By a quarter to four, not a single soldier remained on the Gallipoli Peninsula except a Sapper "demolition" party busy setting fire to the petrol-soaked stores, and waiting to ignite the fuses which should blow up the magazines containing all the ammunition and explosives which had to be abandoned.
By four o'clock these Sappers had come back to the beach and embarked aboard a motor-lighter. The whole circle of the ridge above "W" beach and the slopes of the gully now began to flicker with little flames, and in an incredibly short time the strong wind fanned them until the whole place was a mass of roaring, crackling fire.
Captain Macfarlane, the few of his officers who had not yet gone off, and a few of his men, now collected at the end of No. 3 Pier, alongside which lay two steamboats and that white-painted motor-lighter laden with medical and surgical stores, a few injured men (including two soldiers with sprained ankles—actually the two last men to come down to "W" beach), and some R.A.M.C. orderlies. Bubbles, with his last load of military officers, with "Kaiser Bill" and the two macintoshes, had already gone out to sea, and was steaming across to Kephalo.
Those flames lighted up the whole of "W" beach in the most extraordinary manner, and everything all round was visible—the little group on the pier, the stones on the beach, a white-tilted ambulance wagon with its Red Cross, half-way down the beach, the broad road running up between the huge masses of flame, the white hospital tents, an abandoned motor-lorry with its engines destroyed and its tyres hacked to pieces, the white stones which marked the boundary of the Naval Camp, and even the two "cuttings" which led to the Naval Mess "dug-out". Out by the "hulks" some of those last soldiers could be seen still scrambling aboard the destroyer.
Captain Macfarlane gave the order for the hospital-lighter to shove off, and for everyone to embark, so the Sub, the Orphan, Mr. Armstrong, and many more crowded into one of those steamboats and started away. The time was now about ten minutes past four, and before they had gone a hundred yards the magazine on shore blew up. It contained all the explosives which it had not been possible to take off, and made the most earth-rending, stupendous noise, sending up a huge mass of flame like a volcano, and flaming masses flew gyrating and twisting like huge gigantic Chinese crackers high up into the sky and spreading far and wide in every direction.
"My—blooming—oath—what—price—that—for—fireworks!" drawled Mr. Armstrong.
"Keep down! Keep down!" people shouted, as masses of rock came splashing into the water all round the steamboat, but none hit her; and as she turned round the end of the "Outer Hulk", on the inner side of which the destroyer and several motor-lighters still lay, crowded with troops, and faced the sea, the Orphan saw the other steamboat following, with Captain Macfarlane and the rest of his officers and men, and the white hospital lighter struggling out, with the water splashing up all round her, just as though she were under a heavy fire. A tremendous crackle of musketry broke out from the beach, and for a moment the Orphan thought that the Turks had come down to the ridge at last; but a Sapper officer in the boat told him that this was only the abandoned small-arm ammunition exploding.
Captain Macfarlane, passing them in his steamboat, sent them back to assist the hospital lighter if necessary; but she managed to make her way out safely, so in a few minutes they followed him.
Another destroyer waited for them outside; they saw her, steamed alongside, and climbed aboard with some difficulty owing to the heavy sea. The huge blaze on shore lighted up every face, and the first person the Orphan recognized was Dr. Gordon, the Volunteer Surgeon of the Achates.
"We've just had some pieces of rock fall on board," he said, "but no one is hurt. How about you? They were falling all round your boat."