Beginning at eight in the morning, a long-distance shelling was continued till a quarter to three in the afternoon, when the _Vengeance_, _Cornwallis_, and _Triumph_, with the three French battleships--less valuable vessels that could justifiably be risked--drew in to shore and opened fire with their secondary armament of smaller guns. It then became clear that, in spite of the previous five hours' bombardment, the forts had not been silenced, for they immediately opened fire. They effected no damage, however. By nightfall, those on the European side had apparently been put out of action, but one of the Asiatic forts was still replying when the light failed and operations ceased. Bad weather followed, and it was not till February 25th that the attack could be seriously taken up again, the Fleet having been strengthened in the interval, notably by the _Queen Elizabeth_ with her 15-inch guns. Together with the _Irresistible_, the _Agamemnon_, and the French battleship _Gaulois_, she began a long-range bombardment early in the morning, and this was followed as before by an attack at close quarters--the _Vengeance_, _Cornwallis_, and _Suffren_ again taking their part in this, with the _Charlemagne_ and, later in the day, the _Triumph_ and _Albion_. Even so it was not until evening that the last gun was silenced, and the trawlers, under cover of the fleet, were able to begin clearing away the mines. Nor could the results of these two days' {124} bombardments have been said to hold great promise for the future. So little damage had been done by the first day's firing that the batteries were all active again by the second; and, at the end of this, when the demolition-parties landed, they found seventy per cent. of the guns still in serviceable condition. Few more dangerous duties, under such circumstances, can be imagined than those undertaken by these little detachments; and, both in the courage with which they were faced and the coolness with which they were completed, the records of the navy and the Royal Marines were more than fully sustained. Particularly prominent was the act of Lieutenant-Commander E. G. Robinson, who on February 26th went alone, under heavy fire, into a hostile gun-position, that might well have been occupied, destroyed a 4-inch gun single-handed, and then returned to his landing-party for a further charge to destroy a second gun that he had found there. Owing to the fact that their white uniforms rendered them so conspicuous as targets, Lieutenant-Commander Robinson refused to allow his comrades to accompany him on either occasion. For this act he was very justly awarded the Victoria Cross.