Chapter XXI The Evacuation of Suvla Bay
In a little wooden hut, perched on a mound just above the landing-places at Kephalo, lived two naval Captains—the Fierce One and the Not So Fierce One.
Bubbles, the Orphan, and eight other snotties, with their picket-boats, found themselves handed over to the anything but tender mercies of the Fierce One; and the morning after Rawlins and the Lamp-post had raced their “water-beetles” (or thought they had raced them) across to Suvla, these ten gathered, expectantly, outside this wooden hut, and waited whilst the Captains finished their breakfast and smoked their pipes.
All these ten midshipmen were dressed in some sort of khaki except the two Lord Nelsons, who wore ordinary blue uniform, and grinned and nudged each other as though they shared some secret joke which they couldn’t possibly divulge.
Presently the Fierce One came out, and they all stiffened to attention. He gave a preliminary roar—just to clear his throat and make way for what was coming—rapidly casting his eye over them. “Who’s the senior snotty here? Why the—the—the—don’t you report to me?”
The ten had never thought of that. They muttered, and looked at each other, and at last the very microscopic Lord Nelson’s midshipman (known generally as the Cheese-mite) nervously reported: “All midshipmen present, sir.”
“What’s your name?” he growled.
“The Cheese-m—— Morrison, I mean, sir.”
“Morrison be hanged! I don’t care a tuppenny biscuit what you were christened. What’s your boat?”
“Lord Nelson’s first picket-boat, sir.”
“Um! Lord Nelson No. 1. That’s your name. What in the name of goodness d’you mean by it? This isn’t a fancy-dress ball; what are all these individuals doing, coming along here like a lot of dysenteric soldiers?” and he shook his fist at the eight disconcerted midshipmen in khaki. “If I see ’em dressed again except in uniform, I’ll—I’ll—wring their necks!”
Then he went from one to the other, to learn the names of their steamboats, glaring at each, and “sizing” them up as he did so.
Bubbles became Majestic, the Orphan Swiftsure. This having been concluded, he went through them again to make certain that he knew their boats, and from that moment never made a mistake.
“Lord Nelson No. 1 and No. 2, Swiftsure, and Majestic fall in on the right—make a gap between you and the others. You four will work at Suvla—the other six at Anzac. You’ll all get more orders presently, but remember this. Your job is to take off stragglers on Saturday and Sunday nights—those are the two nights of the evacuation. You’ll have some pulling boats in tow, and you are not to leave behind a single man who gets down to the shore. Remember that. Saturday night ought not to be difficult; but on Sunday night, when the last few men rush down with the Turks after ’em, you’ll have your work cut out. You’ll have to ’wash out’ any idea of bullets and nonsense like that, and if any one of you doesn’t do his job, I’ll—I’ll—wring his neck! Oh!” he roared, “you’ll wish you’d never met me.”
A good many of the young officers had begun to wish that already.
He went on: “The boats you’ll have to tow will come round in a day or two—those that aren’t here now; and here’s a list of things to be done, one for each of you. Away you go!”
He handed them each a paper, and stalked back to the wooden hut, but turned and growled fiercely: “Remember this: every man Jack who is on the Peninsula now is useless to England; every man who gets away is one to the good. Remember that, and do your job, or by the—the—the—I’ll wring your necks! Off you go, and don’t let me see any more of you in those dirty ragamuffin clothes of yours.”
They made their way down to the little piers and the wrecked boats which still littered the shore.
“You are a rotter, Cheese-mite. You might have told us. You knew it all the time,” they said. “We thought we must come in khaki.”
“I couldn’t tell that you were coming like that, and it was a jolly sight too late for you to go back and shift,” the Cheese-mite explained.
“My aunt!” the Orphan said to Bubbles as he read his paper; “wooden boards to be fitted inside the glass windows of cabins. Whatever’s that for?”
“Splinters, I expect. When we’re chock-full of Tommies, some will have to crowd below, and a bullet coming in and smashing the glass would fling the bits all round.”
“They don’t expect us to have a warm time—do they?”
“Not half!” Bubbles grinned.
