A submarine net had been laid across the mouth of Suvla Bay; and by the time the Achates passed through the narrow "gate" between the supporting buoys, most of the Honourable Mess were gathered on the after shelter-deck, gazing ashore at the bursting shells, and eagerly trying to make out the state of affairs. Even to the most unskilled of these young officers it was evident that the Army could not have advanced very far.
The Achates anchored just to the south of Suvla Point, and about twelve hundred yards from the shore. As she swung to the breeze and the tide, the most extraordinary-looking "freak" ship came into view, lying close inshore, with a squat funnel, and an enormous turret with two huge guns sticking out of it. She looked almost as broad as she was long, and the Honourable Mess burst out laughing when they saw her. "That's one of the new big monitors," Bubbles grunted. "Look! What an extraordinary ship!"
"LOOK! WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY SHIP!"
This was the Havelock, and farther out lay several of the new small monitors with a single 9.2-inch gun in the bows or a 6-inch at each end. Inside the line of black buoys which marked the submarine net were also some twenty transports and store ships, a collier, a water-distilling steamer, and many trawlers. Picket-boats, tugs, and little motor-boats dashed about the harbour; a picket-boat towed a long string of transports' boats out towards a hospital ship lying farther away; but the strangest of all the craft there were the "water-beetles", which they now saw for the first time. These were lighters, painted black, with hinged gangways projecting over their bows, circular shields round their steering-wheels, and square box-shaped structures aft, each with a small funnel projecting from its roof, and the official number of the lighter painted, in huge white figures, on the side. One went grunting and thumping past, leaving a track of smoke and a smell of burning oil behind it, carrying perhaps five hundred soldiers inshore. Another lay alongside the nearest store ship, and the bales of hay which they were loading into her made her look like a huge haystack. Another, flying a Red Cross flag, grunted past from shore, filled with wounded. "Water-beetles" made a most appropriate name for them.
The only other men-of-war at anchor inside the "net" were the Swiftsure, Talbot, and Cornwall; but farther down the coast, off Anzac and Gabe Tepe, they could see their "sister" ship, the Bacchante, looking very much "out in the cold" as far as protection from submarines went, in spite of numerous trawlers and several destroyers patrolling round her.
Steamboats began to come alongside, and from their midshipmen the Honourable Mess soon learnt the news.
One midshipman told them "that the soldiers held the first two miles of the hill beyond Suvla Point, but could not get on any farther". "Have they joined up with Anzac and away to the right?" they asked. "I don't think so—not properly. We haven't advanced for the last two days." "I don't know how many wounded I have taken off," said one wornout-looking midshipman. "That's my job, and I've been at it almost day and night for the last five days—nearly eight thousand have been taken off altogether, I fancy."
Another snotty told them of the awful shortage of water during the first two fateful days, and how terribly the troops had suffered. "They couldn't stand it," he said. "It was frightfully hot, and by Saturday afternoon (they landed at 11 p.m. on Friday night) men were rushing down to the shore and dashing into the sea, quite delirious."
The Hun in his steam pinnace came back from a trip ashore, with a story of two shells which had fallen close to him. "It's like old times," he said excitedly.