Steamboats! Why! fifty more would have found plenty to do; and of those which were actually available, so many were constantly in the Sub's hands being repaired, or back on board their own ships being repaired, that those remaining were running practically day and night continuously. The Hun's pinnace smashed in her stem and stove in her bows against a trawler on the Thursday, and that laid her up for two whole days whilst she was being patched. On one of these two days he took charge of a boat whose midshipman had been killed by a stray bullet at another beach—"X" beach—round the corner, and on the second he and the Orphan kept "watch and watch" in the picket-boat. For all practical purposes their only chance of a rest was when their boats ran short of coal and water and had to go back to the Achates. The job of filling up with water and coal often took half an hour—time enough to get some food, sometimes even a bath; more often, all they wanted was sleep. Occasionally they had a stroke of luck after getting back to the ship, and might be told that they would not be wanted for an hour, perhaps longer. Then the Orphan, Rawlins, or the Hun—whoever it was who had such luck—would coil up on a cushion in the gun-room and sleep, or lie down on the Sub's bunk—if he was not there—which was more peaceful. More often than not, something would happen: an urgent signal would come from somewhere or other, to take a Staff officer "off" from "W" beach to the Arcadia—the General Head-quarters Staff ship—-or to tow inshore a lighter full of stores, urgently needed—bombs, barbed wire, empty sandbags, whatever it might be; his boat might be the only one available, and away he would have to go.
This used to happen day and night, for during those first ten days there was no relaxation of effort whatever, all the twenty-four hours round the clock.
Very often the Orphan had to take his boat alongside hospital ships, and several times it happened that men climbed down their tall, white sides and asked for a passage ashore. One of these, on one occasion, was a stretcher-bearer of the Worcesters, an old soldier evidently. The air, just about this time, was full of rumours of Turkish atrocities, and these caused much anger until they were contradicted—as they generally were—although the contradictions never went the rounds as did the original rumours. The Orphan had just heard one particular story, vouched for, of four English—evidently prisoners—having been found burnt to death in Sedd-el-Bahr castle. So, thinking this man might know something about it, he asked him.
"Know about them? I should think I did; all nonsense, that story. They were burnt right enough—I saw them myself—but so was the wooden storehouse the Turks had put them in. Everything was burnt, and there was the base of a 6-inch lyddite shell lying close by them; one of our ships' shells which had set the place on fire during the bombardment."
He told him of his own experiences. "Why, sir," he said, "twice the Worcesters have had to fall back a bit at night, and leave wounded behind; and at daybreak we got back the ground again and found them all right, though we never expected they would be alive. 'We thought to find you scuppered,' we told them—at first, that was; not afterwards. I remember one—the Sergeant-Major of my company. We found him in the morning, and we asked him how he'd managed to keep clear of the Turks. 'Keep clear of 'em,' he says; 'keep clear of 'em! why, they crept up after you'd fallen back, found me in the dark, and gave me water; pulled me along behind some cover—your firing being so hot—and covered me with a blanket.'"
"Then haven't you seen anything wrong?" the Orphan asked.
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that; there's a young chap in there"—and he pointed to the hospital ship—"what has some thirty-five bayonet wounds—just pricks—in him. They caught him in a trench and did handle him pretty rough, till he pretended to be dead; then they left him. He'll be up and about in ten days' time. Then I saw two of those Senegalese chaps see 'blue murder' one day; but what can you expect?"
"Are our fellows playing the game?" the Orphan asked.
"You don't know Bert Smith, he's in my section. Well, he and I was carrying a wounded Turk in our stretcher, he taking the head, and me going along in front with his feet, and I notices that he starts a-jerking his end up and down pretty violent, so I says to him: 'Here, Bert, what are you a-doing of? you'll hurt the poor blighter!' and he up and says: 'Poor blighter be darned; he's only a blooming Turk!'"
"What did you do?" asked the Orphan, smiling at the man's so very transparent earnestness.