They soon stowed away their khaki and shifted into blue uniform, and for the next two days fitted out their boats with maxims, two boxes of belts, towing-spans8 over the sterns (as on the occasion of the first landing), fitting shields round the steering-wheels of those boats which had none, making screens for hand-lanterns, testing their steam-pumps, and seeing that the thirty or forty items down on their “lists” were on board.
On the Thursday morning the Fierce One came out in his fussy little “Z” motor-boat, and all the ten picket-boats followed him, making a circle round him whilst he inspected them.
The maxims—he could see them; anchors—he could see them too; but when he shouted through his megaphone “Screened lanterns!” every snotty had to hold up his lantern with one hand and the canvas screen in the other. The same with the semaphore flags, boats’ signal-books, axes, compass-boxes, and ammunition-boxes.
“Work your pumps!” he roared; and after a furious interval all ten picket-boats began squirting jets of water.
Then he bellowed “Megaphones!” and all held up their megaphones except the Cheese-mite.
He dashed alongside Lord Nelson No. 1, and seized the Cheese-mite by his coat collar.
“Where’s your megaphone? you—you—you——”
“Please, sir, I had it this morning; but when that destroyer went past just now the picket-boat rolled, and it went overboard.”
“I’ll roll you overboard,” he growled, holding up the Cheese-mite as though he were a kitten. “You’ll get another before night, or I’ll—I’ll——”
“Knives!” he shouted.
Now nearly all the snotties had taken for granted that every man aboard would have one. But only a few had them, and the Fierce One flew in a towering rage.
Eventually he took all the picket-boats outside the submarine net to make certain that those maxims would fire; and it can be easily imagined what happened when ten strange maxims were worked by ten not very experienced “hands”, in ten bobbing picket-boats, under the supervision of ten much less experienced snotties.
A bullet hit the gunwale not two feet from where the Orphan stood, and goodness only knows why there were no casualties. Little, though, cared the Fierce One, so long as he made certain that every machine-gun was in working order.
That day they practised towing their pulling-boats—four to each of the Suvla boats, three to each of the Anzac ones.
A very busy day they had, for in the evening a transport came into harbour loaded with mules from Suvla, and tried the simple plan of slinging them overboard and letting them swim to the shore.
The Orphan and Bubbles were sent away in pulling-cutters to shepherd them in the right direction, and had the time of their lives chasing silly, obstinate mules who wanted to swim out to sea. Eventually they headed them off, and they made a “bee-line” for a battleship, lying with her torpedo-nets “out”. It was the funniest sight in the world to see half a dozen mules with their heads looking over the edge of the torpedo-nets, “digging out for daylight”, and really quite happy. After a lot of shouting and laughing they were all induced to swim shorewards, and soon scrambled on the beach, shaking themselves like big dogs, rolling in the sand, and looking for the nearest eating-place.
During these few days the ten midshipmen heard hundreds of yarns about the preparations for evacuation—how the front trenches had been mined, and many of the reserve and communicating trenches as well; that the only guns to be left behind, if all went well, were a few condemned 18-pounders and 6-inch howitzers. To deceive the Turks on the Sunday night, many rifles were being fixed up in the front trenches with tins lashed to their triggers, and, above these empty tins, others with a hole in the bottom of each. When the last of the troops left the firing-trenches, they would load the rifles, fill the top tins full of water; the water would drip slowly or fast—according to the size of the holes—into the other tins fixed to the triggers, and when these became full, off would go the rifles—at different times. The few motor-lorries and ambulances still remaining kept dashing about in full view of the Turks, to make them think that they were just as numerous as ever; and the few troops in reserve, instead of hiding behind Lala Baba or Chocolate Hill, made themselves more conspicuous in the open.
You can understand, as the week went by and that fateful Saturday approached, how tense the excitement grew, and how eagerly everyone watched the barometer and the sky for any change from the gorgeous calm days which succeeded each other. Such a spell of fine weather could not possibly last much longer, and the fate of perhaps fifty thousand men depended much upon it lasting until early Monday morning.
