It is difficult for a youngster to take comfort from such a fatalistic conviction; but by the end of the week the Orphan was able to tell Bubbles that he had not "ducked" once during the last twenty-four hours. "That shows I'm not such a duffer, doesn't it, old chap?" he said proudly.
During those first few days a good deal of mysterious landing and embarking of troops went on, which nobody seemed able to explain—though, as far as anyone in the Naval Mess knew, many more were coming than going. Also, it became known that the new-comers were taking over—gradually—the French section of the line, and that French troops and guns embarked every night. The Turks naturally knew that our men were occupying the French trenches immediately opposite them, so that there was no need for secrecy, and many of the French guns were towed away from "V" beach in broad daylight. A tug would take away a heavily loaded lighter at the end of a very long tow-rope, and "Asiatic Annie" and her sisters often made "towing-target" practice at this lighter and its guns—though without ever hitting them.
The Orphan himself never went to "V" beach, but Bubbles often did so, and found quite a good harbour there, made by a big Messageries Maritimes steamer sunk this side of the River Clyde (apparently none the worse for her seven months of being shelled), and an obsolete old French battleship hulk—the Massena—sunk almost to close the gap between them. Whenever the French happened to have a slack night, most of the British nightly reinforcements (from the 9th Corps, which had been at Suvla) landed there.
Christmas Day arrived, and the Turks greeted it with a more than usually heavy shelling of both beaches, the Sappers' and Ordnance Store Depots suffering considerably. This, and an extra good dinner that night—when Richards produced two turkeys, obtained from one of the Greek islands, and several officers contributed Christmas puddings and mince-pies, sent from home by the Christmas mail—marked the day. Otherwise all work went on as usual.
Every now and again the French battleship Suffren came along up the Straits, with her protecting destroyers and trawlers and her "spotting" aeroplane, and bombarded the Asiatic guns for a couple of hours or so. At other times a British battleship repeated the performance with even greater zest; but though those annoying guns remained quiet whilst they were being bombarded, they always opened a very vigorous fire on the beaches directly the battleships had left.
On the other side of the Peninsula, round the "left flank" coast, assisting destroyers very frequently harassed the Turkish trenches on the Achi Baba right flank, and a big monitor almost daily bombarded Achi Baba or Chanak Fort with her big 14-inch guns.
Everything went on as usual, and as though we intended to hold the end of the Peninsula for ever.
Everyone in the Naval Mess was far too busy embarking and disembarking troops and stores by night, preparing for the winter, strengthening their "dug-outs", repairing piers, and patching damaged boats by day, to know exactly what was happening up in the front-line trenches. Intermittent artillery duels, at all hours of every day, went on in the usual manner, and without any apparent especial military object. At night, when working on the piers, they often heard furious bursts of rifle and machine-gun firing, sometimes the bursting of trench bombs; at times field-guns also used to "chip in" at night; but everyone had become so accustomed to all this that no one paid any attention to it or remarked about it.
Shells fell on the beaches and above them just as usual; 6-inch high explosives came from the Asiatic side—two or three an hour—from daylight until two o'clock next morning, at which time the Turkish gunners "packed up". During the men's "stand easy", in the middle of the day, perhaps twenty would come along; and again, at nine o'clock at night, they would start fairly brisk firing for three-quarters of an hour.
The Naval Camp, lying as it did just below the R.E. "Park", and not far from the Ordnance Stores—both favourite targets of "Asiatic Annie "—received a good many of her misses, and most of the "shorts" fell on the beach itself. By this time the men working within this shell area had become so accustomed and hardened to these intermittent noises of shells shrieking towards them and bursting, that work was seldom interrupted. At night, sentries along the beach would watch for the glare made by the flash of the Asiatic howitzers, and would call out "Take cover!" Eighteen seconds afterwards the shell, if fired at "V" beach, would burst there; but if fired at "W" beach twenty seconds elapsed, after the warning shout, before the shell could be heard rushing through the night air with a rapidly increasing "swishing" noise. In twenty-five seconds it arrived, burst with a very vivid flash and that nerve-shaking, rending roar, and did whatever damage it had found to do.