Was it the surprise we all hoped for, after all?—the surprise that seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. Were there _any_ Turks there waiting to oppose us at all? And if so, where were they hidden? In trenches cut on the beach? In the scrub? Behind the crest of the cliff? God! were they never going to show themselves——? _Crash! Bang! Z-z-z-z-z-ip!_ It was hell let loose—hell with the bottom out! The whole beach belched flame and spat bullets. The scrub behind burst forth into a sheet of fire. Maxims—maxims everywhere! The place seemed alive with them. It was as if we had received a blizzard of lead in our faces. The physical shock was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. For a moment it seemed as if the whole flotilla was doomed—a moment in which whole boatloads of brave men were absolutely cut to pieces and mangled out of all recognition—in which boats were blown from the water, smashed into matchwood and riddled from stem to stern by the high explosive and shrapnel fire that came over the crest of the cliff hot on the heels of the rifle and machine-gun fire. Just a moment! Then the men from the bush, the plains, and the cities of Australasia showed the stuff they were made of. In dashed the boats—in anyhow, no matter how, so long as they touched Turkish soil—some bow on, some stern on, some broadside. All higgledy-piggledy, a confused mass like a huge dismembered raft tossed on a sea that hissed and spouted as its surface was torn by the never-ceasing rain of lead and iron. Over the sides of the boats dived and rolled those splendid infantrymen, their bayonets already fixed. They knew what to do; no need to give them orders. No time to form—no time to think. The cold steel—nothing but the steel! Off fell their packs; down dropped their bayonet points, and with a wild yell that rose even above the awful battle roar that made day hideous they hurled themselves straight as their rifles at the unseen enemy. In sixes and sevens, in tens and twenties, in platoons, in half-companies—just as they tumbled out of the boats—those great-hearted fellows dashed up the beach and into that sickening inferno. They didn't fire a shot; they didn't waste a single second. They just flung their heavy packs from their shoulders, bent their heads to the storm, and with every inch of pace at their command they charged the Turkish trenches, some fifty yards distant. Charge! I never saw a charge like it. It was a wild, breakneck rush, regardless of losses. Nothing short of killing every man of that magnificent soldiery could have stopped their onslaught. The machine-guns and rifles took their toll—but they utterly failed to beat down that desperate assault delivered by those iron-nerved men—those men who openly boasted that they feared "neither God, man, nor devil." In a moment they were into the enemy's front line of trench, machine-guns were captured, and the Turks got a taste of the bayonet that will never be forgotten by those who escaped. And they