[179] Sir Ian’s dispatch gives a full account of the warships, lighters, and trawlers sent with the landing-force, together with details about the water-supply provided. He does not mention the large transport _Minneapolis_, which I think must have taken the place of the sloop Aster, for we certainly had batteries of mountain-guns with their teams on board. She was a liner, taken over with all her staff; and as instances of petrifying routine I remember that, as I hoped to land at 4 a.m., I asked if one could get a cup of tea then, and was haughtily informed, “On this ship breakfast is always at 8.30”; and later in the morning, when the fighting was at crisis, the “stewards” were sweeping out the gangways with vacuum-cleaners as they had swept for years. Habits of routine were, however, fatally disturbed in the following spring when the _Minneapolis_ was torpedoed between Egypt and Salonika. [180] _The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli_, p. 142. [181] These fires appear to have arisen near the true Hill 10, which was taken about this time by a mixed force of Northumberland Fusiliers, Dorsets, and West Yorks, after a severe struggle against a redoubt there. [182] Sir Ian’s dispatch says the naval authorities were unwilling to land them at A Beach “for some reason not specified.” Considering what misfortune had already happened there, the above explanation appears to me at least sufficient. But A East and A West had been discovered by the navy before the unfortunate landing at B Beach began. [183] _The Tenth (Irish) Division at Gallipoli_, pp. 125 and 140. [184] So Major Bryan Cooper in _The Tenth (Irish) Division_, p. 129. My impression at the time was of no rush, but a calm though laborious trudge. Major Cooper, however, continues: “The 7th Dublins in particular were much encouraged by the example of their Colonel.... While every one else was dashing swiftly across the neck, or keeping close under cover, it is recorded that Colonel Downing--a man of unusual height and girth--stood in the centre of the bullet-swept zone, quietly twisting his stick.” “Dashing swiftly across” that sand would, I think, be impossible under any impulse, and cover did not exist; at least I never found it, though I toiled over that spit many dozen times, and it always remained exposed to shell-fire from W Hill.