That’s about the size of it,” Jack told him.