were instructed to make perches in the seaward cliff of
the crag where they would be safe from shrapnel which was now bursting
occasionally in the vicinity. Mac endeavoured to do so, but so steep
was the cliff that he only managed to make a ledge sufficiently wide to
sit on, while his legs dangled over the abyss below, and the sun blazed
on him in undiluted fury. But the greatest discomfort was the steady
fall of a stream of powdered clay from the constructors of perches and
paths higher up. A veranda of Turkish bayonets with Turkish rifles
roofed crossways on them, failed to improve the situation greatly, so
he gave it up as a bad job, and moved to the shade of a fine arbutus
bush on the less steep enemy side of the Top. He preferred shade,
comfort, and clean arms and ammunition, with the risk of Turkish
shrapnel, of which he had no great fear, to the drawbacks of the cliff
face without the risk.

The Squadron lay in reserve all day, and Mac, from his shady altitude,
revelled in being just so situated with a great battle in progress,
with almost the whole battlefield in view, and him with nothing more to
do than sit there in comfort watching it. He surveyed it all through
his glasses, tracing the present limits of the advance. The high hills
seemed still to be Turkish, for different bodies of white-patched
troops made a rough line some distance below the summit, running down
laterally towards Suvla Bay. Distant ridges lined by the same
white-patched men showed that all the foothills had been taken; but Mac
watched eagerly, though in vain, for the appearance of British troops
on the higher ridges. Chocolate Hill and Osman Oblu Tepe at the inner
end of the Salt Lake, which were the main obstruction to the success of
what seemed to be the plan of attack. He saw only a few Turks on these
hills, and odd ones scurrying about near Anafarta, but never a body of
them, large or small.

There was a great mass of troops gathered round the small mound of Lala
Baba, on whose top was now a wireless station and a signal mast. There
were horses, artillery, limbers, mobs of men and increasing piles of
stores. From huge four-masted transatlantic liners came lines of seven
or eight crowded boats in tow of a pinnace, and already the same lines
were threading their way back to the hospital ships farther out. But
the troops on shore were scarcely moving. During the whole day only a
few small bodies advanced a short distance, wi