With Harrison's death the Navy lost an officer who was as popular and as keen as he had been invaluable to the success of this particular operation, especially in the preparatory work. Able-Seaman McKenzie, one of the survivors of Harrison's party, finding himself alone, did good execution with his Lewis gun in spite of being wounded in several places; he eventually returned to _Vindictive_ after accounting for a number of the enemy. [Sidenote: Storming of the Mole] The Marines, now commanded by Major B. G. Weller, R.M.L.I., had followed the seamen over the gangways. The prearranged details of the operations on the Mole had to be somewhat modified owing to the fact that _Vindictive_ was further to the westward than originally intended. The reason for the latter has already been given, but a further word may not be out of place. The responsibility for the actual position of the ship was entirely my own; the error in position was, therefore, my own also. When the attack was originally planned the intention had been to endeavour to place the ship with her stern seventy yards from the western gun of the battery on the lighthouse extension. Actually _Vindictive's_ gangways rested on the Mole nearly three hundred yards to the westward. One can only conjecture what would have happened, under the circumstances of the failure of {203} the smoke screen owing to the change of wind, if the ship had proceeded past the six-gun battery at a speed sufficiently slow for berthing so close to the battery itself. Whether the ship would ever have reached the Mole, or whether there would have been any storming parties left on arrival alongside, can only be guessed. It certainly looks as if our mistake in position was as providential as it was unintentional. Lieutenant F. T. V. Cooke, who afterwards greatly distinguished himself, led out the first party of Marines and silenced a party of Germans who were observed firing at the parapet from a position near No. 2 shed. Another party under Lieutenant Lamplough then established a strong point near No. 3 shed for the purpose of dealing with any enemy approaching from the westward. His party also attacked and bombed a German destroyer berthed at the inner side of the Mole. Another party was ordered to the eastward to reënforce the seamen. As soon as the position was more clear the main party of the Marine force, under Captain E. Bamford, commenced an assault on the German positions covering the Mole battery. It is not possible to say how many of the storming parties reached the Mole--the loss of officers and men and the resulting temporary disorganisation naturally prevented the collection of definite information. Suffice it to say that a large number stormed the Mole in furtherance of our diversion, and that the latter was undoubtedly successful in that we attained our primary object of assisting the blockships to pass an all-important obstacle in the Mole batteries.