From now onwards, the battleships remained behind the nets at Mudros or Kephalo. From these, every now and again, one or other of them would dash out with escorts of destroyers; an aeroplane would circle overhead to 'spot' for her; and she would bombard the Asiatic guns, Achi Baba, Sari Bair, above Anzac, or the Olive Grove, near Gaba Tepe, where the Turks always had several guns. Having done as much damage as possible, back she would steam, zigzagging all the way into safety.
And from this time all stores, ammunition, and reinforcements were carried across to the Peninsula at night in trawlers, small coasting steamers, and what were termed "fleet sweepers"; these being small steamers, of a thousand to fifteen hundred tons, which had—most of them, at any rate—previous to the war, been employed in the passenger and freight traffic on the cross-Channel, Irish, or Channel Island services.
Splendidly did they carry out their work—very frequently under fire.
CHAPTER XV
A Peaceful Month
The day after the Triumph had been torpedoed, and two days before the Majestic met the same fate, the Achates left Mudros for the island of Mytilene, zigzagging all the way, because Mytilene lay at the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, and Smyrna harboured several submarines which might possibly be in wait for her.
A grand day it was, the sun shining out of an almost cloudless sky, the sea bluer than the sky, and ruffled pleasantly by a gentle breeze. In the evening she passed through a narrow channel between tree-clad heights, and anchored in the land-locked harbour.
For the last month it had not been possible to go on deck without seeing a gun fired or a shell burst. Down below, in cabin, ward-room, or gun-room, you did escape the sight of them—and the sight of those high explosives bursting among men and horses on the beaches can never be forgotten—but you could not escape the sound of them. Each time the air, coming through scuttle, doorway, skylight, or hatchway, thudded against your ears, the shock, big or little, from far or near, made you wince, and made your mind stop momentarily to picture the actual explosion; your ears tingled, alert and braced, to receive the next shock, until the constant, expectant waiting and wincing became a strain which affected many people, even those who were not then exposed to personal danger. It made them irritable or taciturn, or brought about little alterations of character and disposition, not sufficiently definite, perhaps, to state in words, but real enough to notice at the time. In addition, the constant sight of trawlers and boats full of wounded, passing the Achates on their way to hospital ships, had a constant depressing effect, not perhaps fully realized at the moment.
Later, when there came the more imminent personal danger from submarine attack, culminating in the capsizing of two battleships, torpedoed in broad daylight and in full view of thousands, in circumstances which showed how impossible it was, under those conditions of service, to meet submarine attack successfully, the effect of the strain became more pronounced.
Above all, there lacked the success of the expedition, which alone could act as an antidote to the strain.