It is not difficult to gauge the feelings of the enemy when they first noticed the ship moving off. We had taken them more or less by surprise on arrival and had managed to storm the Mole in spite of every effort to prevent us. The enemy could not have been over-pleased about that. The ship had been able to remain at the Mole for one hour and ten minutes without sustaining any vital damage. That fact was not calculated to engender a pleasant frame of mind {241} amongst the enemy. But _they knew_ exactly where we were. _They knew_ we should endeavour to leave sooner or later; _they knew_ that any attempt to do so would inevitably expose the vitals of the ship to their batteries at point-blank range; _they thought they knew_ that our fate was sealed immediately we were clear of the wall; there could be no surprise about leaving. But all such matters had been carefully thought out beforehand. _Vindictive_, _Iris_, and _Daffodil_ each carried several sets of artificial smoke apparatus for use on retirement. Immediately we started to go ahead orders were given for the smoke to be turned on. In less than a minute all previous fog records were beaten beyond comparison. Thus in place of a victim the enemy found a fog. We steamed away to the northwestward at utmost speed. The flames were pouring through the holes in the funnels; the ship had the appearance of being heavily on fire. The wind being now offshore brought the fog along with us; fortunately for the navigation we had a clear lookout ahead. The enemy cannot have seen much more than the vivid glare of our funnel flames illuminating the upper part of the fog. From all accounts their batteries were far from idle. As the ship sped seaward we had the sensation of the ship jumping at irregular but frequent intervals. This may have been due to the concussion of heavy shell striking the water near the ship. Whether any shell hit us or not during the retirement is unlikely to be known. One could hardly see one's own feet. The ship had already been hit so often that any further damage of the same description would hardly have been noticed. Suffice it to say that no vital damage to the hull was received. {242} After steaming for twenty minutes the first lieutenant reported a light off the starboard bow. It was the Blankenberghe buoy, which we had passed during the approach. We altered course to pass close to the buoy and then for our line of retirement. [Sidenote: Homeward Bound] Presently the dark form of a vessel was sighted ahead. Our guns' crews were ready for any emergency, but the vessel proved to be H.M.S. _Moorsom_, one of the patrolling destroyers. All the bridge signalling lamps had been destroyed. With an ordinary pocket torch we flashed a signal requesting _Moorsom_ to lead us as our compass was hopeless.