The transport was a-hum with business. Cranes screamed and rattled, and men swarmed the decks, or ran up and down the gangways. She was the S.S. Hindoo, a good-looking vessel. Already she was three parts loaded, and she would sail that night. The wharf where she lay was blocked past belief with horses, guns, and limbers and all the baggage of war. Left of us, a French mule corps had collected; and past it was a French airship transport corps.
But why recall that day? We were loaded by evening, and about our ears fell the rattling of the dripping anchors. I stood on deck above the emptying wharf. And the Colonel passing by said, “We are off, Lake.” Foot by foot we drew out from land: fathom by fathom widened the band of water. In middle harbour we turned about, and steamed to the open sea. The lights of land went out: Africa was no more. The screw thumped and churned, and we moved into the ocean towards an unknown anchorage.
CHAPTER VIII
MUDROS
It seemed at last we were drawing into port. The land was more defined, and rolled up from the sea in peaceful grassy slopes, chequered with squares of cultivation, and marked with lonely dots which later might grow into hamlet or farm. Nearer—always nearer—the ship steered, until the waterway had narrowed to a ribbon, and the island discovered itself entirely, presenting cliffs which swept into the water, and beaches shelving smoothly down. Caressing breezes came over to us, like breaths from a promised land.
We could not name the place. Scores of faces watched the approaching hills, scores of tongues cried out where we had arrived. Many declared for the Dardanelles; as many for Tenedos; as many for Lemnos; but it remained to watch and wait. Finally we were moving parallel with the shore, towards a cape directly ahead—everywhere the gentle slopes climbed up towards the hills, carrying vegetation all the way. Sunbeams flecked the pasture land, and swept across the squares of cultivation. Balmy breezes floated to us anew.
We steered beyond the cape, and two great jaws of land opened wide. Inwards we steamed. And behold, the spell was shattered. Again our cries broke out.
We were entering a large and sheltered bay, where the same green hills climbed from the sea, the same patches of cultivation marked the easier slopes, and the same hamlets clustered in the shelter of the valleys. But these things had not loosed our tongues.
A mighty fleet lay at anchor in the land-locked waters—two fleets indeed: a battle fleet, and a fleet of transports. It was a wondrous spectacle to come across by an out-of-the-world shore. Across the mouth of the bay had been drawn a net, past which no enemy submarine might find passage; and beyond the net anchored in safety all these craft of war. Grim battleships lay there, and swift cruisers with sunlight slipping over their grey sides. Low black destroyers found place beside them; and a submarine, half submerged, with the crew upon the conning tower, and the sea climbing to right and left out of her path, passed down the thoroughfare. Trawlers, tugboats, colliers, lighters, mine-sweepers—all that can be named were anchored before us; and giant liners swayed their cables and showed decks crammed with uniformed men.