The destroyers steamed in near enough to bombard the coast. Close under the shore, near the German harbour of List, they engaged enemy patrol vessels and aircraft. They sank two of the patrol boats (armed trawlers) and brought down a seaplane. While our boats were picking up survivors, some of these patrol boats threw out such dense clouds of smoke to screen themselves that, in the obscurity thereby caused, a collision took place between two of the British destroyers, the _Laverock_ ramming the _Medusa_ and holing her badly in the engine-room. The _Laverock_, despite her injuries, was able to proceed under her own steam, but the _Medusa_ was wholly disabled. In the meanwhile, urgent wireless messages from the Admiralty were received ordering the Commodore to withdraw. To remain longer on the coast with a crippled ship in tow would be to invite the attack of a superior enemy force; in fact, it was known that strong forces were already putting to sea from the German bases; so at 11 a.m. the Commodore ordered the entire force to withdraw to the westward. The flotilla-leader _Lightfoot_ took the _Medusa_ in tow. At the beginning of the homeward voyage the enemy seaplanes circled round the ships, but were kept off by our high-angle guns. One plucky German airman, however, despite the shrapnel that was bursting all round him, made a most determined attack. He dropped about eight bombs and very nearly hit the _Conquest_. But the ever-increasing strength of the wind, and the signs of worse weather coming, at last made the German airmen turn to seek shelter on their own land. The flotilla soon found itself steaming in the teeth of a strong south-west gale, violent rain-squalls alternating with snow-blizzards, and a high sea running. Progress was slow, for the speed of the flotilla was necessarily limited to that at which their crippled consort could be towed, and that speed, as the wind ever hardened, was gradually reduced from ten to only six knots.