Those of us who were _au fait_ with the details of all phases of the operation little thought we should ever see these heroic attackers of the viaduct again. The chances against manoeuvring a submarine into the viaduct were very considerable, the chances of any {215} of the personnel being rescued were apparently nil. Nobody knew that better than the personnel concerned. The use of the control apparatus would have greatly increased their chances of being rescued, but they refused to consider preservation of life until the success of their undertaking had been assured. They cannot have expected to return. Yet there was no dearth of volunteers. The personnel had been selected in much the same way as those from the Grand Fleet. If the secret could have been made known beforehand and volunteers asked for in the ordinary way we should probably have had the whole submarine service begging to be allowed to take part. The execution of this most difficult submarine operation was beyond all praise; it was, indeed, a miracle that the crew of C3 lived to witness the unqualified success of their efforts. Before the night was ended these gallant lives were again in jeopardy. We heard afterwards that a German cyclist corps was hurriedly sent to reënforce the Mole garrison, and, not knowing that the viaduct had been destroyed, they were precipitated into the sea and thus infringed the Gadarene copyright. {216} CHAPTER VI THE SMOKE SCREENING. SUBSIDIARY ATTACKS. The author is particularly anxious that each phase of the operation and the work of each class of vessel should be clearly understood, so that the reader may fully appreciate the work of the blockships, the latter forming the crux of the whole operation. It will be convenient, therefore, to describe in this chapter the proceedings of those small craft whose work was not carried out in actual company of the blockships themselves. The general idea of the smoke screens has already been described. A large number of small craft, including coastal motor boats, motor launches, and destroyers, were required for the purpose.