il
the main battle develops more clearly at Gaba Tepe and at Sedd-el-Bahr
I must not commit the only troops I have in hand as my
Commander-in-Chief's reserve.

When we got to "X" Beach the foreshore and cliffs had been made good
without much loss in the first instance, we were told, though there is a
hot fight going on just south of it. But fresh troops will soon be
landing:--so far so good. Further round, at "W" Beach, another lodgment
had been effected; very desperate and bloody, we are told by the Naval
Beachmaster: and indeed we can see some of the dead, but the Lancashire
Fusiliers hold the beach though we don't seem yet to have penetrated
inland. By Sedd-el-Bahr, where we hove to about 6.45, the light was very
baffling; land wrapped in haze, sun full in our eyes. Here we watched as
best we could over the fight being put up by the Turks against our
forlorn hope on the _River Clyde_. Very soon it became clear that we
were being held. Through our glasses we could quite clearly watch the
sea being whipped up all along the beach and about the _River Clyde_ by
a pelting storm of rifle bullets. We could see also how a number of our
dare-devils were up to their necks in this tormented water trying to
struggle on to land from the barges linking the River Clyde to the
shore. There was a line of men lying flat down under cover of a little
sandbank in the centre of the beach. They were so held under by fire
they dared not, evidently, stir. Watching these gallant souls from the
safety of a battleship gave me a hateful feeling: Roger Keyes said to me
he simply could not bear it. Often a Commander may have to watch
tragedies from a post of safety. That is all right. I have had my share
of the hair's breadth business and now it becomes the turn of the
youngsters. But, from the battleship, you are outside the frame of the
picture. The thing becomes monstrous; too cold-blooded; like looking on
at gladiators from the dress circle. The moment we became satisfied that
none of our men had made their way further than a few feet above sea
level, the _Queen_ opened a heavy fire from her 6-inch batteries upon
the Castle, the village and the high steep ground ringing round the
beach in a semi-circle. The enemy lay very low somewhere underground. At
times the _River Clyde_ signalled that the worst fire came from the old
Fort and Sedd-el-Bahr; at times that these bullets were pouring out from
about the second highest rung of seats on the West