Another voice out of the darkness, from a hammock close to the China Doll, broke in with: "My word! she did topple over—I could never have believed it I was in my cabin—just had time to rush up to the gangway—the water was pouring over the coaming—couldn't stand on the quarter-deck—I don't know how I got to the rails—I dragged myself up somehow, and crawled right round her—oh, my God! the cries inside her—men who couldn't get out."
The big, gruff voice, which had stopped to listen, interrupted again: "I got out through a gun-port, crawled along the side—when she turned over the bilge keel caught me and dragged me under—I never knew how I came up again—a man close to me—swimming in the water—had his face smashed in by a plank which shot up from below—I got hold of the plank—it kept me up till the Lord Nelson's picket-boat found me."
It was not as if these disjointed remarks were made only once, but they were repeated over and over again; just as if the thoughts they expressed had been fixed so indelibly in their brains, to the exclusion of everything else, that when night and darkness came they were again so vivid that they had to be given utterance to.
The poor China Doll, with his swimming-belt round his chest, would listen, with hair on end, until he could stand it no longer; then he would jump out, and run up on deck and wait, perhaps for an hour, until they were silent. How grateful he was to wake up and see daylight coming through the gaps in the hatchway awning-cover, and to know that another night was over! A good many more were as thankful as he was.
Next day the early morning "air" reconnaissance—made by aeroplane—reported having seen five submarines travelling past Kephez Point.
"That puts the hat on it," moaned the Fleet-Surgeon when he heard of them; and everybody marvelled how they had managed to elude the scouting trawlers and destroyers. But most people felt a sense of relief that the days of waiting for their coming were now over, and that whatever was going to happen would do so soon. However, the evening "air reconnaissance" reported that these five submarines were still there, but had now turned out to be buoys which we ourselves had moored—so the grim tension was relieved for a little while.
On that day "Gallipoli Bill" burst very many high-explosive shells on "W" beach, apparently chiefly out of bravado, to express his glee at the sinking of the Goliath. Next day the Agamemnon, the Swiftsure, and the heavy batteries on shore "went" for him, but could not hit him. The "spotting" aeroplanes did their best to locate him and to direct the firing; but a dummy gun is so easily put somewhere, where it can be seen from above, and a real gun can so easily be shifted and hidden, where it cannot be seen, that quite possibly the ships and the shore batteries were never firing at the real gun. At any rate, directly they ceased fire, "Gallipoli Bill" threw half a dozen more shells along the ridge above "W" beach, and "pulled their legs" pretty thoroughly.
Things went on quietly for the next two or three days, although the howitzers did a lot of mischief on shore. Rumours came that a trawler had sighted a periscope off Imbros island, thirteen miles away, and it seemed definitely ascertained that two submarines had arrived at Smyrna.
On the 18th May the Achates relieved the Swiftsure, and from this date, until driven away by submarines, she became a "bombarding" ship. She once more ceased to fly a flag; the Admiral left her, taking with him his two Assistant Clerks; best of all, the devouring host of strange snotties and their steamboats also departed, and quietness and peace reigned in the gun-room. But, like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, the gun-room store was bare—a fact which brought bitter grief to the Pimple and the China Doll.
There was another submarine scare that night. A trawler fired two Very's lights, which meant "have sighted a hostile submarine", and things "hummed" considerably until it turned out that she had mistaken E11, on her way up the Straits, from Mudros, for an enemy submarine.