But the attack evidently lacked backbone. Rifle-firing raged up and down the lines, but it never reached the pitch of inarticulate firing and determination which marked those night attacks at Helles. As a matter of fact, the Turks never left their trenches; and even before the laconic signal came from shore: "Situation well in hand", that well-known military expert, the China Doll, not seeing in the dark that Captain Macfarlane happened to be standing next to him, lisped out: "That's nothing; it's nothing like those other shows at "W" beach; they don't mean anything; I'm going down to finish dinner." Captain Macfarlane thanked him very gravely: "I am much obliged to you, Mr. Stokes" (which perhaps you remember was the China Doll's name), "you have relieved my anxieties immensely." The wretched China Doll disappeared down the hatchway like a shot rabbit.
Now there was a cocksure young subaltern of the New Army at Suvla to whom the whole art of warfare had become an open book. He claimed relationship with the Lamp-post, and, on the strength of that, came off at times to get a decent meal and a bath. There was also a certain 5.9-inch gun hidden away somewhere near Anafarta which enjoyed throwing high-explosive shells into the "so-called" "Rest Camp", and this young officer had suffered frequent annoyance from them. He became a little peevish, and made sarcastic remarks about naval gunnery not much to the liking of the Honourable Mess, especially one day when the Swiftsure had nearly broken her Gunnery-Lieutenant's susceptible heart by not knocking out this particular gun after some fifteen rounds. They explained gently to him that the gun could not be seen from the ships, and that, at five and a half miles, firing at "where-it-was-thought-to-be" did not give much chance of hitting it.
One afternoon, when he happened to be aboard, a French aeroplane, with engine troubles, planed down to the beach beyond Lala Baba, and could not get away. She had not been there for ten minutes when the Turks commenced dropping shell round her.
"Now you'll see how easy it is," the Lamp-post said ironically. "Remember, the Turks can see that aeroplane—they can see it with the naked eye. We can't see 'Anafarta Annie' through a telescope." Well, they counted more than a hundred and fifty shell—shrapnel and common—fired within the next thirty-five minutes, and the aeroplane appeared not to have been touched.
At least they thought the "Young Friend" might apologize, but he only laughed: "Well, at any rate, you Navy chaps aren't the rottenest shots in the world."
"I do hope 'Annie' drops one in his 'dug-out'," the Hun said angrily, when he went ashore. "Don't you ever ask him off again, Lamp-post, or we'll work the gramophone at meals."
"I never do ask him; he comes," the Lamp-post smiled.
"Annie", so the Observation Post nearest to Anafarta reported, lived in a tunnel or deep gully, and when her crew wanted to do a "hate" they ran her out on rails, fired her, and ran her back again. It was also said that if shells fell anywhere near her, the crew used to run across to a little white house about a hundred and fifty yards away, and take cover there. So one morning the Gunnery-Lieutenant of the Swiftsure, always ready to woo a fair lady, "went" for her; and when he thought her crew had probably run her back into her tunnel and gone across to their cosy little white house, he peppered that with 14-pounder shells. No one can go on with this game—at five and a half miles—for ever; and when the Swiftsure ceased firing, "Annie's" crew, appreciating the humour of it all, ran back to her, fetched her out (presumably), and dropped half a dozen high-explosive shells among the mules and stacks of bully-beef boxes above "A" beach.
They were full of noisy humour, these Turks; but what did jar on their nerves was the sight of a battleship or cruiser coaling. They objected most strongly, and always burst shrapnel over, and dropped shell at the "coaling" ship directly the collier had come alongside and she had commenced that dirty job.
They also had a rooted objection to the Arno, a trim little destroyer attached to the General Headquarters Staff; and whenever she anchored inside the "net" they did their best to make her feel uncomfortable. She might have always had the General Head-quarters Staff on board, to judge by the persistent way they plugged at her.