The success which resulted was due not to fortune but to foresight, and to the accurate timing of the work of the various units employed. As the flotilla advanced the smoke-screen craft and motor-boats dashed ahead, laid their screens, drove in the enemy ships, and made it possible for the transports to approach the Mole. The Ostend force parted company at the agreed point, and the monitors opened fire on the shore batteries. Precisely at midnight the _Sirius_ and the _Brilliant_ arrived at Ostend, and at Zeebrugge the _Vindictive_, emerging from the thick fog of smoke into the brilliant light of German flares, saw the end of the Mole within 400 yards of her. She ran alongside at full speed, and returned the fire of the big guns with her 6-inch and 12-pound armament. [Illustration: Zeebrugge.] To grapple the Mole was very difficult; the outer wall was high and there was a heavy swell rolling the ships. The _Iris_ was ahead; but the _Daffodil_, being close astern of the _Vindictive_, was able to push her into place with her bows and hold her there most gallantly. The _Vindictive_ ran out the "brows" or high gangways with which she was specially fitted, and the storming parties were ready to land. At this moment a shell fell among them and killed Colonel Bertram Elliot of the Marines, while Captain Henry Halanem, who was commanding the bluejackets, fell to machine-gun fire. But their men were unchecked. They rushed upon the brows, which were tossing and crashing on the wall, and with all their heavy accoutrements, bombs, and Lewis guns, cleared the leap down the steep fall to the floor of the Mole, and began fighting their way along it under cover of a barrage from the ship’s howitzers. The _Iris_ meantime was grappling the Mole farther ahead, with dearly bought success; the _Daffodil’s_ men jumped across to the _Vindictive_ and joined her storming party.