Part 13 (1/2)

What woke him at last was a crash which made the solid hill-side quiver, and dwarfed to insignificance anything that he had previously heard.

In a flash he was up and on his feet.

'Go aisy, lad,' said O'Brien, who was standing up, with a pair of gla.s.ses to his eyes and a smile on his lips. Go aisy. 'Tis only Lizzie opening the ball.'

'Lizzie?' muttered Ken, still half dazed with the prodigious explosion.

Again came an enormous roar, followed by a sound like a train rus.h.i.+ng through the sky. Then from a hill to the left and a mile or so inland a geyser of rocks and soil spouted, and was followed by the same earth-shaking crash which had wakened him.

Ken looked out to sea. Some three miles off sh.o.r.e lay the biggest battles.h.i.+p he had ever set eyes on. Even at that distance her immense turrets, with their grinning gun muzzles, were clearly visible.

'The ”Queen Elizabeth!”' he gasped.

'That's what,' said Roy Horan, who had got up and joined Ken. 'They've sent her along to lend us a hand. Oh, I tell you, she's no slouch. Watch her now! Gee, but she's giving Young Turkey something to chew on.'

'Why, there's a regular fleet!' exclaimed Ken, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. 'This is something like. Some of those sniping gentlemen are going to be sorry for themselves.'

No fewer than seven wars.h.i.+ps were lying off the coast, every one of them smas.h.i.+ng their broadsides into the Turkish positions. The noise was incredible, but every sound was dwarfed when the great super-Dreadnought fired her 15-inch guns. The sh.e.l.ls, the length of a tall man and weighing very nearly a ton, were charged with shrapnel, carrying no fewer than twenty thousand bullets apiece. Exploding over the enemy's position, each deluged a couple of acres of ground with a torrent of lead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: '”'Tis only Lizzie opening the ball.”']

It was a most amazing sight. The whole sky was full of the smoke of bursting sh.e.l.ls--smoke so heavy that the light breeze could not break it, as it swam in ma.s.ses that seemed quite solid until they struck against the higher ground far inland.

Hour after hour the tremendous bombardment continued. At first the Turkish field pieces endeavoured to reply, but one by one they were silenced, and when at last, late in the afternoon, the thunder of the guns ceased, the silence was only broken by a faint crackle of musketry.

'Now's our chance!' exclaimed O'Brien, who seemed to have an uncanny faculty for understanding beforehand exactly what was in the colonel's mind.

'A charge, you mean?' said Ken eagerly.

'That's it, sonny. Before they've got over the effects of that swate little pasting.'

Sure enough, a minute later came the order for advance, and, refreshed by their long rest, the Australians and New Zealanders came pouring over their parapet, and with bayonets flas.h.i.+ng in the evening sun, rushed forward through the scrub.

For the first two hundred yards there was hardly a check, then all of a sudden the scattered fire thickened.

'They're in the ravine, bhoys,' shouted O'Brien. 'Don't be waiting to shoot. Give thim the steel.'

The firing grew heavier. Many of the gallant Colonials dropped, but the only effect upon the rest was to make them race forward at greater speed.

Ken saw before him a dark line seamed with spits and flashes of flame. A bullet clipped past his ear so close that he felt the wind of it. He never paused. Next moment he was over the lip of the shallow ravine in which the Turks had entrenched themselves.

On the two previous occasions when he and his comrades had attacked Turkish trenches, the enemy had defended themselves bravely. Now they seemed no longer to have any stomach for the fight. As the Colonials poured like an avalanche into the ravine the Turks turned, and scrambling wildly up the far side, bolted for their lives.

But the Colonials, with the bitter memory in their minds of all they had suffered during the previous night and day, were not minded to let them escape so easily. With loud shouts they gave chase. The Turks, good marchers but poor runners, stood no earthly chance in this terrible race, and by scores and hundreds were bayoneted or seized and dragged back as prisoners.

Filled with mad excitement, Ken raced onwards in the forefront of the line. His bayonet was dripping, a red mist clouded his eyes, for the moment he was fighting mad.

He stumbled over a log and nearly fell. He realised that he was in a small wood of low-growing trees with wide spreading branches. To his right he heard shouts and shrieks and the sound of shots, but for the moment there was not another soul in sight.

His throat was like a lime kiln. He stopped a moment to take a swallow of water from his felt-covered flask, then went forward again.

He came to an open s.p.a.ce, and as he reached its edge saw four men with a quick-firer hurrying frantically across the open to the trees on the far side.