For a moment Major Allanson and his men paused to draw breath. They were standing on the saddle between Chunuk Bair and “Hill Q.” The dead lay thick around them. But below, straight in front, lit by the risen sun, like a white serpent sliding between the purple shores, ran the sea, the Narrows, the Dardanelles, the aim and object of all these battles and sudden deaths. Never since Xenophon’s Ten Thousand cried “The sea! the sea!” had sight been more welcome to a soldier’s eyes. There went the ships. There were the transports bringing new troops over from Asia. There ran the road to Maidos, though the town of Maidos was just hidden by the hill before it. There was the Krithia road. Motor-lorries moved along it carrying shells and supplies to Achi Baba. So Sir Ian had been right. General Birdwood had been right. This was the path to victory. Only hold that summit and victory is ours. The Straits are opened. A conquered Turkey and a friendly Bulgaria will bar the German path to the East. Peace will come back again, and the most brilliant strategic conception in the war will be justified. In triumphant enthusiasm, Gurkhas and Lancastrians raced and leapt down the reverse slope, pursuing the Turks as they scattered and ran. Major Allanson, though wounded, himself raced with them. They fired as they went. It was a moment of supreme exultation. Suddenly, before they had gone a hundred yards, crash into the midst of them fell five or six large shells and exploded. In the words of Sir Ian’s dispatch: “Instead of Baldwin’s support came suddenly a salvo of heavy shell.” [Sidenote: WHENCE CAME THE DISASTROUS SHELLS?]