Before the men "set to" again, they were given a little time to get food. Then they started to unload more stores. Stores simply poured ashore: clumsy bulky things like water-carts—more guns—two 60-pounder "heavy" guns and their limbers (these were placed in position behind the ridge, almost at the end of the Peninsula)—reels of telephone cable—tents for stores—hundreds and hundreds of boxes of ammunition—balks of timber for piers.
Horses began to arrive—big fellows for the heavy guns—Clydesdales perhaps—great lovable fellows with a roguish eye for the beach, which made the sailors love them all the more. These last they handled as no one else in the world can handle them. Give a bluejacket anything on four feet, from an elephant to a pig, and he'll get it ashore all right. They've got "a way with them", and can coax a nervous horse or an obstinate mule better than anyone else—or think they can, which is more than half the battle. Perhaps the whole secret lies in the fact that they are so accustomed to shifting heavy weights that, if a beast resists all their blandishments, they know that hauling on to a rope passed round their "sterns" will work the oracle.
Luckily, by the time they reached the shore in horse-boats, these poor, patient creatures had gone through so many extraordinary experiences that they did not worry much what happened to them. It was grand to see their pleasure when they felt firm ground once more under their feet and, when they were taken up the gully, saw grass growing once again. Mules came—mules in hundreds; but nobody can be really fond of a mule—not in a passing acquaintance, anyway.
The Sappers made great headway with their pier of trestles, casks, and planks—No. 3 Pier—some way to the east of the pontoons they had placed in position, the day before, and called No. 2 Pier. They also discovered a freshwater spring at the foot of the cliffs, about two hundred yards beyond "W" beach. The discovery of this seems now a little matter, hardly worth recording; but quite possibly it was the most important event of the twenty-four hours.
That day, also, the few Turkish prisoners who had been captured, unwounded, set to work with a will to build a small breakwater, which eventually became the base of No. 1 Pier.
The "Howe" Battalion, R.N.D., also began making roadways.
Work for the beach party became slacker towards night, not because there was less to do, but because the men were absolutely "played out". Officers and men had a regular "stand off", after dark, and a proper meal. They also had time to peg off the site for the naval camp with ropes, just below the Ordnance Store Depots, and to lay down some strips of canvas on the sandy ground. They were also put in two "watches", half of them working for four hours, and the other half working for the next four, and so on.
Bubbles, who had the first watch "off", crept under his bit of canvas and fell asleep in a "brace of shakes", whilst the Lamp-post stalked back to the beach with his own section of men, and went on working. If it had been light enough to see that young officer's face, you would have noticed that his eyes seemed to have sunk back into his head, and that he kept on biting his lips to keep himself awake.
CHAPTER XII
Off Cape Helles