t just missed my lung and spine; it
made a big hole in my back. The second one just missed my head."

Extremely rare were such miraculous deliverances from death. Many of
the Dublins who got safely out of the boats and attempted to swim or
wade to the shore were entangled in the barbed wire and drowned. The
few who reached the shore crawled on their stomachs, or ran, reeling
and staggering, to the shelter of a narrow ridge of sand, about four
feet high, which fortunately stretched across the beach not far from
the cliff. Most of the boats were destroyed. Others, with their
ghastly loads of dying and dead, drifted out to sea, where they were
picked up by the Fleet. An officer of the Dublins who was in one of
these boats says:--"Shrapnel burst above our heads and before I knew
where I was I was covered with dead men. Not knowing they were dead, I
was roaring at them to let me up, for I thought I was drowning. The
guns still played on us till we got back to a mine-sweeper. I was
simply saturated all over with blood, and I could feel the hot blood
all over me all the way across. When they pulled these poor fellows
off me they were all dead, and the poor fellows under me were dead
also. The boat was awful to look at, full of blood and water."

Meanwhile the landing of the Munsters from the _River Clyde_ was about
to commence. Three of the lighters were placed in position to serve as
a pier from the vessel to the shore. They covered but a part of the
distance. Then out of the holes cut in the sides of the steamer were
thrust wooden gangways leading to the lighters.

The Munsters caught glimpses from the lower deck of the appalling
scenes of tumult and slaughter attending the landing of the Dublins.
They saw the boats drifting by loaded with the mangled bodies of their
fellow-countrymen. They saw corpses floating on the sea. They saw the
waters, as smooth as glass, turned from blue to crimson. As the
Dublins set out for the shore they cannot have had any adequate
conception of the withering tempest of lead that awaited them. The
Munsters witnessed the whole horrid tragedy. The task before them was
every whit as desperate, and fearsome, and knowledge of its nature
added to its terrors. It was enough to make the blood curdle in the
veins, and fear to clutch at the heart with an icy grip. Man clings to
life tenaciously. Many of these hitherto gay and irresponsible young
Munsters had become very serious, and their eyes had a dee