Everyone knew and felt that every man, every gun, horse or mule, every motor-lorry, every ton of stores and ammunition sent off was so much to the good; and everyone—especially as the day for the final evacuation drew nearer—grew anxious lest the Turks should find out what was happening, and lest the gentle north-east breeze should give place to a south-westerly wind, which would drive seas against the different beaches, and delay—perhaps fatally delay—the final embarkation.
There was always the chance of this, and of the two or three thousand last troops to come marching back from the empty trenches being hotly pressed by the Turks, and of them and the whole of the beach parties finding it impossible to get off. To the Orphan, and to many more; it also seemed so absolutely unbelievable that the Turks could be deceived again; and they thought that they must really know about what was going on, and were only waiting until the trenches were so weakly held that they could make a successful assault, drive all that remained down to the sea, and capture them.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Evacuation of Cape Helles
Friday morning, the 7th January, came, and the Turks had given no sign whatever that they guessed what was going on. Shells burst as usual, and "Cuthbert", the aeroplane, circled overhead, saw what he could, dropped a few bombs on the ridge above "W" beach and near the old River Clyde, and went home again before our own pursuing aeroplanes could catch him.
At two o'clock that afternoon the Turks commenced a fierce bombardment of the whole front-line trenches. The Asiatic guns tried to enfilade them, too, and for nearly three hours every gun they possessed blazed away for all it was worth.
The few guns we had remaining did their utmost to conceal the smallness of their numbers by the rapidity of their fire, though, naturally, everyone imagined that the Turks must realize how few they were.
At five o'clock the Turks evidently intended to storm the front which they had battered so severely, but, except on our extreme left, their men could not be induced to leave their trenches.
But here some five or six hundred did advance, and, unfortunately for them, came in full view of a battleship which had but lately come out from England, fearfully keen to fire her guns, and now happened to be zigzagging along the coast, attracted by the continual roar of the Turkish artillery. Eagerly looking for something to fire at, she saw, all at once, these poor devils of Turks streaming out of their trenches across open ground, and let go salvo after salvo into the middle of them. Not two hundred came anywhere near our thinly held trenches; some twenty reached them, and were promptly bayoneted; perhaps a dozen got back to their own. After this no further attack was made, and all firing died down at dusk.
The "last night but one" commenced.