still sea for the
small craft, the motor-launches and the coastal motor-boats, whose work
is done close in shore. From the destroyer which served the Commodore
for flagship, the remainder of the force was visible only as swift
silhouettes of blackness, destroyers bulking like cruisers in the
darkness, motor-launches like destroyers, and coastal motor-boats
showing themselves as racing hillocks of foam. From Dunkirk, a sudden
and brief flurry of gunfire announced that German aeroplanes were
about--they were actually on their way to visit Calais; and over the
invisible coast of Flanders the summer-lightning of the restless
artillery rose and fell monotonously.

[Sidenote: _Vindictive_ passes.]

"There's _Vindictive_!" The muffled seamen and marines standing by the
torpedo-tubes and the guns turned at that name to gaze at the great
black ship, seen mistily through the streaming smoke from the
destroyer's funnels, plodding silently to her goal and her end.
Photographs have made familiar that high-sided profile and the tall
funnels, with their Zeebrugge scars, always with a background of the
pier at Dover against which she lay to be fitted for her last task; now
there was added to her the environment of the night and the sea and the
greatness and tragedy of her mission.

[Sidenote: Small craft guide the _Vindictive_.]

She receded into the night astern as the destroyer raced on to lay the
light buoy that was to be her guide, and those on board saw her no more.
She passed thence into the hands of the small craft, whose mission it
was to guide her, light her, and hide her in the clouds of the
smoke-screen.

[Sidenote: Precise orders are planned for each stage of operation.]

There was no preliminary bombardment of the harbor and the batteries as
before the previous attempt; that was to be the first element in the
surprise. A time-table had been laid down for every stage of the
operation; and the staff work beforehand had even included precise
orders for the laying of the smoke barrage, with plans calculated for
every direction of wind. The monitors, anchored in their
firing-positions far to seaward, awaited their signal; the great siege
batteries of the Royal Marine Artillery in Flanders--among the largest
guns that have ever been placed on land-mountings--stood by likewise to
neutralize the big German artillery along the coast; and the airmen who
were to collaborate with an aerial bombardment of the town waited
somew