At about 12.15 A.M. the blockships were expected to be close to the Mole, and a momentary glimpse of them was obtained as they passed close to the lighthouse on their way to the canal entrance. So far so good. We saw nothing more of the blockships and received no further news of them until the operation had been completed. Nevertheless, no news was good news under the circumstances and we felt quite confident that the blockships had not been seriously hampered by the German Mole defences. Our primary object was, therefore, attained; the diversion had been of sufficient magnitude. Our further tasks were firstly that of continuing the diversion until the crews of the blockships had had a reasonable chance of being rescued subsequent to sinking their vessels in the canal, secondly of re-embarking our storming parties and withdrawing to seaward, and thirdly of carrying out demolition work on the Mole during our stay alongside. It will be noticed that these three tasks are not mentioned in their proper sequence of event but in their order of importance. It is obviously true that demolition work might be of assistance from the point of view of diversion, but not to a great extent when one realises that the enemy were already so animated with a desire to destroy our ship that they would hardly care one way {196} or the other what our particular action on the Mole might be. The presence of the ship was the main diversion and so, at all costs, the ship must be kept alongside until the diversion was no longer required and until our storming parties had returned. At about half an hour after midnight the full force of the diversion had been developed. Although the ship was still being hit continuously and the inferno showed no signs of abatement one can say that the conditions had become stabilised. As far as we could gather we could not augment our efforts, but could only carry on for the time being. So we carried on. Being somewhat anxious as to the state of things between decks I took the opportunity of a hurried visit below. On my way down from the bridge I met Lieutenant E. Hilton-Young, R.N.V.R., our parliamentary representative. He was attired in his shirtsleeves and minus any head-gear. His right arm was bandaged. I remember that he was breaking all the accepted rules of the drill-book by smoking a large cigar as he performed his prearranged duties of supervising the foremost six-inch guns and his self-appointed duty of cheering everybody up. On enquiry he informed me that he had "got one in the arm." I heard afterwards that even when he had collapsed, he refused to, have his wound attended to, and had to be taken below by force. Eventually his right arm had to be amputated, but with his unfailing resource he did not let many hours pass by before commencing to educate himself in the art of left-handed writing.