There seems little doubt that our fighting-top was now coming in for the attention of most of the enemy guns. Presently a tremendous crash overhead followed by a cessation of our fire indicated that a heavy shell had made havoc with poor Rigby and his crew of eight men. As a matter of fact, that shell had wrecked the whole fighting-top, killed all the personnel except two gunners who were both severely wounded, and dismounted one of the guns. The only survivor who was not completely disabled--Sergeant Finch, R.M.A.--struggled out from the shambles somehow and, without a thought for his own wounds, examined the remaining gun, found it was still intact, and continued the fight single-handed. He continued to serve this gun and again did great execution until a second shell completely destroyed the remains of the top and put Finch completely out of action. The splendid work of Lieutenant Rigby and his guns' crews had been invaluable, and one cannot but attribute the complete success of our diversion very largely to these gallant men. Rigby himself had set a wonderful example; all who knew him had never doubted that he would do so. Finch survived and was afterwards voted the Victoria Cross by the men of the Royal Marines. [Sidenote: The Howitzers] As soon as the ship had been securely anchored the howitzer guns manned by the R.M.A., in charge of Captain Reginald Dallas-Brooks, R.M.A., {193} commenced to bombard the targets specially assigned to them. The German batteries on the mainland were shelling our position at the Mole for all they were worth, but their efforts must have been hampered by the continuous fire of our howitzers. The presence of such weapons on board ship was, to say the least of it, most unusual. _Vindictive's_ nature had undergone an unusual change as soon as she was secured to the Mole. Our position was known to within a few yards. Both direction and range of the enemy's batteries had been worked out beforehand for any position alongside the wall. We were, therefore, in the novel situation of being able to drop heavy howitzer shell upon the enemy's batteries less than a mile away, a decided change from ordinary battleship target practice where ranges of ten to fifteen miles were the order of the day.