By breakfast-time everyone in the gun-room knew that the forts of Smyrna were to be bombarded. The Navigator's "doggy"—the Pimple—came down bursting with this information. "The Navigator says we shall be in range just after dinner. I heard the Captain tell him they had a big fort there with 9- or 10-inch guns, and a mine-field in front of it—any amount of mines."
"We shall get first smack at them, shan't we?" the others said, beaming. "Our Captain is the senior one, isn't he?" and they hurried through breakfast and clattered up on the quarter-deck to have a look at the land.
By this time the ships were well inside the Gulf of Smyrna, steaming along its southern shore. Green olive-clad hills, rising from the sparkling, sunlit sea, sloped upwards until their sides, becoming barren, towered ragged into the cloudless sky. For two hours they steamed along, until, in front of them, the mountain barrier which circled the head of the Gulf, and sheltered the town of Smyrna itself, loomed ahead fourteen miles away.
The three ships were quite close inshore now, and every officer and man who had no special duties was on deck looking ashore, yarning in the glorious warm sunshine, pointing out villages, eagerly scanning every projecting point of land, and wondering whether the Vali of Smyrna knew they were coming and was prepared.
They were not long in doubt. The tall, aristocratic Major of Marines, soaked in Eastern lore by many years spent among Arabs and Sudanese, suddenly spotted a little pillar of grey smoke rising from the shore. He pointed it out, saying it was a signal, and was much chaffed by the other ward-room officers, until even they realized that he was right, when more curled up from projecting points of land as they steamed past. The news of their approach was being passed along to Smyrna.
"Isn't it exciting? I do feel ripping, inside," the Orphan told the Lamp-post as they both watched the shore and the signals. "Isn't it an adventure? my hat!"
"The Greek galleys and the Roman galleys came along just as we are coming," the learned Lamp-post said excitedly. "I bet the poor galley-slaves' backs were tired before they fetched up!"
"It must have been beastly for them not to be able to see where they were going and not to take part in the fighting."
"They didn't want to," the Lamp-post told him. "Let's come for'ard."
So they went along the boat deck, and from there they soon were able to see a little square shape rising out of the water. It was the fort of Yeni Kali, which commanded the approach to the Bay of Smyrna and the town. It was jutting out on low-lying land from the southern shore of the bay, which here made a broad sweep along the foot of some very high hills.