Following a second detachment of the Borderers {141} came the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, the troops establishing themselves on the top of the cliffs, and trying to join hands with those landing at X beach. Unfortunately, between them there were strong hostile forces. They themselves were heavily and ceaselessly attacked; and, after twenty-four hours' fighting, it was decided to withdraw them--or rather what was left of them--under the fire of the battleships, the _Amethyst_ and _Sapphire_, _Goliath_, _Talbot_, and _Dublin_ undertaking their re-embarkation, ably supervised by Lieutenant-Commander Adrian St. V. Keyes. Thus, by the evening of the 26th, while Gaba Tepe had been secured, beach Y had had to be abandoned. The action at beach X, however, just north of Cape Tekeh, had met with better results. Here the troops detailed to make the first landing had been two companies and a machine-gun section of the Second Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and they had been embarked in the battleship _Implacable_. The beach before them was a narrow one, about two hundred yards long, but the cliffs beyond it were not high, and their ultimate objective was a hill that lay to the rear of the landing-places, round the corner, at W and V. Covered by the _Implacable_, who came close inshore, the troops landed with scarcely any casualties; and, though they did not succeed, owing to a very fierce counter-attack, in obtaining complete possession of the desired hill, they had, by the evening, with the aid of their supports, entrenched themselves for half a mile round their landing-place, besides having already joined hands, earlier in the day, {142} with the Lancashire Fusiliers who had advanced from Beach W. This lay between Cape Tekeh and Cape Helles at the extreme end of the Peninsula, and was some three hundred and fifty yards long and from fifteen to forty yards deep. Flanked on each side by precipitous cliffs, the land in front rose less steeply, climbing in a series of low sand-hills to the ridge that lay beyond. It had been an obvious landing-place, however, and had, in consequence, been fortified with the utmost care. Not only had the water in front of it been mined but also the shore itself. Submerged entanglements covered the approach to it, and a jungle of barbed wire protected the sea's edge. The surrounding cliffs were heavily trenched and honeycombed with nests of machine-guns. The ridge itself, even should it be gained, was commanded on both sides by higher ground still.