My little band, now numbering eleven, I brought together on a shelf near the face of the cliffs and we tried to dig in. But we had only our bayonets for implements and the ground was a hard, brittle admixture of sand and stone. So, instead, I ordered them to gather a sufficient number of the chunks of rock that had been shattered from the face of the cliffs by the battleship’s big guns and we constructed a horseshoe shaped retreat--one that would protect us against an enfilade. In this we esconced ourselves and looked from time to time on the bombardment, going as furiously as ever between the warships and the distant forts with an occasional vicious spurting exchange between our light land batteries which we had got ashore in the face of everything, and the hidden batteries that still held on among the cliffs. But mostly we snuggled with heads well down below the walls of our little forts for the bullets of snipers were pinging all around us. And you can imagine they had made things damned merry for us while we were doing our bit of architecture. The Turks at the time must have been pretty well demoralized for let me tell you that, in ordinary circumstances, the Turk is altogether too accurate a shot. As it was, there was only one member of my little crowd who got hurt--a Melbourne boy who had two fingers ripped off his left hand as he was shoving a big, ragged chunk of sandstone in place on the fortress wall. Just as we had settled down to hold out until nightfall should take from us the uncomfortable job of being targets for snipers, I was startled by a big, horny-handed man in my company, a fellow with a cave-man’s face and wicked eye. He had suddenly started blubbering. Before any of us could stop him, he jumped to his feet, showed himself head and shoulders above our baby fortress’ walls, and shook his fist fiercely in the general direction of the Turks. Their snipers answered him with a furious spitfire of bullets. We dragged him down and I demanded: “What the devil’s got into you, anyhow? Want to get us all killed?” “The little admiral!” he roared back at me in fury. “I was thinking it was those dogs and their guns killed that kid--I tried to get to him when the barge blew up. Plucky little devil! He was hanging on to the stern and yelling orders to us to be ‘Steady’ and ‘Hold on.’ And then another shell hit the damn’ thing and he was gone.” He tried to get up again, but we held him down. “The damn’ kid-killing bunch of dogs!” he yelled.