The Turks had not yet given any sign that they realized what had been happening or what was about to happen. They still shelled the ships, the beaches, the old empty gun positions just as they used to do, and generally at the same old times; but no one, knowing the ease with which they had previously seemed able to obtain information of our doings, thought it possible that they could actually still be in ignorance.
In the middle watch, on Friday night, a huge fire broke out at Anzac. Actually some of the most inflammatory stores prepared for burning on the Sunday night had been set alight accidentally, and made a tremendous blaze.
On board the Achates Mr. Meredith, whose watch it was, stood, with the Quartermaster, watching the glare—ten miles away across the sea—and knew that something had gone wrong.
“That will give the show away,” the Quartermaster muttered sadly.
“I’m afraid it will,” Mr. Meredith answered, desperately anxious.
That fire burnt all night, but in the morning the Turks never showed the least sign of activity beyond the usual normal sniping and shelling.
Saturday dawned absolutely calm—a few flaky, almost stationary clouds showed against the blue sky.
“Can it hold until Monday morning?”—that was what everyone thought and hoped and prayed.
Again the ten midshipmen “fell in” outside the little wooden hut—this time all in their proper blue uniform—and received their orders in writing, each order beginning with the well-known formula: “Being in all respects ready for sea, you will proceed forthwith...” Then followed long detailed orders for every eventuality.
Drawing two days’ provisions for his own crew and the twenty-four men in his four pulling-boats occupied the rest of the Orphan’s morning.
At half-past four he shoved off from the Achates—the Hun, looking wistfully after him, waved “good luck”—and he towed his four boats to the trawler told off to tow him to Suvla. Bubbles, coming along with his boats, made fast to another. Before dusk all the trawlers left Kephalo, each with its picket-boat and string of pulling-boats behind it; four headed for Suvla, and the other six towards Anzac.
The sea was calm, and the sky gave not the slightest indication of any change in the weather, so that the Orphan and his coxswain—a wiry, active petty officer named Marchant, belonging to the Swiftsure—were in the highest spirits.
“If it only keeps like this, sir!” the coxswain kept on saying.
Before it grew too dark to see properly, they both inspected all the boat’s gear to make certain that nothing was out of its place. Down in the cabin the Orphan found some green leaves—cabbage leaves.
“Heave them overboard,” he said. “Whatever are they doing down here?”
“I thought they were for you, sir. An old stoker brought ’em down; told me to hand ’em over to you, very carefully, and he brought this box too.” He picked up a small wooden box about a foot square, with a lot of holes bored in the top and the sides; and the Orphan burst out laughing, for he knew he would find “Kaiser Bill” inside it.
“That’s ‘Kaiser Bill’,” he said, as he raised the lid and saw the tortoise lying there. “He brings good luck. He came in our boat when the Lancashire Fusiliers landed, so I suppose old Fletcher thinks he ought to take a hand in this job as well—the funny old man!”
“He’s a rum-looking beast for a mascot, isn’t he!” Marchant grinned, holding up “Kaiser Bill” with his legs sprawling beneath his shell, and his head peeping slyly out as though he knew all about everything.
The Orphan put him and his box down below the water-line, where no bullets could reach him.
A nearly full moon rose and gave sufficient light to avoid any other craft on their way across, and in a little over an hour and a half they had almost reached the nets outside Suvla.
The Orphan slipped his tow-rope, and so did Bubbles, and both of them steamed round to a little pier which had been constructed on the north side of Suvla Point—a pier called Saunders Pier.
They reported themselves to the naval Pier-master; and the Orphan, leaving his two big boats—a launch and pinnace—alongside this pier, towed the other two—two cutters—along the left-flank coast, and anchored them close inshore. Their crews knew the countersign and password, and if any men hailed them properly from shore, they were ordered to pull in and take them off.
For the next three hours the Orphan was employed taking off officers and their baggage from “‘A’ West”, going in through the gap between the sunken Fieramosca and Pina, and steaming out again, dodging empty motor-lighters being warped in through the gap, and full motor-lighters being warped out. He took them to the Redbreast, lying out near the nets, and then returned to Saunders Pier and found his two big boats loaded with rifles and baggage of all sorts.
