ity
that some of the deadly contrivances might have broken loose and drifted
across our course. In order to cheer us up the captain showed us the
charts, on which the mined areas were indicated by diagonal shadings,
little red arrows pointing the way between them along channels as
narrow and devious as a forest trail. To add to our sense of security he
told us that he had never been through the Dardanelles before, adding
that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their
charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies
across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat,
whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with
much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the _Padova_ could
understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the
broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the
fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he
kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper,
who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much as
one polo player tries to ride off another.

"You ---- fool!" he bellowed, fairly dancing about his quarter-deck with
rage. "Why in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't you know
that you're running straight into a mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me
and do it ---- quick or I'll take your ---- license away from you. And
I don't want any of your ---- excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em."

"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I not onderstan' hees Engleesh
ver' good."

"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's speaking a sort of patois, you
see. He wants to know if you will have the great kindness to drop anchor
alongside him until morning, for it is forbidden to pass through the
mine-fields in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a very pleasant
night."

Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under
the shadow of Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched,
blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of that most heroic of
military failures--the Gallipoli campaign. Above us, on the bare brown
hillside, was what looked, in the rapidly deepening twilight, like a
patch of driven snow, but upon examining it through my glasses I saw
that it was a field enclosed by a rude wall and planted thickly with
small white wooden crosses, standing row on row. Then I remembered. It
was a