“Gate!” yelped the destroyers, “stand by the gates!” and presently they sped forth to meet the dawn and their destiny. The grinding sound of cables crawling through the hawsepipes as the squadrons shortened in filled the harbour. The dark water eddied and swirled as each ship tried her engines; then one by one from the flagships of squadrons came the deep-toned “Ready, aye, ready!” Each time, like the chanted responses to a litany, the hospital ships echoed “God go with you!” So the last hour of night passed. Outside, as the dawn was paling in the sky, the night patrols encountered the van of the battle fleet forming up across the waste of grey waters beneath its pall of smoke. “St. George!” rang the challenge. In one great breath came the fleet’s reply: “England!” [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV THE EPIC OF ST. GEORGE’S DAY, 1918 “ ... Let a plain statement suffice.”--_Rudyard Kipling._ It may be well to emphasise at the outset that the forces which participated in the raids on Ostend and Zeebrugge on the night of April 22nd-23rd, did not set out with the mere intention of giving the world an exhibition of gallantry and dash--a sort of grim Naval and Military Tournament for the benefit of newspaper readers. The enterprise had three clearly defined military objectives: the first of which was the blocking of the Bruges ship canal at its entrance into the sea at Zeebrugge; the second, the bottling up of Ostend harbour from the sea; and thirdly, the infliction of the maximum damage possible in the time upon the enemy in occupation of these two ports. The casualties, considering the desperate nature of the undertaking, were light and scarcely to be compared with those along the British front during a single night of trench raids; and those among that gallant band of volunteers who did not return, died in the knowledge that they had added to history a page as fair as any the Navy has yet contributed. The heavily fortified coastline between these two nests of the enemy forms the base of a triangle with Bruges at the apex, affording protection to a number of German torpedo-craft and submarines within easy striking distance of the British coast and commerce routes. The scheme adopted for sealing the two exits of this system was roughly as follows.