These he towed off to two trawlers anchored close by, waited for them to be emptied, and brought them back again to Saunders Pier. After that he lay off the pier for nearly an hour, and had some food and a smoke. The men boiled some water and made cocoa over a bogey, and he had a jolly, happy, exciting time yarning with Marchant, and listening to occasional rifle-shots which came from farther away towards the left flank—Jephson’s Post way. Bubbles came back from patrolling the coast, and lay alongside him. “It’s all quiet there along the coast, just a rifle-shot every now and then; no one along the beach. Isn’t it a perfect night?”
It was actually the most perfect night imaginable; hardly a breath of wind, hardly a ripple on the water, and the moon lighted up the cliffs and Suvla Point as distinctly as in day-time. Hardly a sound reached them, and the rocks of Suvla Point prevented them seeing anything going on inside the bay. It was all as peaceful as a picnic.
But about half-past one those two trawlers, to which the Orphan had taken his boats with the baggage, went aground; and the Orphan was sent round to “‘A’ West”, inside the bay, to bring out the Senior Beach-master. For nearly four hours he worked, laying out anchors and taking wires across to a big tug.
Some time after six o’clock, just before the moon actually disappeared, and before the two trawlers floated off, he had to go along the coast, pick up his two cutters—they had seen or heard nothing—then pick up the big launch and pinnace, and tow them back to Kephalo. It was only when he went back to Saunders Pier for those two big boats that the Orphan heard that everything had “gone off” without a single hitch, and without the Turks having shown the least sign that their suspicions had been aroused.
Hearing this, you can imagine how joyfully he and Marchant, the coxswain, started on their twelve-mile journey back to Kephalo. Those tows of boats must be away, out of sight, before daylight; so they put their “best leg foremost”, and steamed in through the harbour just after seven o’clock, finding a large captured German steamer anchored there, and simply packed with troops from Suvla.
Most of the other ten picket-boats had arrived back previously, because the night’s job at Anzac had been successfully completed by half-past one in the morning, and the six boats on duty there had started back not very long afterwards.
The excitement and the enthusiasm of everyone, due to the successful accomplishment of the first night’s work, kept the midshipmen awake. Most of the picket-boats gathered close together under the lee of the sunken Oruba. The crews cooked their breakfasts, ate them—jolly good rations of army bacon, any amount of bread and jam—yarned, and laughed, and smoked. They fetched “Kaiser Bill” out of his box and tempted him with a cabbage leaf, but he turned up his nose at it. Then Bubbles and the Orphan went alongside the Achates to coal and water; rushed inboard to get a wash and a bit more breakfast, to tell everyone down in the gun-room—the Hun, the China Doll, Uncle Podger, and the Pimple—everything that had happened, and go back to their boats again.
“You didn’t mind me sending you ‘Kaiser Bill’?” Fletcher, waiting outside the gun-room, asked the Orphan.
“Rather not; it was jolly good of you to lend him to us. He brought us good luck the first night, at any rate.”
“I’m sure he’ll bring you luck to-night as well, sir.”
Precious little “stand easy” did the Orphan and his crew get that day. The Swiftsure’s picket-boat was about the best-steaming boat of the ten, and the Fierce One used her all day, going about the harbour and supervising everything that went on. He and his crew managed to get a meal in the middle of the day, and then were employed disembarking and clearing the transport of all the troops she had brought across the previous night.
At half-past four on that Sunday afternoon, the 19th December, all ten picket-boats, towed by as many trawlers, and their pulling-boats behind them, started off again for Anzac and Suvla.
The weather showed not a sign of changing, and before they reached Suvla the darkness disappeared under a moon almost more perfect than the night before. It really was more perfect, because a few thin clouds floated slowly across it; and though they hardly lessened the light it gave, they prevented shadows.
