The blockships in the meanwhile had made the entrance, and led by _Thetis_ crashed through the obstruction at the mouth of the harbour. _Thetis_, finding that her propellers were foul of wires and nets, and that she was rapidly losing way, signalled to her two consorts to pass to starboard of her by firing a green rocket. She then grounded, and riddled by gunfire from shore batteries and enemy craft in the harbour, firing on her at almost point-blank range, took a heavy list. Plastered with high explosives and gas, helpless and immovable, she nevertheless engaged the nearest shore battery with her forecastle gun until her own smoke made it impossible to continue firing. Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander Boddie fearlessly stuck to his post in the engine-room and succeeded in restarting one engine. This swung her head into the dredged channel of the canal, up which the _Intrepid_ and _Iphigenia_ had already passed cheering wildly and blazing fury from every gun. Here the _Thetis_ quietly sank. A motor launch under command of Lieutenant H. A. Littleton, R.N.V.R., who had followed devotedly at her heels, embarked the surviving members of the ship’s company and, turning, ran the gauntlet of the harbour mouth and regained the outer sea. The _Intrepid_, on passing the _Thetis_, made for the canal mouth, which was clearly visible in the pale unearthly light of the star-shell. The enemy fire at this moment being concentrated on the upper works of the _Vindictive_ alongside the mole and the already disabled _Thetis_, _Intrepid_ was enabled to reach the mouth of the canal, where Lieutenant Bonham Carter calmly manœuvred her into position and fired the charges which sank her. It will be remembered that the additional steaming parties carried by the blockships had disembarked before the ships neared the zone of operations. A number of _Intrepid’s_ party, however, determined to participate in the coming fight, had contrived to remain on board. These surplus ratings, with the whole of the _Intrepid’s_ crew, then coolly abandoned the ship in two cutters and a skiff. In these boats they rowed down the canal and were picked up in the harbour by a British destroyer and a motor launch in command of Lieutenant P. T. Dean, R.N.V.R. Lieutenant Bonham Carter, together with his First Lieutenant and Sub-Lieutenant, and four petty officers, remained behind to ensure that the ship was sunk properly. The seven then launched the Carley float, and in this unwieldy craft, lit by searchlights and with machine-gun fire spurting all round them, paddled calmly down the canal and across the harbour. They were also picked up by Lieutenant Dean, whose handling of the crowded motor launch under a withering fire, and blinded by searchlights, was described by Lieutenant Bonham Carter (whose standard of gallantry may be presumed to be no mean one) as “simply magnificent.”