So presently he was able to dash down to the gun-room, where Barnes had some cold meat and pickles waiting for him. He had had nothing to eat, except a couple of sandwiches, since the previous night, and the sight of food made him realize that he was ravenously hungry. It was now half-past one. The China Doll—the only one there—lay fast asleep on one of the cushioned benches; and he ate his food in peace, with the burly Barnes waiting on him. He was nearly as hungry for news as he was for food; but the old marine would not talk or tell him anything. "Just you go on with your food; there ain't no time for talking," and he gave him a cup of strong coffee afterwards. "That'll keep you awake," he said, as he cleared away.
The Orphan looked at the China Doll and longed to throw himself down on a cushion and sleep; but heavy firing broke out again, and, too excited to think of doing so, he went up on the quarter-deck to see what was going on.
"Your boat will be ready in half an hour," the officer of the watch told him.
The Cornwallis, Swiftsure, and Albion were now firing at a small knoll which showed up above Cape Helles, the big cliff half-way between "W" beach and Sedd-el-Bahr. This knoll was known as Hill 138, and barbed-wire entanglements round its slopes were plainly visible through the Orphan's telescope.
He asked the Fleet-Paymaster and the Navigator, standing on the quarter-deck and looking through their glasses, what was happening.
"The Turks still hold it," the Navigator said. "Our chaps are preparing to rush it when the ships have finished their bit of work."
"How are they going on down in the River Clyde?" he asked.
"Badly; they've been terribly cut up; haven't landed a man since nine this morning; something went wrong when they tried to get the lighters in position under her bows. Look through your glass! You see those chaps there under the little bank on top of the beach, this side of her; those are all who are left of some six or seven hundred who tried to get ashore early this morning. They can't budge; they have been there all the time. And those are their dead, those brownish lumps scattered along the beach. Those two transports' boats, stranded under Cape Helles, drifted there. Every man aboard them was killed before they got near the shore. They've been drifting about all the morning, and fetched up on the rocks. Look at that splash jumping up close to the River Clyde—that's another 8-inch shell from the Asiatic shore. They hit her three times before she took the ground, but have missed her ever since. Ah! There goes a salvo from the Prince George—she's looking after the Asiatic guns—that'll quiet 'em."
"Any news from the Australians, sir?" the Orphan asked, feeling horribly miserable.
"They and the New Zealanders have done grandly," the Fleet-Paymaster answered cheerily. "Pushed inland a devil of a way. They'll be across the Peninsula in no time—with luck."