When they neared Suvla the picket-boat slipped, and did just as she had done the night before: anchored her two cutters along the cliffs beyond Suvla Point, and left the two big boats alongside Saunders Pier. The Orphan then patrolled very slowly along the coast, but everything was quiet except for a very few solitary rifle-shots; and these, he thought, were probably the rifles with the tin cans tied to their triggers going “off” when their tins filled. No stragglers showed on top of the cliffs nor down on the beach, and it was almost impossible to realize that up above him the trenches were being silently evacuated, and that the soldiers had already commenced, sections at a time, to file down that sandy, steep path which he and the Lamp-post had followed, on their way back from the Naval Observation Post, that ripping afternoon in September.
At about ten o’clock Bubbles, almost incoherent with excitement, came along in the old Majestic’s picket-boat and relieved him.
“You have to go back to Saunders Pier,” he stuttered and burbled, “and take back your cutters. I’ve to do a bit of patrolling.”
The Orphan, picking up his anchored cutters and their crews, towed them to this pier, found his two big boats already crowded with troops, and took them off to two trawlers lying outside (those two which had run aground the previous night had been refloated shortly after daylight). For the next three hours he went backwards and forwards between trawlers and pier, and then, leaving his boats for Bubbles to carry on the good work, was ordered round to “‘A’ West”, inside the Bay. On the way, he and the coxswain and the crew had some food—bread and meat sandwiches, water to wash them down. No food could be cooked and no cocoa made this night, because strict orders had been given that not a light had to be shown—not even the cooking bogey could be lighted.
Here, at “‘A’ West”, he was in the thick of everything, jostling and nosing his way in and out among the picket-boats and motor-lighters struggling to get in or out by that gap between the Fieramosca and the Pina.
On the pier they told him that everything was “going all right”, and that the Turks showed no signs of leaving their trenches. The excitement as boatloads of men, horses, and stores went off to the ships, and as he helped with officers and their baggage, kept him oblivious of time or fatigue.
By four o’clock that morning the evacuation had been successfully accomplished. He happened to have gone to the Beach-master’s office at about that time with a message. As he entered, the Beach-master put down his telephone and smiled grimly to a military officer there. “They’ve just telephoned from ‘C’ beach to say they are finished, and the naval beach-party is now embarking. Not a soldier left behind.”
“I expected to be on my way to Constantinople by this time—a prisoner,” the weary officer replied.
“It’s about time we packed up too. There’s only a little more big baggage, and perhaps a hundred and fifty men of the beach parties, military landing-officers, and your people to go off from here, and that finishes the bag of tricks. Haven’t we pulled their legs? Listen! they’re sniping just as usual, up there. I’m just going round to get those stores properly started burning, and then pack up. I’m really sorry to leave, for some reasons,” he said, glancing round his tiny little office “dug-out”, with the bare rock on one side and the sand-bag walls.
He sent the Orphan, with one of the Pier-masters, to make a last search of the left flank. Off they went, rounded Suvla Point, and worked slowly along under the foot of the cliffs again, the Pier-master hailing the shore occasionally through a megaphone. Not a sound came back, except the echo from the face of the cliffs. They went some two miles along the coast, turned, and steamed back quickly, because they saw the glare of the burning fires, and thought that now, at any rate, the Turks would realize what had happened, and would come tearing down. Suvla Point and Saunders Pier were lighted up by the crackling, leaping flames, and in his four boats, still lying alongside the pier, the last of the people to leave Suvla had crowded. Four or five army officers came across to the less crowded picket-boat, and then, with an extraordinary feeling of exhilaration, he towed them off to the waiting trawlers, and stood off whilst those last people crowded into them.
This accomplished, he received orders to anchor his boats, and, with that same Pier-master, to make another last search along the cliffs on the left flank.
Away he went, and perhaps not more than half a mile—certainly not a mile—from the end of Suvla Point they saw a small group of dark figures on top of the cliffs. The Pier-master, a lusty naval lieutenant, hailed them through his megaphone; and a voice shouted back: “We’re English! We’re English!”
“That’s funny,” said the Pier-master. “Edge in a little closer; get your maxim ready.”
The coxswain steered in towards the shore, and again the Pier-master hailed, and again a single voice called back: “We’re English! We’re English!”
“Well, if they were English, they would all shout,” he said. “Keep her out! They are Turks, those chaps; probably a patrol which has pushed along the edge of the cliffs and does not know what to make of things. They would make a ‘hullabaloo’, right enough, if they were our chaps left behind.”
