eering through my
field-glasses.

"Sheer murder," said Hawk.

No sooner had he spoken than a high explosive from the Turkish
positions on the Sari Bair range came screaming over the Salt Lake:
"Z-z-z-e-e-e-o-o-o-p--Crash!"

They lay there like a little group of dead beetles, and the wounded were
crawling away like ants into the dead yellow grass and the sage bushes
to die. A whole platoon was smashed.

It was not yet daylight. We could see the flicker of rifle-fire, and the
crackle sounded first on one part of the bay, and then another. Among
the dark rocks and bushes it looked as if people were striking thousands
of matches.

Mechanical Death went steadily on. Four Turkish batteries on the Kislar
Dargh were blown up one after the other by our battleships. We watched
the thick rolling smoke of the explosions, and saw bits of wheels, and
the arms and legs of gunners blown up in little black fragments against
that pearl-pink sunrise.

The noise of Mechanical Battle went surging from one side of the bay to
the other--it swept round suddenly with an angry rattle of maxims and
the hard echoing crackle of rifle-fire.

Now and then our battle-ships crashed forth, and their shells went
hurtling and screaming over the mountains to burst with a muffled roar
somewhere out of sight.

Mechanical Death moved back and forth. It whistled and screamed and
crashed. It spat fire, and unfolded puffs of grey and white and black
smoke. It flashed tongues of livid flame, like some devilish ant-eater
lapping up its insects... and the insects were the sons of men.

Mechanical Death, as we saw him at work, was hard and metallic,
steel-studded and shrapnel-toothed. Now and then he bristled with
bayonets, and they glittered here and there in tiny groups, and charged
up the rocks and through the bushes.

The noise increased. Mechanical Death worked first on our side, and then
with the Turks. He led forward a squad, and the next instant mowed them
down with a hail of lead. He galloped up a battery, unlimbered--and
before the first shell could be rammed home Mechanical Death blew the
whole lot up with a high explosive from a Turkish battery in the hills.

And so it went on hour after hour. Crackle, rattle and roar; scream,
whistle and crash. We stood there on the deck watching men get killed.
Now and then a shell came wailing and moaning across the bay, and
dropped into the water with a great column of spray glittering in the
early mor