'It was a scorching, thirsty time on deck. The particles of carbon from the powder floating in the air dried our throats till we almost choked. The captain's steward was always ready to quench the thirst of the guests, Mr. Moberly Bell, the now famous manager of the _Times_, and myself, with cool drinks whenever we found time between the shots to rush below; but just as the tumbler reached our lips the blast of the guns would almost shatter the glass against one's teeth, and we would rush on deck to see how the shot had told. 'All the time the navigating lieutenant, with eyes fixed on the chart, was calmly moving the vessel up and down a narrow tortuous passage which we could distinctly see, by peering over the side of the vessel, for the reefs on either flank of the narrow channel glistened from out the blue-black of the waters.' Here is Lord Charles Beresford's own account of the _Condor's_ day at Alexandria, as briefly given once to an interviewer. 'The _Temeraire_ got aground on the northern part of the Boghaz Pass, so we went down and towed her off. Whilst doing so the Marabout Fort opened fire on the English ships inside the bar. The idea struck me that the _Condor_ being small, with low freeboard, might get through the zone of fire and under the fort. It wasn't altogether easy work, for had one shell struck the _Condor_ fair and square we should have been sunk to a dead certainty. However, she was easy to handle, and when once we were on the angle of the fort and under it we were all right. My dodge was to throw a couple of missiles into the fort at a time, and then back or fill, as the case might be, so that just when the Egyptians thought they had got our right range, the _Condor_ was out of the way, and so it went on pretty well all day.[122] The men behaved splendidly,--upon my word, I don't think they have their equals!' For upwards of two hours the _Condor_ fought Fort Marabout, and then the Admiral, apparently thinking that she had as much as she could manage, signalled to the _Beacon_, another gun-vessel (Commander G.W. Hand), and the senior officer's ship of the flotilla, for the _Bittern_, _Cygnet_, and _Decoy_ to go to her assistance. The fort, though, had already, by that, been practically subdued. The Egyptians had had enough, and soon afterwards ceased firing, although they kept their flag flying until next day, when the officer who is now Admiral Sir A.K. Wilson, V.C., landed, and hauled it down. He presented the colours of Marabout to Lord Charles Beresford, in whose possession they are now, together with another trophy of the fight, a fragment of one of the _Condor's_ shells which was found to have passed through the magazine of Fort Marabout, and did not explode until outside. Among his most treasured mementos Lord Charles also preserves the _Condor's_ binnacle, as taken from the ship when, some ten or twelve years later, she passed into the shipbreakers' hands at Dead Man's Bay, Plymouth Sound.