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This freak, however, kept him on deck all day and all night, for there was no abatement of either wind or sea, until she was swept into the Dardanelles. The sail had to be shortened so that she might be hove to, and the boat sent ashore at Chanak to receive pratique and a permit to allow her to pass through into the sea of Marmora.
From 1916, however, they were towed by merchant auxiliaries and light cruisers to spot submarines, observers communicating with the patrol ship by means of telephone. One of the most wonderful sights I have ever seen was from the observer's basket of the kite-balloon let up from S.S. "Manica" in June, 1915. We were spotting for the guns of H.M.S. "Lord Nelson" bombarding Chanak.
Four of them bombarded Chanak and a battery which lay opposite it, and the forts at Saghandere, Kephez Point, and Dardanos were kept busy by the Triumph and the Prince George. After the fleet had been at it for an hour and a half they received the support of the four French ships which steamed in close and attacked the forts at a shorter range.
The chief bombardment was from outside in the Gulf of Saros, where it was hoped that the guns of the Queen Elizabeth and her consorts would by indirect fire dispose of Chanak and the other forts.
But what caused them to marvel was the masterful way in which he handled his vessel, and navigated her not only through amongst the islands, but through a narrow waterway that he had never seen before. The first officer ventured to make a suggestion, when drawing towards Chanak, as to the method of heaving the vessel to, so that the boat might be picked up easily.
When the ships pushed on up the strait toward Kilid Bahr and Chanak Kale somewhat like trying to run the Narrows at New York there was a different story. They were now within range of shore batteries and there were anchored mines and mines sent down on the tide.
Beyond it, at the seaward end of the sharp ridges which ran up to the main broken mass of Sari Bair, Chanak Bair and Battleship Hill, were No. 1 and No. 2 Outposts, faced by the formidable Turkish outposts on the forbidding crags above. So, separated by some distance from the enemy, the regiment proceeded to enjoy itself.
We did not want to leave this part of the world without a sight of Troy, and as we had duly presented ourselves in Gallipoli, and were now by way of coming from it rather than Constantinople, and the Turkish official to whom the orderly took us wrote, without question, a permission to cross to Chanak Kale, we sailed with no misgivings.
In an hour or so you may walk all the way we ever got. And we did not need to have got much further than Chunuk Bair. Down below on the one hand is the sea where the men-of-war lay and thundered with their guns. But across and in front gleams in the sunlight what was the Promised Land, the roofs of Chanak and the purple narrows of the Hellespont.
If land communications were blocked near Bulair, ammunition could only be brought by sea to Panderma, and thence by road to Chanak or by sea direct to Kilid Bahr. "Either for supplies or ammunition, however, the difficulty of effectively stopping supply by sea may be increased by the large number of shallow craft available at Rodosto, Chanak, Constantinople and Panderma.
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