Then difficulties arose. The M.-L. was steering badly; the cutter was sheering violently. It was a question whether the towing-craft could weather the Mole-head. The parting of the towing-hawser settled the problem. How it parted no one on the M.-L. knew. It might have been shot through, or slipped by one of the men in the cutter; but, before the skipper of the M.-L. realized that it had parted, the cutter was lost astern in the darkness. Two hours after the rescue of the crew of M.-L. 4452 the cutter was sighted and picked up fifteen miles from land. Her undaunted crew had almost miraculously made their way out of the shell-swept harbour and were resolutely straining at their oars determined, if not picked up by a vessel, to make the shores of England. Zeebrugge had been effectually "bottled up". No longer could skulking U-boats descend the Bruges Canal and put to sea on their errand of ruthless and unlawful destruction. A flotilla of Hun torpedo-boats, too, was rendered useless by the closing of the port. It was the most brilliant naval episode of the war. Accomplished under adverse conditions the loss of life, though deplorably heavy, was less than that of a land battle. The results were greater; directly, they practically sealed the fate of the U-boat campaign; indirectly, they made their moral effect fall not only on the Western Front but all over the vast area affected by the stupendous Battle of Nations. People, who, owing no doubt to the over-secretive policy of the Admiralty, were asking: "What is the British Navy doing?" were silenced. Zeebrugge provided an indisputable answer. It was hardly to be expected that the old _Vindictive_ and the little _Iris_ and _Daffodil_ would return from the storming of the Mole, and arrangements had been made to take off their crews by means of the motor-launches, should the ships be sunk alongside the strongly fortified wall. But they did. Battered, her upperworks riddled like sieves, her decks resembling shambles with their load of dead and wounded, the _Vindictive_, with her White Ensign streaming proudly in the breeze, returned to Dover. One night's work had placed her on the same pedestal as Nelson's Victory. Proposals were submitted that she should be preserved as a national relic, and when the question was raised in the House of Commons the enigmatical reply was made: "The future of the _Vindictive_ is a matter now under consideration". Successfully the sealing of Zeebrugge was accomplished; but the simultaneous operations against Ostend, though brilliant in their conception and heroic in their attempt, failed to achieve the desired result.