Up to this moment the enemy had been silent; but now, as from sea and land the heavy guns opened upon him, his batteries suddenly awoke and filled the air with the screaming and explosions of his shells. To these were added the peculiar dull intonations of the bombs dropped on him from above; while his searchlights hurriedly sprang to attention, and star-shell after star-shell broke into light. From the attackers' point of view nothing could have happened more fortunately; but now, by one of those sea-whims that nothing could have foretold, a sudden fog descended upon the scene and threatened to baulk the whole plan. As though they had been blinded by some perverse agent, the destroyers and motor-boats found themselves in darkness, hidden from each other, as they were hidden from the _Vindictive_, and with their flares and searchlights unavailing. Striving to keep in touch by means of their syrens, they did their best to maintain their stations, but meanwhile the _Vindictive_, left without guides, could only grope about in search of the entrance. The feelings of Commander Godsal, with the failure of the _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_ still fresh in his mind, can well be imagined; and, as the minutes passed by, each with its quota of unredeemable opportunity, it may well have seemed to him that the fates had made up their minds that he was not to be the man to block Ostend. So twenty minutes passed, and then, with a gesture as apparently whimsical as the first, the fog abruptly lifted and revealed the entrance between the two piers just in front of him. At the same moment Acting Lieutenant G. L. Cockburn, with his attendant {248} motor-boats, darted ahead, and marked it with a flare; and the _Vindictive_, steaming across this, found herself safe in the desired channel. That is scarcely the right word, perhaps, for now, within less than three weeks, she had again become the target of scores of the enemy's guns. Hit every few seconds, a shell destroyed her after-control, killing Sub-Lieutenant MacLachlan and all its occupants; while every exposed position on the deck was swept, as from a hose, with machine-gun bullets. Commander Godsal, therefore, ordered his officers into the conning-tower, leaving it himself, however, when 200 yards up the channel, to be killed by a shell just as the _Vindictive_ was beginning to swing herself into position. It was this same shell that struck the conning-tower, stunning Lieutenant Sir John Alleyne, who was inside, Lieutenant V. A. C. Crutchley taking command of the vessel on getting no reply from his commander. Having swung her round to an angle of between thirty and forty degrees, however, it became impossible to move her further, and Lieutenant Crutchley ordered the ship to be abandoned, he himself and Lieutenant-Commander Bury then blowing the charges that were to sink her.