There was no indication of it. Their fire became more and more and more intense. Boat after boat was being smashed. In not more than three minutes after the enemy began his bombardment against our landing, my own boat went to smash. A shell struck it at the bow. It shattered the boat and must have killed at least a dozen men. I, fortunately, was in the stern. With my comrades I was hurled into the air and the next realization was that I was far over my head in water and that the first thing I must do if I was not to drown was to get rid of my heavy knapsack. Thank the Lord, I had been a sturdy swimmer since childhood. I can’t begin to picture to you how many scores of my comrades, unable to swim or weak swimmers, died then and there--how many of them with knapsacks on their backs and guns and bayonets in their hands yet remain at the bottom of the Ægean Sea, a curious spectacle for the fish. I fought my way to the surface. And I clung to my gun and bayonet. I clung to them as frantically as any drowning man is supposed to clutch at a straw. For the only escape from drowning was to get ashore and ashore I knew there would be small hope for me without my bayonet. When I got to the surface other chaps were struggling all around me. “Help each other get rid of these knapsacks,” I yelled when I got my breath. “It’s our only chance or we’ll drown like rats.” So we struggled about aiding one another free of these encumbrances. We had also to let our ammunition belts go and held on only to our guns. The shore was not far off now and we swam for it. But as we drew near--very near--within fifty feet or so, we encountered a devilishly ingenious snare. The enemy had constructed on stakes in eight feet of water a barbed-wire entanglement along more than two miles of the beach. I was overhanding it for shore, supporting my rifle in the other when I ran my face full tilt against the barbed wire’s fangs. Others of my comrades did the same. They cursed and moaned. We hung on to the barbed wire but ducking every instant for a scream of bullets was all around us. I can’t tell you how many of the landing boats were smashed in the landing at Gallipoli. None I believe knows with accuracy. How many men were drowned outright none either can exactly tell. But there were hundreds. Nor how many men, exhausted, striving for the shore, were caught and held like netted fish in that barbed-wire entanglement will never be known. That scores--yes, hundreds were, I cannot doubt. Some of the men immediately around me I know were lost in the effort to get past it. It was too closely netted to get through it. Some possibly floated or were lifted over it by the roll of the surf. I know only how I made my own way out of the trap. And that was by drawing myself down along the barbed strands until I found a space some two feet between the barbed-wire barrier and the sea-bottom. And I crawled through!