Three o'clock, and still the moon was above the horizon, but just above it. It dipped. The opaque light faded from the sky. That intense darkness which precedes dawn settled on the sea. It blotted out even the faint line of the hills. The transports steamed forward to their appointed stations off the coast. The mystery of it! The silent, terrible power of an organized fighting machine! The wheels set in motion! Alongside of each ship came the destroyers, and alongside them in turn drifted the strings of boats into which the troops had to go on the last stage of their journey. Already the men, fully equipped with their heavy packs, greatcoats, and weapons of war, were drawn up on the decks. No unnecessary word was spoken now. I believe that the troops had so much to think of, that the thought of bullets did not enter their mind at that time. Those that did not carry a pick, had a spade; and every man carried a special entrenching tool. All had bags for filling with sand, wire-cutters, to say nothing of three days' rations in their haversacks, and their packs besides. They had 200 rounds of ammunition per man. Their rifles they tucked away under their arms, gripping them with their elbows. This left their hands free. So down four ladders they dropped over the sides of the battleships and transports on to the decks of the destroyers. They were crowded there; no room to move at all. To the unknown hostile strand they went. The last 2 miles was a race against time, for soon now the Turks would know of the landing. At least, they knew not at which point it would come, so they prepared the whole of the beaches. Later I shall tell you exactly how. It was four o'clock in the morning, and bitterly cold. The men said they remembered that much, and the last warm breakfast of coffee and rolls that they had on deck; they remembered little else than that. They had a rifle and no target that they could see.
Now the Army Corps had, as I have told elsewhere, a covering force chosen specially and assiduously practised in landing on Mudros beaches--the 3rd Brigade, under Colonel Maclagan. This daring force was to blaze the way, or brush aside, in a military sense, any obstruction of the enemy; barely 3,500 men, on whom the reputation of an army and a Nation was staked.