There was no moon, but the stars were bright, and it was not too dark to see the cliffs that seemed to rise abruptly out of the sea, about half a mile away to the eastward.  They, like the ships, were dark and silent.

Without one unnecessary word, the troops dropped quietly down the ladder into the waiting boats, and presently were being pulled rapidly inshore.  Boat after boat came stealing out of the gloom, all loaded down to the gunwales with fighting men, yet all moving with a silence that was positively uncanny.  The oars were carefully muffled and no one spoke aloud.

Dave sat next to Ken, but Horan was not with them.  He had been ordered into another boat with his company.

Dave put his mouth close to Ken’s ear.

‘Don’t believe there’s a Turk in the country,’ he muttered.  ’Looks to me as peaceful as a picnic’

‘Looks are precious deceitful sometimes,’ Ken whispered back.  ’For all you or I know, that brush is stiff with the enemy.’

‘Then why don’t they fire at us?’

’A fat lot of good that would be in this light.  No, Dave, they know their job as well as we do, and perhaps better.  I shall be pleasantly surprised if we’re allowed to land without opposition.’

But the boat neared the shore, and still there was no sign from those silent cliffs and thickets.  As soon as her bow grated on the shingle, the men were out of her, wading knee deep to the shore.  They were as eager as terriers.  The only anxiety of their officers was lest they should get out of hand and start before the order to advance was given.

Boat after boat glided up, and men by scores formed up at high tide mark.

’Told you we’d fooled ’em,’ whispered Dave.  ‘This is going to be one o’ your bloodless victories.’

The words were hardly out of his mouth before there was a loud hissing sound, and right out of the centre of the precipitous slope facing them something like a gigantic rocket shot high into the air and burst into a brilliant white flame.

It lit up the whole beach like day, throwing up the long lines of troops in brilliant relief.  Next instant there was a crash of musketry, and rifles spat fire and lead from a long semicircle behind the spot from which the star shell had risen.

The man next but one to Ken threw up his arms and dropped without a sound.  A score of others fell.

‘Gee, but you were right, Ken!’ muttered Dave.  ‘Fix bayonets!’ Colonel Conway’s voice rang like a trumpet above the crackle of the firing.

Instantly came the clang of steel as the bayonets slipped into their sockets.  Men were falling fast, but the rest stood straining forward like greyhounds on a leash.

’Not a shot, mind you.  Give ’em the steel.  At the double.  Advance!’

Almost before the words were out of his mouth the whole line rushed forward.  A second star shell hissed skywards, but before it broke the men had reached the base of the cliff.  Its white glare showed the long-legged athletes from the sheep ranges and cattle runs sprinting up the steep hill-side.