The Orphan climbed up the destroyer's side, and found her deck crammed with soldiers. He pushed his way up to the fore bridge, and heard her Captain yelling down to the men on the "Outer Hulk": "Get some more fenders along. Slack off that hawser." He was told that "If you don't 'get out of it' in a 'brace of shakes' you'll get a sea-passage, for nothing. I'm just going to shove off out of it. I can't take another soldier, and I'll stove my side in if I stay here much longer."
The Orphan went back to the steamboat, across to the pier, and reported that the destroyer was just shoving off.
"I can see that for myself," grumbled the Pier-master, as a flash from the monitor's gun suddenly showed the destroyer backing out.
This same flash also showed a heavily-laden lighter being warped off from No. 4 Pier, so the Orphan knew that the Sub had managed to start his journey with those last guns.
Then two teams of horses came jangling down to the pier unexpectedly, and the irritated Pier-master sent Bubbles to try and find a horse-boat or lighter alongside the "Inner Hulk". He came back with one; was nearly run down by another destroyer; got it alongside. Those twelve horses walked down into it as if they knew all about the business, and the very last horse to be taken off from "W" beach was towed away into the darkness.
Captain Macfarlane came down and told them that he had received a telephone message from Headquarters Office that the trenches had been finally evacuated, and the covering brigades withdrawn. "Everything IS absolutely quiet up there," he said.
The Orphan and Bubbles were greatly excited at that news. They tried to picture these last troops stealthily creeping out of their long line of trenches—extending from Ghurka Bluff and the Nullah, across the plain in front of Krithia, along the lower slopes of Achi Baba, and across and along the ravines past Sedd-el-Bahr—coming down the communication trenches, treading softly, and not making a sound, expecting all the time that Turkish patrols would give the alarm, and that the Turks would only be waiting for that moment to light the plain with star shells and rush down on them.
"We should hear the mines blow up, anyway," the Orphan said, as both snotties stood and listened, hearing nothing but the howling of the wind and the lapping of the waves, and the bumping of the picket-boat against the pier.
"It must be exciting for them," Bubbles said, bubbling with excitement.
After having secured several empty motor-lighters alongside, in readiness to embark the last troops, there was nothing to do.