‘About twenty-five minutes after the _Vindictive_ got alongside (and ten minutes after the explosion of C. 3), the block-ships were seen rounding the lighthouse and heading for the canal entrance. It was then realised on board the _Iris_, _Daffodil_ and _Vindictive_ that their work had been accomplished. The block-ships came under very heavy fire immediately they rounded the end of the Mole. Most of the fire, it appears, was concentrated on the leading ship, the _Thetis_ (Commander R. S. Sneyd). She ran aground off the entrance to the canal, on the edge of the channel, and was sunk, as approximately as possible, across the channel itself, thus forming an obstruction to the passage of the German vessels.’ She was coming in in grand style, but had the bad luck to catch her propeller in the defence nets and became a target; but she did fine work even then, signalling to her sister ships and enabling them to avoid the nets. And she may give quite as much trouble to the enemy yet as the other two, for she lies right in the channel, which must always be kept free from silt if even the outer harbour is to be used. [Illustration: ‘A tremendous explosion was seen at the shore end of the Mole.’] ‘This co-operation between the three block-ships, carried out under extremely heavy fire, was one of the finest things in the operation. ‘The second and third ships, the _Intrepid_ (Lieutenant Stuart Bonham-Carter) and _Iphigenia_ (Lieutenant E. W. Billyard-Leake), both went straight through the canal entrance until they actually reached a point some two or three hundred yards inside the shore lines, and behind some of the German batteries. It really seems very wonderful. How the crews of the two ships ever got away is almost beyond imagination.’ Lieutenant Bonham-Carter, after running _Intrepid_ into the canal bank, ordered his crew away in the boats, and blew her up himself. He then escaped on a Carley float, a kind of patent buoy which lights a flare when it takes the water. Very fortunately, _Intrepid_ was still smoking and the smoke partially hid both him and his flare. He was picked up by a motor launch (Lieutenant Deane, R.N.V.R.) which had actually gone inshore to take off another officer who had swum to the bank, and brought away both together. _Iphigenia_, too, after ramming a dredger and carrying away a barge with her up the canal, was even more successfully placed across the channel and blown up with her engines still going, to ensure her sticking her nose fast in the mud. Her crew escaped, some in the motor launches and some in their own boats, rowing for miles out to sea before they were picked up by the destroyers.