"Is there much to do to-night?" asked one of the soldier officers—the subaltern.
"Absolutely nothing, old chap, except to get off a tug, two steamboats, something like half a dozen lighters driven ashore last night; try and repair about twenty feet of No. 1 Pier washed away by the other gale, and see what can be done with the 'Inner Hulk'—she broke her back when the pier 'went', and we'll have to try and get a gangway across the gap; otherwise I can't think of anything."
Two of the R.N.R. officers went with him, but he sent the two midshipmen to turn in. Neither of them had had any proper sleep for three days, and they both had been nodding and yawning, and looking stupidly tired all through that meal.
So they turned in, put "Kaiser Bill" between them for luck, and slept like "tops".
CHAPTER XXIII
"In 'Dug-outs' at Cape Helles"
Richards, that splendid old Leading Seaman who "ran" the Mess, brought them both a cup of tea in the morning. "Four bells just struck, sirs; breeze gone round to the north-east, pretty nippy outside it is, but fine. Hands 'fall in' at half-past six." He lighted an oil-lamp and left them.
Bubbles snuggled down under the blankets and would have gone to sleep again, had not the Orphan pulled them off him and made him turn out.
They dressed hurriedly, saw that "Kaiser Bill" was safe in his corner; and by seven o'clock, just before the dawn commenced, Bubbles had taken charge of a very much battered, old picket-boat lying alongside No. 3 Pier; and the Orphan, with a party of five stokers, was sent up behind the Mess to deepen a shallow gutter-way between it and the road, to prevent rain washing off the road on to the top of the dormitory and that new tarpaulin which the Sub had stolen.
He met the Sub coming back from his night's work on the beach, wet through and very fagged. "I got some of those lighters off, but there's another week's work down there at that job," he said.