Then, with a slight alteration of helm she steered straight for the barge farthest from the Mole. Down went the barge; on swept the _Thetis_. Between the net defence she went, tearing buoys and nets from their anchors and sinkers. Hampered by these obstructions, for apparently the nets fouled her propellers, the _Thetis_ slowed down and grounded diagonally across the entrance to the canal and about a hundred yards from the pier-heads. Even as she settled, for she had been purposely sunk in the fairway, the _Intrepid_ came into view. In her case she was late in rounding the Mole-head, a circumstance that was subsequently explained by the fact that her surplus watch of stokers, determined not to miss the scrap, had refused to be taken off by the M.-L.'s. Consequently the _Intrepid_ went into Zeebrugge Harbour with a complement of 87 officers and men instead of 54, and that meant that if possible 33 extra men had to be rescued by the little M.-L.'s. Steering for the gap in the net defences made by the _Thetis_ and judging her position by the latter vessel, hard aground, the second participator in the marine Balaclava entered the Harbour. Although receiving a heavy gruelling the _Intrepid_, worthy of her name, held resolutely to her course, until she grounded heavily in the centre of the entrance to the canal. Her mission accomplished she was sunk by orders of her gallant skipper, and thus thousands of tons of hard cement were firmly embedded in the mud and sandy bottom of the canal. And now, to make doubly sure of the bottling-up process, the _Iphigenia_ approached under a heavy fire. She, too, was carrying far more than her required complement of men, the supernumeraries, resolutely determined not to be out of the grim business, having dodged the motor-launches told off to remove them before the ship made for the harbour. From their point of observation Seton and Smith watched the majestically-moving _Iphigenia_. Frequently hidden by driving clouds of artificial fog, pounded by guns of all calibres, with her upper-works shot through and through, the third block-ship held on. Suddenly two shells hit the ship on the starboard side. Following the blast and smoke of the exploding missiles a dense cloud of steam poured from her vitals, enveloping the whole of the forepart in blinding vapour. "Steam-pipe severed," decided Alec. "Now, what will she do? She's missing the entrance, by Jove!" Fortunately, at that juncture the smoke cleared sufficiently to allow the temporarily blinded navigation-party to realize their mistake. With her partly-disabled engines going at full speed astern, the _Iphigenia_ drove between a large dredger and a lighter, sinking the latter like a stone. Then, driving the rammed barge ahead with her only starboard engine working, she literally pushed the huge, unwieldy craft into the canal.