I asked them to say good night to the youth “Razzy” for me, and to thank him for his comforting ministration, then bade them farewell and moved off.
I blundered along the sloppy, unpaved footway, peering tensely into the uncanny blackness about me, and hurried uneasily in the direction of a patch of faint pale blotches that I hoped and took to be the monuments in the little burying-ground down beyond. I found that my direction was right, and presently I was hurrying past it as fast as I could manage in the wind and darkness. From somewhere behind me—it sounded miles and miles away through the noise of the wind—a faint low moaning sound reached my ear. I stepped forward uneasily, but before I had advanced a yard it had become more prolonged, and growing ever louder and closer until I seemed to feel it coming—coming with tremendous and ever-increasing speed: a horrible, nerve-shattering, deafening, wailing shriek. I stood dazed and paralysed—rooted to the spot. With a scream of hellish intensity—it was all within a second, really—it was on me. There was a flash of blinding light, then everything ended so far as I was concerned.
My next interest in life was a feeling that I had just been hurled up at the moon, over it, and had descended slowly, ever so slowly, like a feather, to earth again. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure that I was not a feather; and I opened my eyes carefully and tried to feel myself. “’Ssh-sh-sh! Don’t disturb yourself—remain quiet and comfy,” said a persuasive voice beside me. I looked around as far as I could move, and knew that I was in a hospital, but where or of what kind I could not think for the moment. I lay awhile gazing blankly and unthinkingly at a low white ceiling above me. Presently I fell to wondering.
ACHI BABA, SEEN FROM ANZAC
(The dug-outs and paths of Anzac are seen in the foreground. Above them on the sky line is the massive Kilid Bahr plateau, the near promontory in the centre is Gaba Tepe, and above is the peak of Achi Baba. The British position at Helles comprised the distant coast up to a point a little astern of the destroyer.)
Drawn by G. T. M. ROACH
RACING BEACHY BILL
Drawn by H. C. WIMBUSH