The guns of the warships boom out, and a rain of shells falls near the redoubt. About 2 p.m. the Worcester Regiment dashes forward. Men hack their way through the entanglements, and, in spite of heavy losses, carry the redoubt by storm. Now an attempt is made to join hands with the troops which are in dire peril on Beach V; but the defences are too strong to be broken through. Men are seen under an awful fire calmly snipping the wire as though they were pruning a vineyard. But the troops are worn out by their long labours under a hot sun, and the attack is perforce suspended. When night falls the Turks make assault after assault on the wearied invaders. So hard pressed are they that even the working parties on the beach have to be flung into the trenches in order that the line may be held. Happily the attacks of the enemy are beaten off, and no ground is lost. So the night passes, and the dawn ushers in another day of struggle and anxiety.
Now we hurry off to Beach V, where tragic events are taking place. Beach V resembles an old Greek theatre. There is a stretch of sand as at Beach W, and running along it is a low sandy ridge, four feet high, which affords some shelter. Beyond rise grassy terraces to a height of 100 feet. The rising ground is flanked on the one side by an old castle, and on the other side by a modern fort. On the heights overlooking the shore the Turks have massed artillery, machine guns, and riflemen. On the very margin of the beach there is an exceedingly strong barbed-wire fence, and two-thirds of the way up there is an even stronger obstacle. From all sides the defenders can pour down a deadly fire on the landing parties. So strongly defended is this beach that special arrangements have been made to cope with it. Large doors have been cut in the steel plates of a collier, the River Clyde, and wide gangplank have been slung from her side. These gangways slope gradually down from the doors to her bows, so that men can pass along on both sides in single file, and jump on to the lighters which she will tow in with her. Her bridge has been turned into a little fortress, and behind steel plates and sand-bags in her bows there are twelve machine guns to cover the landing. Two thousand men of the Hampshires and Munster Fusiliers have been stowed on board, and now she steams bow on to the shore close to a reef of rock. The lighters are placed in position so as to form a bridge between the gangway and the rock.
The Lancashire Fusiliers landing on Beach W.
(By permission of The Illustrated London News.)
You will read a full account of this heroic landing on pages 211, 212. Three Victoria Crosses were afterwards awarded to those who had displayed the most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty, by the vote of their comrades.
Eight boatloads of Dublin Fusiliers towed by steam pinnaces make a dash for the shore. Every kind of missile is hurled at them, and the men suffer horribly. Some few manage to gain the beach and take refuge under the sandbank already mentioned. None of the boats, however, push off again. They and their crews are destroyed.
Now comes the moment for the River Clyde, like the horse of Troy, to pour forth its living freight; but there is grievous delay, for the current runs strongly, and there is grave difficulty in keeping the lighters in position. The splendid pluck and tenacity of the naval working-party are tried to the utmost, and many splendid deeds of heroism are accomplished before the bridge of boats holds fast. Now a company of the Munster Fusiliers, followed by a second company, issues from the ship and strives to cross the shifting and swaying bridge. The lighters give way in the current; the end one nearest the shore drifts into deep water, and many men striving to swim from it to the beach are drowned. All the time a perfect tornado of fire sweeps down upon them. A third company essays the task: the lighters are filled with dead and wounded. A thousand men have striven to land, but barely five hundred have got ashore. So hot is the Turkish fire that the remaining men in the River Clyde dare not emerge. A man has only to show his head to be instantly picked off.
Twenty-four hours after the River Clyde runs ashore there are but the survivors of the Dublin and the Munster Fusiliers and two companies of the Hampshire Regiment on the beach, and they are still crouching beneath the shelter of the sandy ridge. Early in the morning the Cornwallis, Albion, and Queen Elizabeth come to the rescue and begin a heavy bombardment of the enemy. Under cover of this bombardment the men on the beach push up the slopes on the bluff under a most galling fire, and capture the village, a fort, and a hill. The landing can now go forward. By the evening of Tuesday, the 27th, Beach V is in working order.