It seemed as if they had made special arrangements for a fine big bombardment just to let the Light Horse see how it was done. As the 2nd Light Horse Brigade arrived off Gallipoli we were eyewitnesses of a spectacular bombardment that thrilled us. It was about seven o'clock on the evening of May 18 that our transport glided in between Tenedos and Imbros and anchored off Helles. Long before we anchored we could hear the rumbling of heavy artillery, and we knew that the fleet was busy. Soon we saw the intermittent flashes of the guns, and then there loomed up out of the dusk the spectre-like shapes of the allied warships. A long, impregnable-looking line they made, stretching from Kum Kale north and west, and north again, till they were lost to sight in the murky pall which was fast settling down on the Ægean Sea. All night long the firing continued, but we slept just as soundly as we had done out on the desert at Ma'adi. By sunrise the troopers were astir, crowding the rigging and watching with intense interest the panorama spread before them. As the sun peeped over the hills we could see the tents of the field hospital whitening in the growing light. All around us were warships and transports and colliers and supply ships of all descriptions. Here and there were the low grey hulls of destroyers streaking across the waters. From our warships came a desultory fire on the Turkish trenches. So intent were we as we watched the camp of the Allies that we never noticed that our own vessel had dragged its anchor and was fast bearing down on a French transport a few cable-lengths off. The ships came together with a crunch that startled us. We thought for the moment that we had either been torpedoed or rammed. Then the nose of the Frenchman crunched along our port side, smashing stanchions and gangways, twisting sheet iron into fantastic shapes and breaking horse-boxes into matchwood. The active troopers all sprang free of the danger--all but one, who was so intent on adjusting his puttees that he never noticed what was happening. First thing he knew was when an anchor fluke caught him bending and drove him with the force of a battering ram headlong amongst the pans and dixies. His angry "Imshi yaller" was drowned in the roar of laughter from his comrades.