"By all that is wonderful, sir!" said the coxswain.
At half-past eight the picket-boat entered Kephalo harbour; and the Orphan knew, by the cheering which greeted him from the troops packed together aboard two large transports anchored inside, that the evacuation of Anzac had been completed as successfully as that at Suvla.
He turned over his four boats to a battleship, and threaded his way through the throng of steamboats, trawlers, and motor-lighters which jostled each other in the harbour, eventually reached the shore, and landed to report himself.
He found the Fierce One, who had only just returned from Suvla, and the Not So Fierce One at breakfast in their little wooden hut.
"Hum! You've come back, have you?" growled the Fierce One. "A very good two nights' work; very good, indeed!"
The Not So Fierce One, looking at the Orphan, said: "You look pretty well fagged out; have a cup of tea, or something."
CHAPTER XXII
A Terrible Night
The Orphan had returned to Kephalo at nine o'clock in the morning—that Monday morning after the evacuation of Suvla. He had had no sleep for forty-eight hours, and was allowed none now. In the afternoon the largest tug received orders to tow four picket-boats and a steam pinnace to Mudros—the two picket-boats belonging to the Lord Nelson, the boat belonging to the Swiftsure, another, and the steam pinnace.
The Orphan thought this would be rather a "spree", and did not notice that the north-easterly breeze which had held all that past week had backed to the south-west.