To ensure success against the mole, several very ingenious devices were brought into play. The main landing parties were placed in _Vindictive_. This cruiser--which displaced about 5,600 tons, and had a broadside of six 6-inch guns--was fitted, on the port side, with “brows,” or landing gangways, that could be lowered on the mole the moment she came alongside. All the vessels of the squadron were equipped with fog- or smoke-making material, which would veil the force from the enemy until he sent up his star shells and, in the artificial light, would conceal the character, numbers, and composition of the force as completely as possible. It seems that a shift of wind at the critical moment--here, as at Ostend--robbed this plan of some of its anticipated efficiency. At some point of the approach, then, apparently just before _Vindictive_ rounded and got abreast of the lighthouse, the presence of the invaders was detected, and they were saluted first by salvoes of star shells and next by as hot a gunfire as can be conceived. _Vindictive_ lost no time in replying. Her six 6-inch guns--and no doubt her 12-pounders as well--swept the mole as long as they could be fired, and, once alongside, the “brows”--only two out of eighteen seem to have survived the heavy gunfire--were lowered, and officers and men “boarded” the mole. The earlier accounts stated that this landing was effected in spite of the stoutest sort of hand-to-hand fighting, that the enemy was overcome and driven back, and that the landing party then proceeded to the destruction of the sheds and stores. The plans had included the blowing-up of the pile viaduct, which connects the stone mole with the mainland--by means of one or two old submarines charged with explosives, and so virtually converted into giant torpedoes. These did their work most effectively, and had the enemy been in occupation of the mole, his force would have been isolated. But, as a fact, the mole was not occupied, and the enemy relied upon machine- and gun-fire organized from the shore end of the mole for making the landing impossible. In spite of a withering fusillade, a considerable landing party of marines and bluejackets got ashore, though Colonel Elliott and Commander Halahan and great numbers of their men were killed in the attempt. Those that got on the mole proceeded to destroy, as far as possible, the sheds, stores, and guns, and then turned their attention to the destroyers moored against its inner side.