When, therefore, the Achates wound her way through the tortuous channel into Ieros harbour, her yards almost touching the thick brushwood which clothed the cliffs, and these cliffs, shutting out all sight of the sea, opened out to give a view of an inland lake surrounded by olive-clad hills fading away in the distance, and glowing at the warm touch of the evening sun, their many-tinted green slopes reflected in its placid waters; of villages, quiet little peaceful villages, with the peasants clustering along the water's edge as the ship floated past, or white-sailed boats crowded with smiling, gaily-welcoming Greek men and women, it seemed as though a magician's wand had suddenly guided and wafted her into some fairy harbour, where war and the brutalities of bloodshed could never have been known and would never dare to intrude.
Officers and men stood, drinking in, in their various ways, the beauty, the peace, and the overwhelming quietness of it all.
"Old 'Gallipoli Bill' will drop one among those people in a moment; they're exposing themselves terribly," the Hun grinned.
"They've got 'dug-outs' all handy, somewhere close by; you bet they have!" Rawlins said.
"I wonder how our three chaps are getting on at 'W' beach;" said the Sub, smacking the open-mouthed and staring China Doll on his back, so that his doll's eyes nearly fell out. "My jumping Jimmy, what a place! My blessed stars! What a bathe we'll have when we've dropped the 'killick'. I'll ask the Commander," and stalked away to find him, banging every member of the Honourable Mess he met with his fist, with shouts of "My jumping Jupiter, what a place!" The Pimple pointed out to the China Doll one of the boats they passed. Half full of oranges and bananas it was; and their mouths watered and their eyes brightened as they thought of the feast they would have if it came alongside and the ward-room messman did not buy them all.
The ship slowly turned round another bluff, and a collier with two English submarines lying alongside her came into view.
"They rather spoil the picture," Uncle Podger said, "but we needn't look at 'em."
Then the Achates let go her anchor, the cable rattled noisily, stopped, and the ship lay still.
A quarter of an hour later, "hands to bathe" was "piped", and in less than ten minutes, at least five hundred officers and men were bobbing in the water alongside, and the air was alive with their cheery shouts. The men dived off the booms, the nettings, out of the gangways, or climbed down her sides; the water for'ard was so thick with black heads and white shoulders, that when another man and yet another, a constant stream of them, dived in, one could not help wondering if there was a clear space for them to dive into, though the others always did manage to "open out" and let the newcomer in without accident.
Aft, some of the Honourable Mess were diving off the top of the accommodation ladder; others, the more cautious ones, preferred to drop off the foot of it. The Hun went off the top, so did Rawlins. Uncle Podger walked sedately down the ladder, turned a back somersault, and bobbed up again, in time to see the Pimple make a show of diving off the top, decide that it was too high, and walk down it. The China Doll, trying to attract attention, wouldn't even dive from the foot of the ladder. "You'll promise not to duck me, won't you?" he squeaked, and lowered himself down, holding on to a rope. The Sub, with his gnarled muscles showing under his bathing dress, and disdaining the twenty-foot dive from the ladder top, climbed to the edge of the after bridge with a water polo ball under his arm, threw it far out from the ship, climbed the rails, balanced himself for a moment, roared out "Look out, you jumping shrimps!" and dived forty feet into the water, cutting it like a knife, and coming to the surface some thirty yards farther away. The more sedate ward-room officers, disrobing in their cabins, heard his stentorian, roaring shouts of, "My jumping Jimmies! What a place!" Presently they too appeared on deck, twisting their towels round the quarter-deck rails before they joined the merry splashing throng; the little Padre had his swimming-belt round his chest, and his everlasting pipe in his mouth. The Hun and Uncle Podger, seeing him come down the ladder, winked at each other, and waited to see what would happen when he jumped into the water; but were disappointed, for he lowered himself carefully; the swimming-belt kept his head well above water, and he paddled about, still smoking.