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[Page 51]
was as happy as they could possibly be, we had mandolins guitars banjos & etc going for all they were worth nobody thought of what was going to happen on the morrow, & so we went to bed about 10 oclock, with everything ready for an instant move. About 4 oclock Reveille sounded & upon we all jumped & got dressed there was a young moon if I remember rightly, we were all served with a big junk of steak & bread for breakfast, & while we were munching this we heard a tremendous roar, up we all rushed, to get a look at what was going on, one of our ships had opened fire on "Gaba Tepe" soon the whole fleet of warships were belting away for all they were worth, the scene was a magnificent one, the
whole of the Turkish position for the length of about half a mile seemed to be a mass of flying sparks, from the deluge of shells that were being poured on to them, we watched this scene for about 10 minutes, & the order came for every man to get ready to move off, so we harnessed ourselves up, & waited patiently, the Turks were now raining shells upon our ships, or trying to, for I never saw any hit, but one or two whistled past very close to us, about 5 or 5.30 we heard a crackle of rifle fire & we knew then that the 3rd Brig. had landed, we then got the order to fill the boats & down we filed on to a destroyer (the Ribble) was her name, she had a few wounded & dead men on her, they were the first