The boat was approaching a rounded headland.  In a second the vision would be before me.  Come now, could I think all these things—­could I realise them, as we entered the bay?  I found not.  Before I had gripped half the thrilling ideas that were the gift of the moment, we were moored against the jetty at W Beach, and I was stepping ashore to take my part in the last chapters of the Gallipoli story.

CHAPTER XI

AN ATMOSPHERE OF SHOCKS AND SUDDEN DEATH

Sec.1

One evening, three days later, I was sitting, inconceivably bored, in my new dug-out on the notorious Fusilier Bluff.  This dug-out was a recess, hewn in damp, crumbling soil, with a frontage built of sand-bags.  Its size was that of an anchorite’s cell, and any abnormal movement or extra loud noise within it brought the stones and earth in showers down the walls.  Indeed, the walls of my new home so far resembled the walls of Jericho that it only required a shout to bring them down upon the floor.  In the sand-bag front were two apertures, called the door and the window, which overlooked the AEgean Sea.  For this reason the name “Seaview” had been painted above the door in lively moments by the preceding tenant, whose grave was visible lower down the Bluff.  I watched the night gathering on the sea, while over my home the whizz-bang gun—­that evil genius of the place, and the murderer of Jimmy Doon—­spat its high-velocity shells.

I was alone.  The C.O. of the East Cheshires, who did not seem to have grasped that Doe and I were friends, had attached me to D Company, which was in reserve on the slopes of Fusilier Bluff, and Doe to B Company, which was holding the fire-trenches.  The man was a fool, of course, but what could a subaltern say to a colonel?  And Monty, too, had gone to live by himself.  Finding that his new parish was extensive and scattered, he had abandoned Fusilier Bluff, and, choosing the most central spot, had built himself a sand-bag hovel somewhere in the Eski Line.  Struth!  Everything was the limit.

I went to bed.  And it was after I was deeply submerged in dreams that I awoke with a start, for someone seemed to be telling me to get up and dress, as there was an alarm afloat.  A voice was saying:  “All the troops have been ordered to stand to, sir.  There’s an attack expected.  The Adjutant sent me to call you.”

“Who are you?”

“Adjutant’s orderly, 10th East Cheshires, sir.”

“Thanks.”  Hurriedly dressing, I went out and found that the Bluff, now white in the moonlight, was lined with men in full equipment.  Orders were being shouted, and telephones were buzzing.

“D Company, fall in.”

“See that there are two men to every machine-gun at once.”

D Company, with myself attached to it, left the Bluff and filed through a communication trench to the firing line.  Here every man was a silent sentry, his bayonet shining in the moonlight.  Doe, whose eyes were bright with excitement, was walking hastily up and down the company front, looking over the parapet, giving orders in a fine whisper, and pretending in a variety of ways that he was uncommonly efficient at this sort of surprise attack.  I touched his sleeve and asked: