Abreast the _Achates_, and some half-mile from the beach, was a little green mound, dignified with the name of "Hill 10" on the military map. On the rear slope of this, a field-gun battery had been very active all the afternoon, and presently the Turks thought it about time to put a stop to this. They turned one or two 5.9-inch guns on to Hill 10, and simply plastered it with high-explosive shells, bursting them with their horrid, rending thunder-claps every few seconds among the field-guns and the limbers in rear. For half an hour those field-guns pluckily went on firing, but they did not know where the big shells were coming from--nobody did--so none of the ships could help them, and at length they were compelled to cease fire and the gunners to take shelter.
"What are they? New Army or Territorials?" asked Uncle Podger. None knew; but, whoever they were, they put up a most plucky fight.
By five o'clock the smoke from the bush fires obscured the whole field of battle between Chocolate and Scimitar Hills, and, though the rattle of musketry and machine-guns went on continuously, no more of the fight could be seen from the _Achates_--only the ambulance wagons coming across the Salt Lake, and the stretcher-parties clearing away the wounded yeomanry.
By dusk the flames of these bush fires showed up plainly, and as darkness fell on that fateful day they lighted up the whole plain, Chocolate Hill and Lala Baba standing out black against them. They burnt fiercely, the flames eating their way along the plain, running this way, then that; and on board ship one could only grimly conjecture what was happening to the helpless wounded cut off by them--and keep the horrors of one's thoughts to oneself, if one could.
Fighting went on all that night; and by dawn the attacking divisions had fallen back to their original positions in front of Chocolate Hill, except on the right, where the 11th Division maintained a point some six hundred yards in advance.
From that day no serious attempt was made to advance, and the idea of forcing a way across to the Dardanelles was for all practical purposes abandoned. From now onwards, trench warfare commenced, and continued until the definite abandonment of The Great Adventure.