Our troops were ascending the hills through a dwarf scrub, just low enough to let us see the men’s heads, though sometimes we could only locate them by the glint of the bayonets in the sunshine.  Everywhere they were pushing on in extended order, but many falling.  The Turks appeared to have the range pretty accurately.  About mid-day our men seemed to be held up, the Turkish shrapnel appearing to be too much for them.  It was now that there occurred what I think one of the finest incidents of the campaign.  This was the landing of the Australian Artillery.  They got two of their guns ashore, and over very rough country dragged them up the hills with what looked like a hundred men to each.  Up they went, through a wheat-field, covered and plastered with shrapnel, but with never a stop until the crest of the hill on the right was reached.  Very little time was wasted in getting into action, and from this time it became evident that we were there to stay.

The practice of the naval guns was simply perfect.  They lodged shell after shell just in front of the foremost rank of our men; in response to a message asking them to clear one of the gullies, one ship placed shell after shell up that gully, each about a hundred yards apart, and in as straight a line as if they were ploughing the ground for Johnny Turk, instead of making the place too hot to hold him.

The Turks now began to try for this warship, and in their endeavours almost succeeded in getting the vessel we were on, as a shell burst right overhead.

The wounded now began to come back, and the one hospital ship there was filled in a very short time.  Every available transport was then utilised for the reception of casualties, and as each was filled she steamed off to the base at Alexandria.  As night came on we appeared to have a good hold of the place, and orders came for our bearer division to land.  They took with them three days’ “iron” rations, which consisted of a tin of bully beef, a bag of small biscuits, and some tea and sugar, dixies, a tent, medical comforts, and (for firewood) all the empty cases we could scrape up in the ship.  Each squad had a set of splints, and every man carried a tourniquet and two roller bandages in his pouch.  Orders were issued that the men were to make the contents of their water-bottles last three days, as no water was available on shore.

The following evening the remainder of the Ambulance, less the transport, was ordered ashore.  We embarked in a trawler, and steamed towards the shore in the growing dusk as far as the depth of water would allow.  The night was bitterly cold, it was raining, and all felt this was real soldiering.  None of us could understand what occasioned the noise we heard at times, of something hitting the iron deck houses behind us; at last one of the men exclaimed:  “Those are bullets, sir,” so that we were having our baptism of fire.  It was marvellous that no one was hit, for they were fairly frequent, and we all