Cliffe crept the two or three paces towards the ’phone, and put it to his mouth. “Hullo! Hullo there! Yes, Cliffe speaking.” A long pause. “Yes, I’ve got it. C target. Three o’clock right of false ridge. Straight away. Righto, sir.”
Back went Cliffe to his peepholes to stare through one of them. “They seem to have woken up down below at last,” he said. “The old balloon has spotted some guns in action three o’clock right of the false ridge up there. There’s one of them now!” We waited a minute or two, crouching down below the parapet, then Wilkinson, who had the ’phone strapped to his head, said, “Fired, sir.”
The voice of a gun travelled from the valley foot, and the same moment a shell swept over our heads and burst in a puff of smoke many hundred yards beyond us. I was staring through one of the cracks. The shot was over the target and rather to the left. “One degree three-ough minutes more right! Shorten corrector four! Drop two-ough-ough! Repeat!” Wilkinson echoed the words: a silence followed. The gun boomed below, and a shell whistled overhead. This time the burst was better. “Drop five-ough! Repeat!” Cliffe called out.
I moved away presently, and tried again to talk with the Englishmen. Nearly all were young, and none seemed overbright. By the time we had exchanged all news, the morning was wearing on; and finally the sun tossed his beams into the trench in a threatening manner.
These were still optimistic days, when we expected the British and French down south to join up with us at any moment. We were always believing to hear their guns, and daily reports came through that they were arriving at such and such an hour. To-day it was to be five o’clock in the afternoon. The village of Krithia had been taken, and Heaven knows what else besides, and at any instant now they ought to come pouring over the top of Achi Baba. The fall of Constantinople was only a matter of days.
The marines were as confident as we Australians, and the belief that the whole affair would be over in a week or two was, I believe, the one thing that bore them up. But they were a homesick lot at best.
Our guns soon quieted down—shortage of ammunition, no doubt—and Cliffe left his post and came across where the trench was deeper to stretch his legs. The English lieutenant was sitting just above, and the two men drifted into conversation.
I had the luck to find a Penny Magazine with a very sentimental love story inside. I carried it to my funk-hole, and made a comfortable bed, and read until the springs of romance welled in me. I fell asleep to dream of governesses and dukes, and incidentally of heiresses who smiled encouragement on broken gunners. When I woke up it must have been midday, as the sun was not far from the centre of the sky, and there was not a foot of shade. I opened a hopeless eye and looked round. All was the same. The men sat in the same places and talked with effort. Cliffe spoke to Wilkinson, and the sergeant lay beside his gun. I yawned and sat up, flapped at the flies and swore.
But why go on? Through endless afternoon things were the same. At times our guns opened and Cliffe observed for them; at times I peeped over the parapet, hoping to snipe a Turk. At times the machine gun rattled away. There was little movement on either side. The armies rested after the big attack. I don’t know who was best pleased when the light grew dim and orders came through to return to headquarters.
I met the marines once again. It was on the following afternoon. I had guided Major Felix to the trench; and there we found Sands observing, with Hawkins and Eaves for his telephonists. “Saida,” I said to Hawkins, and leaned against the wall beside him.