At the very point of this rock, which had been a favourite spot for the boats to steer to, there was a solid mass of dead and wounded mixed up together. The whole of these I saw to, although by this time there was little I could do except lift and pull them into more comfortable positions, but I was able to do something for every one of them. My last piece of work was to look after six men who were groaning in a boat stranded close to the point of the rock. Three lay on each side with their legs inwards; a plank ran the whole length of the middle of the boat, and along this as it rested on their legs, men had been running during the landing. Getting on this plank some of them howled in agony and beseeched me to get off. I then got into the water and as I could do nothing more for them, my dressings being finished some time before, I gave each a dose of morphia by the mouth.
I had just finished and was standing waist-deep in the water when the Turkish counter-attack commenced with a volley from the distant end of the fort, not over 300 yards off. The only person the Turk could see was myself, the sandbank protecting the others from view, and at least seven or eight bullets spluttered round me in the water. I had been well warned that this counter-attack would take place at any moment, but I never gave it a single thought. It was in anticipation of this that the others clung to the shelter of the sandbank and I was left to work alone. I immediately splashed for a small boat that formed the end of one of the gangways, and into this I hauled myself. On looking at my watch I found it was just midnight, and that I had thus been at work for three and a half hours.
Midnight had evidently been chosen by the Turk as the hour at which to attack, and also by us to make another attempt to land men. At this moment a body of our men were coming along the gangway, the first of them being close to this boat which was on a slightly lower level than the barges that formed the bulk of the gangway. The five foremost threw themselves into my boat and we lay stretched across the seats, the men on the barges lying down at once where they were. Here none of us had any protection, and it was a miracle any one of us escaped, the fire from machine-guns and rifles was so terrific. Each bullet as it struck the "Clyde" drove sparks, while the old ship was ringing like a great bell. Two of our six were hit, the man stretched alongside me fatally. A seventh man in the water hauled himself in beside us, and as he was getting over the gunwale shouted, "Oh! I am hit". Hit or not hit we could not pay the slightest attention to each other now, all we could do was to lie low.
All this time I was expecting a rush for the "Clyde" by the Turks, and the boat I was in would be the first part of the gangway they would reach, and I could not help wondering what it would be like to get a bayonet through my stomach, but the feeling that this would certainly happen was not half so terrible as I should have expected. I had my revolver in my hand all the time, and it was a comfort to think that I would almost certainly account for two or three Turks before I experienced this new sensation.
The fire was kept up for about four hours, mainly on the side of the ship. As soon as there was a lull an officer in my boat shouted out. "This won't do, we must now land, follow me." He got up and splashed ashore, but the men, thinking he had been too hasty, preferred to wait a little longer after the Turks had ceased fire, but soon they began to move and dash singly for the land. I wished to get on the ship, and not half liking to get into an upright position either, I crept through and over those still on the barges, amidst much cursing from my paining the wounded, who must have been numerous.
I had had a strenuous and exciting day and night, and I must say I felt it a relief when I hopped through the nearest hole in the "Clyde". It was now 4 o'clock, and I shivered with cold. I had been soaked over the head, and lying four hours in the open boat in a cold night it was impossible to keep warm. A big, black cloud had floated up over the moon, and we had a fairly sharp but short shower of rain. By this time the moon was nearing the horizon, and it was when another cloud came over her face that I succeeded in reaching the ship.
I found they had had a fairly trying time here too, although the ship's plates were thick enough to resist bullets. The noise of 100,000 bullets showering on the sides of the "Clyde" had caused a deafening din, and many had the wind up badly, not knowing what was going on outside.
The behaviour of the "River Clyde" had been a great puzzle to the Turks. She was not long aground when the guns on Kum Kale, across the Dardanelles, opened on us, and this fire was kept up the whole day—on us and us only as far as I could make out. It took them some time to get our range, and for a considerable time we were not hit, all the shells being shorts or overs. At last they got us, the first shell that hit going through our hold at an angle of 45 degrees, coming through the deck over our heads, and going out at the junction of the floor and side wall. In its course it struck a man on the head, this being splashed all through the hold. Another man squatting on the floor was hit about the middle of both thighs, one leg being completely severed, while the other hung by a tiny shred of skin only. He fell back with a howl with both stumps in the air.
In five minutes a second shell entered our hold, wounding two or three where we were, mostly by the buckling of the floor plates, then passing down below to the lowest hold where many men were sheltering under the water line. Here six or seven were laid out.
After this we had many narrow escapes, but I believe only two other shells actually struck the ship that day. By good luck none exploded in their passage through, otherwise the casualty list would have been very heavy. Many had been hit and killed on deck by machine-gun bullets, and many bullets had found their way through the small openings cut for working the twelve machine-guns that were placed there.