With the 34th Brigade things did not go so smoothly. The navy brought up the destroyers with the “beetles” in time with the rest; but after the “beetles” had been cast off as they approached the shore in the middle of the bay, it was found that they could not make A Beach at all, but went aground with their weight on the sandy shallows. The disaster might have been anticipated even from the distant appearance of shelving shore, which possessed all the familiar features of a children’s bathing-place. Led by their officers, the men plunged into the water, which in places came up to their armpits, and struggled ashore. Dripping wet, they reached the sands well below the centre of the bay’s arc, and south of the entrance to the Salt Lake, considerably south of the appointed position. Both in the lighters and on shore they were exposed to considerable fire from Lala Baba (not yet occupied) and the rocky promontories towards Suvla Point. Many Turks even crept into their midst in the darkness, and at close quarters killed them unawares. Nearly the whole of the northern shore had also been sown with land-mines, exploding on contact and causing some casualties. The delay and confusion due to the oversight of obvious shallows were serious. They were the first step in failure. For by the time the brigade got ashore and sorted itself out it was useless to think of reaching W Hill, or even Chocolate Hill, under cover of darkness. In fact, by the time the battalions were reorganised it was nearly dawn. To protect the left, one battalion (11th Manchester) was now sent up the rocky steep of Karakol Dagh, which it succeeded in clearing of the concealed parties of gendarmes. The Colonel was wounded, the second in command killed, and nearly half the strength put out of action.[180] But its service in saving the rest of the brigade from enfilading fire was inestimable. The 5th Dorsets appears to have followed the Manchesters by mistake of direction. About the same time another of the battalions (9th Lancashire Fusiliers) succeeded in the task of clearing the low eminence of heath-covered sandhill which stood close at hand to the left front of the landing beach, and was mistaken for Hill 10. The Turks had a strong outpost there, and the loss to this battalion was also considerable. In fact, the brigade stood in an isolated and unsatisfactory position when, just as the eastern sky began to show streaks of brown among the purple, the 32nd Brigade (Haggard’s) began to appear along the sandy spit, coming from Lala Baba, which it had seized and left in charge of the 33rd Brigade (Maxwell’s). As it approached it opened fire upon the low plateau, where confused fighting was still going on. The 9th West Yorks (32nd Brigade) also joined in the attack, and suffered considerable loss. [Sidenote: HESITATION AND CONFUSION]