A new landing, hurrah!  April 25th over again!  The miracle of Helles repeated at Suvla!  Out with the maps to study the strategy of the move!  The map showed us Suvla Bay far up the coast of the Peninsula, a long way behind Achi Baba.  We measured seven miles, and decided that the Turks’ communications with Achi Baba must have been cut.  “Curse it,” said an enthusiast, “we’re just too late.”  We had visions of the Turkish Army flying from the Helles front in frantic efforts to escape the surrounding threatened by this landing in their rear.  We saw them abandoning their impregnable positions at Achi Baba, abandoning the forts of the Narrows, and retreating, if they could elude destruction, upon Constantinople.

And while the strategists on deck were getting delirious in their prophecies, the ship steered a path round two outlying islets, and entered the deep indentation in Lemnos Island, which is the mighty, hill-locked harbour of Mudros.  A little French destroyer, pearl-grey in the evening light, steamed past us, and the French sailors waved their arms, and danced a welcome to this troopship of their allies.  The Rangoon yelled at them:  “What price Suvla?” Some English sailors, towed past in coal barges, asked us whether we were downhearted, and we called back:  “NO!  What—­price—­SUVLA!  Are we going to win?  YES!”

Now, I ask you, have the subalterns an excuse, or have they not, for a rough-house this night?  It’s their last night aboard, for to-morrow morning the smaller boats will come and carry them to the deadly Peninsula:  and it’s the evening that has brought the news of the Suvla landing.  Excuse or not, they fetch the money out of their pockets at dinner, and order the champagne before the soup is off the table.  Jimmy Doon, whipping the golden cap off his magnum of “bubbly wine,” says:  “I’ve the horrible feeling I shall be dead this time to-morrow.  Pass your glasses, damn you.  Cheerioh!  Many ’appy returns from the Great War—­some day.”  “Cheerioh, Jimmy,” we acknowledge. “’Appy days!”

And, when the hundred subalterns, who form the first sitting at dinner, vacate their places at the tables to make room for the seniors, who come in state to the second sitting, anyone who sees them rushing upstairs to the lounge, the bar, and the piano, knows that there will be noise before the clock is an hour older.  It begins in the lounge:  but the impulse of the spirit of riot is too strong for the rough-house to be localised there.  It’s the end of the voyage, and they must forthwith go and cheer the General.  They must cheer the Captain.  Above all they must cheer Major Hardy, the old sport!  The mass of subalterns flows down the first flight of stairs to the square gallery which overlooks the dining saloon, like railings looking down into a bear-pit.  And, like the bears, the seniors were feeding in the bottom of the saloon.  They look up from their nuts and wine to see a hundred flushed young faces staring from the gallery at their meal.