At this moment a real sea fog drifted in and mixed with the smoke-screen; our destroyers had to keep touch by siren signals, and _Vindictive_ found herself in danger of missing her mark, like _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_. She had a motor-boat escorting her on each side with huge Dover flares, but the darkness was too dense even for them. Twice she passed the entrance, and came back at last to her first position. Then, by a happy chance, a breeze cleared the fog for a moment and she saw the piers close to her with the opening dead ahead. Acting-Lieutenant Guy Cockburn, in his motor-boat, saw them too; he dashed in under heavy fire and laid his flare right in the channel; _Vindictive_ went straight over it and into goal. The enemy were now blazing at her with everything they had. A shell hit the after-control and killed Sub-Lieutenant Angus MacLachlan with all his men. Machine-gun bullets made the chart-room and bridges untenable, and Commander Godsal took his officers into the conning-tower. There, after steaming about 200 yards along between the piers, he left them, and went outside, calling back to them to order the ship to be laid bow on to the eastern pier and so swing across the channel. The order was no sooner given than a shell struck the conning-tower full. It killed the Commander outside and stunned Lieutenant Sir John Alleyne, who was inside with Lieutenant V. A. C. Crutchley. Lieutenant Crutchley shouted through the observation slit to the Commander, but, getting no reply, he coolly went on with the swinging of the ship by ringing full speed astern with the port engine. But he soon found that she had ceased to move, so he gave the order to abandon ship and sink her. The main charges were accordingly blown by Engineer-Lieut.-Commander William Bury and the auxiliary charges by Lieutenant Crutchley himself. _Vindictive_ heaved, sank about six feet, and settled on the bottom at an angle of forty-five degrees across the channel. ‘Her work was done,’ says the official narrative.