“Here’s the key to yesterday’s riddle,” he explained.

I took it and read:  “Suvla and Anzac successfully evacuated.  No casualties.”

The officer waited till I had finished, and then said: 

“Well, what’s our position on Helles now?  A bit dickey, eh?”

Scarcely interested, I looked along the coast of the Peninsula and saw two great conflagrations, the smoke ascending in pillars to the sky, at Suvla and Anzac, where the retiring army had fired the remaining stores.

CHAPTER XV

TRANSIT

Sec.1

Then Monty approached me, as I tossed stones down the slope on to the beach.

“I’ve seen him,” he said.  “He’s in No. 17 Stationary Hospital, the ‘White City.’  Are you coming?”

“Of course,” replied I uncivilly.  Did he think he would visit Doe and I wouldn’t—­I who had known him ten years?  The man was presuming on his six-months’ acquaintance with my friend.

“Well, come down to the dump, and we’ll find you a horse.”

“How is he?” asked I, not choosing to be told what to do.

“Bad.  Come along.  There’s no time to lose.”

“All right—­I’m coming, aren’t I?  I don’t need to be ordered to go.”

In silence we went down Gurkha Mule Trench into Gully Ravine, where the horse lines were.

“Saddle up Charlie,” said Monty to his groom, “and get the Major’s chestnut for Captain Ray.”

The groom brought the horses, and, as he tightened up the girth on Monty’s dark bay Arab, asked me: 

“Are you going to see Mr. Doe, sir?”

I turned away without answering.  I hadn’t spoken to him, and there was no occasion for him to speak to me.

“Yes, we are,” said Monty promptly.

“Sad about such a nice young gentleman.  He’s packing up, they say.”

“The damned alarmist!” thought I.  “He relishes the grim news.”

But I knew in my heart that I was only grudging him his right to be sorry for Doe.  Who was he to grieve?  Three months before he had not heard of us.  On all the Peninsula there was only one just claim to the right of grieving:  and that was mine.

Monty mounted.  Seizing the reins carelessly, I put my foot in the chestnut’s stirrup.  As I rose, the bit pulled on the mare’s mouth and she wheeled and reared, shaking me awkwardly to the ground.

“Damn the bloody horse,” I said aloud.

Monty stroked his bay’s silk neck, as though he had heard nothing.

“You’ve got his rein too tight, sir,” the groom told me.

“All right!  I know how to mount a horse.”

I swung into the saddle, and, ignoring Monty, set the mare, which was very fresh, at a canter towards Artillery Road.  Artillery Road was a winding gun-track that climbed out of Gully Ravine up to the tableland beneath Achi Baba.  Much too fast I ran the chestnut up the steep incline, and emerged from the ravine on to the high level ground.  Straightway I looked across two miles of scrub to the seaward point of the plateau, where stood a large camp of square tents.  It was No. 17 Stationary Hospital, the “White City.” ...  I wondered which of those tents he was in.