"What are you doing here, sir?" the Orphan asked.
"They've sent a doctor to every destroyer to-night. Thank God, everyone has got off safely! You go and lie down; you look absolutely 'played out'."
"We got off all the men and the last guns—the very last they intended to take off," the Orphan said. "Isn't that grand?" But he would not go and lie down. He stood watching the flames and the destroyer silhouetted against them, as she backed out to let another take her place and empty the remaining motor-lighters. The motor-lighters came out and headed into the heavy sea; the destroyer backed out and went ahead into safety, and the last that the Orphan saw was a solitary little picket-boat pushing her way in towards No. 3 Pier and the flames, to make a final search for anyone left there, and then coming out again.
It was now about a quarter to five in the morning, and the marvellous evacuation had been successfully completed.
Then the Orphan staggered aft, crawled below, almost fell on to one of the leather cushions down in the ward-room, and went fast asleep.
Dr. Gordon, coming down a few minutes later, found him there, and felt his clothes. They were wet through, so he pulled a couple of blankets off a bunk and covered him up.
By this time there were very few of the beach party or its officers who had not found somewhere to stretch themselves and go to sleep. The strain of those last ten days and nights had been very great—fourteen hours of hard work day and night for most of them; for some a great deal more—and even the Sub, strong as he was, could not have "stood" many more such days and nights without a rest.
But the destroyer they were aboard had not finished her job. She and a cruiser now had to shepherd every tug, motor-lighter, trawler, and steamboat safely on its way across to Kephalo—especially those troublesome motor-lighters, which behaved so badly in a heavy sea. She went up the Straits, past "V" beach, where the fires blazing there showed up the castle walls of Sedd-el-Bahr and the poor old River Clyde; steamed up as far as Morto Bay to see that no craft of any kind had been left behind; and it was not until nearly seven o'clock, and after the Turks had been shelling the beaches for nearly two hours, both from Achi Baba and the Asiatic shore, that she started away for Kephalo. By eight o'clock she ran into that crowded harbour.
The Achates had left for Mudros several days previously, and thither Dr. Gordon, the Sub, Bubbles, the Orphan, and "Kaiser Bill" followed her late that afternoon in the troop-carrier Ermine. As this plucky little steamer passed Cape Tekke and Cape Helles the fires still raged, and a cruiser, a monitor, and two destroyers were bombarding the shore.
When the Orphan looked his last at Gallipoli Peninsula, as the Ermine steamed away to the west, the cliffs of Cape Tekke glowed in the rays of the setting sun, with a great pall of black smoke above them, the masts of the sunken hulks at their feet, our own shells were bursting on the beaches, and a huge splash leapt up under the stern of the cruiser as a shell from "Asiatic Annie" fell into the sea close to her.