"We needn't ask the War Baby to our picnics now, need we?" the Pimple and the China Doll burst out excitedly, as they saw the piles of sardines and sausages, tins of biscuits, jars of bloater paste, and all the luxuries their souls craved.
By the end of July the Orphan returned to duty with a slight limp, which he kept up rather longer, perhaps, than was absolutely necessary.
The air was full of rumours once again, many of them more ridiculous than ever; and at last, on the 7th August, came the news that nearly sixty thousand men had been thrown ashore at Anzac, and at Suvla to the north of it. "The new landing", stated the message, "took the enemy partially by surprise"—and from that the most optimistic conjectures were made.
Also came the news that E11 had sunk the Barbarossa, an old German battleship bought by Turkey some years back—sunk her in the Sea of Marmora. You can guess what a noisy, rowdy night that was down in the gun-room.
Four days later the Achates received orders to proceed to Suvla herself, and, after her six weeks of "heavenly" rest, everyone felt greatly pleased to be "up and doing" something again. She wound her way out through the tortuous channel between those beautiful green cliffs, past "Picnic" Island, and zigzagged her way towards the Gallipoli Peninsula.
At dawn of Thursday, 12th August, she passed through a line of trawlers patrolling between Imbros and Samothrace islands, and presently heard once more the booming of guns.
No information whatever had been received of the actual progress and state of affairs; everyone expected—at any rate, hoped—to find the army established more than half-way across the Peninsula, and still advancing; so that when Captain Macfarlane saw a big shell bursting on the very shore itself, he groaned: "Did you see that, Navigator? Stalemate again, I fear."
"A pretty big one, that shell, sir. It may have come from a ship anchored in The Narrows," the Navigator suggested; but even as he did so, three puff-balls of cotton-wool, shrapnel-bursts, appeared against the sky, only just behind the line of the shore.
"That makes it certain," the Captain said very gravely; "they can't burst shrapnel at long ranges."
A cloud of cordite smoke shot out from the side of a cruiser at anchor there—the Talbot; and both of them watched to see where the shell burst. "There it is, sir, just in front of that village," the Navigator called out, pointing to a village five miles inland, in a dip in the great semicircular sweep of hills which shut in the whole bay. "I thought they had gained those hills," exclaimed the Captain, keenly disappointed. "Well!"—and he sighed; "if they haven't by this time they will never get them. This means 'finish'."