Round the toe of the peninsula the troops landed. All day the desperate fighters of the 29th Division clung to their terrible task, completing it under cover of darkness on the Sunday evening. From V beach to Morto Bay, 2 miles away, near which inlet, under the fortress of Seddul Bahr, the River Clyde, crammed with 2,500 men, had steamed in and been run ashore (or as near shore as reefs had permitted), the fighting continued. From the bows of this transport (an Iron Horse indeed!) a dozen machine guns were spitting darting tongues of red as still against her iron sides rattled the hail of Turkish bullets or burst the shells from the guns of the forts. It is not in my story to describe the landing from that ship—alas! now blown into fragments. It was not till some months after she had run aground that I was aboard her. In the last days of April she was the object to which all turned their eyes in recognition of a gallant undertaking, magnificently carried out by Captain Unwin, who was in charge of her. For his work this brave officer was awarded the V.C.
ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES ON THE WAY TO THE LANCASHIRE LANDING FOR RATIONS, THE ONLY HORSED VEHICLES THE AUSTRALIANS LANDED AT GALLIPOLI.
THE "RIVER CLYDE" IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY.
French lines in foreground. Kum Kale Fort across the Straits in the distance.
To face p. 128.
Now the Australians faced sheer cliffs; they rushed down into gullies and up on to farther ridges. The British troops scaled cliffs or found stretches of sandy beach, defended with almost impenetrable barbed wire entanglements; but beyond was a garden of loveliness—almost level fields still bearing ripening crops, and trees laden with fruits; poppies, anemones, and the hundred smaller wild flowers of the Levant carpeted the soil. Those were the shores strewn with the bodies of the most gallant men that ever fought, who had never flinched as they faced murderous fire from far fiercer guns than any that opposed the first rush of the Australians up that narrow section of the Anzac hills. Yet the Turks fell back. The warships, with their protective armour, moved in and wrought havoc on the enemy as they were driven back and back. Behind steamed the transports. Amongst all this mixed fleet thickly dropped the shells, splashing the water in great fountains over the decks, casting it 50, 100 feet into the air.