The picket-boat steamed along under the cliffs, hailing every now and then, until they had passed the place where the left-flank trenches, coming down from Jephson’s Post, touched the shore. Not a man could be seen, nor did any answer come back in response to the hails through the megaphone.
“That’s finish!” the Pier-master told the Orphan. “Turn her round.” Over went the wheel, round twisted the picket-boat, back she steamed to where the four boats lay, out beyond Suvla Point; and although the moon had disappeared by this time, there was not the slightest difficulty in finding them, for the whole water reflected the flames of the burning stores, and the boats and the men’s faces showed up plainly.
The picket-boat took them in tow, and commenced to steam across to Kephalo. Behind her the flames leapt fiercely along the sweep of the bay, and every now and again explosions took place, hurling masses of flame and sparks high in the air. Silhouetted black against these fires was the Cornwallis battleship, left behind to keep the fires burning with her shells—if necessary—and to destroy in the morning the few wooden lighters which had been left behind.
Down along the coast at Anzac the sea was ruddy with the huge fires burning there.
“Well, if they’ve only been as successful down there, it’s been a mighty good show,” the Pier-master said as they watched them. “We’ve only left four condemned guns—blown them up, too—and not a single man, horse, or mule; and we’ve even taken off the goats belonging to the Indian Transport Column. My hat! it’s simply wonderful; I’m going to coil up and do a little ‘shut eye’ down in the cabin. I have not slept for nearly four days.”
“‘Kaiser Bill’ is down there. I do believe he has brought luck,” the Orphan burst out; and then had to explain who “Kaiser Bill” was.
The coxswain, sweeping his hand astern towards Anafarta, called down: “Look, sir, there comes the dawn. We wondered if the weather would hold till Monday, and, thank God! it has.”
The Orphan looked, and, hardly noticeable behind the bright glare of the fires, saw the pale light of dawn behind the Anafarta hills.
There was no longer any need for precautions. The “bogey” on the engine-room casings soon burnt brightly, and soon he and Marchant were sharing a big bowl of cocoa, and ravenously eating some more clumsy sandwiches which the men cut for them. Neither of them as yet felt sleepy, because the excitement of success kept them wide awake, though neither had slept for two whole days and nights.
By seven-thirty it became light enough for them to see, ahead of them, on their way from Suvla or Anzac, ten or twelve “water-beetles”, a dozen or more trawlers, with long strings of transports’ boats, pontoons, and lighters towing behind them; some twenty steamboats, also with their “tows”, and several small tugs. The Suvla distilling steamer—the Bacchus—which for four months had been constantly shelled, was steaming on her way to Mudros; and patrolling destroyers, trawlers, and drifters swept the sea just as they always had done, and just as though nothing had happened.
Boom! Boom! came the rumble and thud of the firing of two big guns.
“The Cornwallis, sir, at Suvla,” the coxswain said, turning to look, and making the Orphan turn to watch Turkish shells bursting down by the water’s edge—just as usual. They had commenced their early morning “hate”—on empty beaches.
“By all that is wonderful, sir!” said the coxswain.
At half-past eight the picket-boat entered Kephalo harbour; and the Orphan knew, by the cheering which greeted him from the troops packed together aboard two large transports anchored inside, that the evacuation of Anzac had been completed as successfully as that at Suvla.
He turned over his four boats to a battleship, and threaded his way through the throng of steamboats, trawlers, and motor-lighters which jostled each other in the harbour, eventually reached the shore, and landed to report himself.
He found the Fierce One, who had only just returned from Suvla, and the Not So Fierce One at breakfast in their little wooden hut.
“Hum! You’ve come back, have you?” growled the Fierce One. “A very good two nights’ work; very good, indeed!”
The Not So Fierce One, looking at the Orphan, said: “You look pretty well fagged out; have a cup of tea, or something.”
Notes
8 Towing-span, a rope or wire passing all round a boat under her gunwales, with a hook secured to the bight at the stern. The painter or tow-rope of a boat to be towed is secured to this hook.