Hardly had the first man set foot on the gangways, when the invisible enemy broke the silence with an overwhelming outburst of rifle fire, pom-poms, and machine-guns. The Munster Fusiliers of the first company fell so thick that many were suffocated or crushed by the sheer weight of the dead dropping upon them. Few if any of those eager Irishmen struggled across the lighters to the beach unwounded. In the tows, the boats were riddled with holes, and the greater number destroyed. The Dublin Fusiliers and the crews supplied by the navy were shot down either in the boats or as they leapt into the shallow water and attempted to rush across the narrow beach. A few succeeded in reaching the low and perpendicular bank of sand, and lay under its uncertain cover, unable to show a head above the top without death. The Turks had carefully marked the ranges of every point along the shore with stakes, and they fired in security from dug-outs and deep trenches, against which no naval bombardment availed. Inspired by a courage which baffles reason with amazement (for what reasonable motive had these men--these Irishmen--to spring into the face of instant death?), the second company of Munster Fusiliers crowded upon the gangway, and rushed along the lighters over the dead bodies of their friends. As they ran, the end of the pontoon nearest the shore was torn loose by the rip of the current, and drifted off into deep water. The men fell in masses, and many, either to escape the torrent of bullets or in passionate eagerness to reach the shore, attempted to swim to land, but were dragged down by the weight of their equipment, and lay visible upon the sand below. With unwavering decision, the sailors laboured to restore the pontoon. Commander Unwin ran down the gangway and, plunging into the sea, worked beside the men. Midshipman Malleson and Midshipman Drewry (in honour of whom the French afterwards named the jetty which they built on the spot) swam out, carrying ropes to and from the drifting lighters under the ceaseless splash of bullets and shells. The names of all these have become celebrated, and they won the most envied of all our country’s distinctions, but it is almost invidious to select even such names as theirs among the men and boys of every rank, and of both services, whose self-devotion made that day and place so memorable.[86]