Also, during that same night the Turks commenced their desperate thirty-six-hour attack on Anzac, and for all that period an almost incessant roar of heavy guns came down wind from there. This attack ended most disastrously for the enemy, who lost more than three thousand men killed. The Honourable Mess heard afterwards many yarns of this fight—yarns of the Turks pressing through gullies against the Australian and New Zealand trenches, pouring through in dense masses, shouting "Allah! Allah!" and never ceasing that cry, because they believed that no bullet would touch them with the sacred name on their lips, and being shot down in hundreds and hundreds, until, in fact, some of the Australians, who had clambered on top of their parapets the better to shoot, refused to shoot any longer. Pressed along by the masses behind them, the front ranks could not retreat—some, throwing away their rifles, ran towards the trenches with their hands above their heads, apparently demented, shouting "Allah! Allah!"
Perhaps they thought that God would give them victory over the "infidel" with their bare hands; perhaps they wanted to surrender; but none reached those trenches. In front of one maxim alone, 380 dead were counted when at last the attacks had melted away, and the Turks had obtained an armistice to bury their dead.
Now that she was "bombarding" ship, the Achates had the job of looking after "Gallipoli Bill", and often an aeroplane would fly up to "spot" for her whilst she tried to knock him out.
Such a day's firing would be arranged and start something like this.
Perhaps Captain Macfarlane had been ashore the afternoon before, to stretch his long legs, and on coming back to the ship would send for the Gunnery-Lieutenant. "Oh, look here, I've been ashore this afternoon. That 6-inch howitzer is bothering everyone a good deal; it dropped one near me—it may not have known I was there—but I thought it distinctly rude; the Left Flank Observation Post—I was up there this afternoon—think they have spotted him—just to the left of that single tree near the windmills—you know it—the place where those dummy field-guns used to be; how about having a try for it in the morning?"
"Yes, sir! Certainly, sir! We had better ask for an aeroplane, I suppose," the very "strict-service" Gunnery-Lieutenant would suggest.
"Certainly! Certainly! Ask them to send a specially nice one this time, perhaps a white one with blue spots would look pretty."
The Gunnery-Lieutenant, who was absolutely devoid of all sense of humour, would look up startled, only to see the Captain thoughtfully tugging at his pointed yellow beard.
"I don't think there are any like that, sir. They have tried various colours, but none are invisible. I think they have none like that, sir."
"Oh! Very well, we must just take our chance. Perhaps they will send us one with pretty red, white, and blue rings," the Captain would reply gravely, without a tremor of an eyelid; and off would go the bewildered Gunnery-Lieutenant to write out a signal "requesting permission to bombard Target 159G7", or whatever was the dot on the military map nearest to "Gallipoli Bill", and wonder whether Captain Macfarlane was going "off his head". Whilst waiting a reply from the Admiral, he might run across the Fleet-Surgeon and tell him what the Captain had said. "I suppose there's nothing the matter with him, Doc.? You don't think the strain is telling on him?"