We knew they were coming, and joked about it.

“It’s getting distinctly interesting, Captain Ray,” said Doe, as we sat drinking tea in Monty’s dug-out in the Eski Line.  “I say, give me a decent funeral, won’t you?”

“We shan’t bury you,” answered Monty unpleasantly.  “We shall put you on the incinerator.”

“If the worst comes to the worst, I shall swim for it,” said I, always conceited on this point.  “It’ll only be a few miles easy going, in this gorgeous December weather, from Gully Beach to Imbros.”

“But, au serieux,” continued the picturesque Doe, “do you realise that this is December, 1915, and we shall probably never see the year of grace 1916?  Damned funny, Captain Ray, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be so romantic and treacly,” retorted Monty.  “You’ll do nothing heroic.  You’ll just march down to W Beach and get on a boat and sail away.  There’s going to be some sort of evacuation, I’m sure.  They’ve cleared the hospitals at Alexandria and Malta, and ordered every hospital ship in the world to lie off the Peninsula empty.  They are prepared for twenty thousand casualties.”

“Yes,” agreed I, “and, as there are no reinforcements, it can’t mean a big advance, so it must mean a big retreat.  There’s nothing to bellyache about.  We’re going to evacuate, praise be to Allah!”

“Oh, try not to be foolish, Captain Ray,” returned Doe impatiently.  “Have you been so long on this cursed Peninsula without knowing that we couldn’t evacuate Suvla without being seen from Sari Bair, nor Helles without being seen from Achi Baba?  And, directly the jolly old Turk saw us quitting, he, and the whole German army, and Ludendorff, would stream down and massacre us as we ran.  We’d want every man for a rearguard action to hold them off.  The bally thing’s impossible.”

“Well, we did the impossible in getting on to the Peninsula,” put in Monty, “and we shall probably do the impossible in getting off.  Besides, not even Turks can see at night.”

“That’s all very fine,” rejoined the lively youth.  “But the impossible landing was done by the grandest Division in history, when they were up to full strength.  Now our divisions are jaded and done for.  Besides, only one army could get away.  Even if the Suvla crowd did effect a surprise escape, the Turk would see to it that the Helles mob didn’t repeat the performance.  Our Staff would have to sacrifice one army for the other.  And, as the Suvla army is bigger than ours, they’d sacrifice us for a certainty.  So cheer up, and don’t be so damned miserable.”

“Oh, well,” said Monty, refilling Doe’s cup.  “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.”

Doe lifted up the mug to toast his host.

“Morituri te salutamus,” he said, and out of his abounding spirits began to sing: 

“The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear,
The Germans are coming, oh can’t you hear?”