'Why, there's a regular fleet!' exclaimed Ken, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. 'This is something like. Some of those sniping gentlemen are going to be sorry for themselves.'
No fewer than seven warships were lying off the coast, every one of them smashing their broadsides into the Turkish positions. The noise was incredible, but every sound was dwarfed when the great super-Dreadnought fired her 15-inch guns. The shells, the length of a tall man and weighing very nearly a ton, were charged with shrapnel, carrying no fewer than twenty thousand bullets apiece. Exploding over the enemy's position, each deluged a couple of acres of ground with a torrent of lead.
'"'Tis only Lizzie opening the ball."'
It was a most amazing sight. The whole sky was full of the smoke of bursting shells—smoke so heavy that the light breeze could not break it, as it swam in masses that seemed quite solid until they struck against the higher ground far inland.
Hour after hour the tremendous bombardment continued. At first the Turkish field pieces endeavoured to reply, but one by one they were silenced, and when at last, late in the afternoon, the thunder of the guns ceased, the silence was only broken by a faint crackle of musketry.
'Now's our chance!' exclaimed O'Brien, who seemed to have an uncanny faculty for understanding beforehand exactly what was in the colonel's mind.
'A charge, you mean?' said Ken eagerly.
'That's it, sonny. Before they've got over the effects of that swate little pasting.'
Sure enough, a minute later came the order for advance, and, refreshed by their long rest, the Australians and New Zealanders came pouring over their parapet, and with bayonets flashing in the evening sun, rushed forward through the scrub.