The battle began on June 28 with a severe but brief bombardment, limited to the Turkish trenches on our front nearest the coast. The batteries were assisted from the sea by the light cruiser _Talbot_ (5600 tons, 1896) and the destroyers _Wolverine_ and _Scorpion_, which were able to enfilade such positions as remained visible. But, for want of ammunition, the land bombardment was limited in extent, and lasted only twenty minutes. The 87th Brigade (Major-General W. R. Marshall),[132] supplied with the new drafts which had been gradually coming in, at once advanced on both sides of the Gully Ravine (Saghir Dere). Their part in the attack was to clear a further lap of this long and deep ravine or cañon, which forms one of the most surprising features of the southern Peninsula. Advance along the bottom was impossible. Near the entrance from the sea the cliffs on both sides rise 200 feet. The slope upwards along the Gully is very gradual, and the sides nearly up to the very end remain steep, in parts bare sandy cliff, in parts covered with bush. The ravine curves frequently, twice turning for a short distance almost at right angles. Here and there, along the middle and upper reaches, the bottom was dangerously exposed to snipers creeping down and hiding among the bushes. Up to the last, even after it became the main line of communication with our positions on the left, it was constantly shelled, and beyond a point about two-thirds up its length no horses were allowed to proceed. In spite of screens and sandbag barriers, shrapnel and unaimed or dropping rifle-fire frequently inflicted loss upon the drafts, reliefs, and supply parties continually passing to and fro. There was the greater danger because, under the stress of thirst and extreme heat, men and animals gathered round the water which was in places discovered, especially at one clear and cold spring rising from the foot of a precipitous cliff upon the right. About half-way up, the Turks had barred the valley with a complicated entanglement reaching from side to side, and other entanglements existed farther on. The only possibility of clearing such a ravine was to clear the rough and bush-covered plateau on both sides.