The high wall, towering above our upper deck, was now protecting the hull of the ship from gun-fire; no vital damage could be sustained in that way so long as we remained alongside. The chief source of danger from which vital damage might accrue before we had completed our work at the Mole was that of the fast German motor boats stationed at Blankenberghe. The latter harbour was barely five minutes' steaming distance away, and, as the enemy would now be fully cognisant of our position, we might reasonably expect a horde of these craft to come to the attack with torpedo. It does not require much naval knowledge to realise that the difficulty of avoiding torpedo fire {191} under such circumstances would be wellnigh insuperable. Where a torpedo craft of that description can suddenly rush in from the outer darkness a large vessel has to depend upon remaining unseen; but of course such tactics were now impossible, and, still further, a torpedo could not be avoided even if seen coming towards the ship. That we were not attacked in that manner was mainly due to the work of certain of our smaller craft specially detailed to deal with the Blankenberghe force; former experience of the latter also led us to believe that the German personnel in those boats had no stomach for a fight. [Sidenote: The Fight Aloft] Our guns in the fighting-top were directing a murderous fire into their special targets. Chief amongst those were the heavy gun battery at the end of the broad part of the Mole and the lighter battery on the lighthouse extension. In neither case could the enemy's guns bear on the ship, and we had the advantage of taking the former battery from the rear and giving the latter a taste of enfilading fire from its western flank. But there was another target of importance. Immediately abreast the ship a German destroyer was berthed alongside the inner wharf of the Mole only eighty yards distant from the ship. We had an uninterrupted view of the greater part of her between the two northern sheds, her bridges showing well above the ground-level of the Mole. Our guns in the fighting-top, in charge of Lieutenant Charles N. B. Rigby, R.M.A., riddled that destroyer through and through. We could see the projectiles hitting the Mole floor whenever the gun was temporarily depressed, and then shower upon shower of sparks as they tore through the destroyer's upperworks. The {192} vessel appeared to have sunk, as very little of her upper deck could be seen, although we had such an elevated view-point, but now I think it possible that the wall protected her vitals and that she escaped complete destruction from our gun-fire.