At last I had news from the cable deck--this was a great relief as I feared that the two heavy shell which burst between decks had killed all the anchoring party. The starboard anchor had jammed somewhere. It had been previously lowered to the water's edge and nothing was holding the cable, but it refused to budge. The port anchor was, therefore, dropped at the foot of the wall and the ship allowed to drop astern until a hundred yards of cable had been veered. The cable was then secured. The ship immediately swung bodily out from the Mole. With the helm to starboard she swung in again, but with her bows so tight against the Mole, and her stern so far out, that the foremost gangways {185} just failed to reach the top of the wall. With the helm amidships the ship lay parallel to the wall, but no gangways would reach. With the helm to port the ship again swung away from the Mole. This was an exceedingly trying situation. Everything now depended upon the _Daffodil_ (Lieutenant H. G. Campbell). It will be remembered that, as a result of the towing hawser having parted, and in consequence of our increase of speed when running alongside, the _Iris_ and _Daffodil_ had been left behind. We knew that whatever happened we could absolutely depend on Gibbs[1] and Campbell making short work of any surmountable difficulty, and our trust was not misplaced. They must have cut off a considerable corner to have arrived as early as they did. The _Iris_ steamed past us at her utmost speed, which was very slow, and went alongside the Mole about a hundred yards ahead of _Vindictive_ exactly as laid down in the Plan. Of her more anon. [1] Commander Valentine F. Gibbs. After we had been struggling against our difficulties alongside for about five minutes _Daffodil_ suddenly appeared steaming straight for our foremast in a direction perpendicular to the Mole. Campbell pushed her nose against us, hawsers were passed to his vessel, and he shoved us bodily alongside the Mole, exactly in accordance with the Plan. Really he might have been an old stager at tug-master's work, pursuing his vocation in one of our own harbours, judging by the cool manner in which he carried out his instructions to the letter. [Sidenote: Grappling the Mole] Immediately the two foremost gangways reached {186} the wall they were lowered until they rested on it. No other gangways were then available. The order was at once passed to "Storm the Mole."