Commander Alfred F. B. Carpenter, standing on the exposed bridge of the cruiser, brought the bows of his ship alongside the mole, while the _Daffodil_ ran a grave risk of bursting her boilers in a giant effort to shove her stern in. As the parapet of the mole was thirty feet high the _Vindictive_ had been fitted with a temporary deck, from whence eighteen gangways were speedily run out. Before they had ordered their men to land both Colonel Elliot, of the Marines, and Captain H. C. Halahan, who was to lead the sailors, were lying dead. When the word was given the fighters moved down the brows in face of a withering fire, an operation made more difficult by the rolling of the ship in a heavy swell. Many were killed and wounded as they attempted to land. Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker, with one arm blown off, was trodden under before he could be dragged away. “Good luck!” he yelled, “good luck!” The howitzer mounted forward in the _Vindictive_ was fed and fought with uncanny precision, though two crews were wiped out. In the foretop a solitary man alone remained to work one of the Lewis guns, and he was grievously wounded. Near by, sitting in a little cabin, a mere landsman fired rockets for the guidance of the block-ships with as little concern as if he were managing a benefit performance at the Crystal Palace. Commander Carpenter’s coolness was infectious. There was no ‘panic party,’ real or fancied, on this mystery ship. The _Daffodil_, still holding the cruiser in position, was ordered to maintain her station and withhold landing her storming party. The _Iris_, owing to the failure of her grapnels to grip the parapet, fell astern of the cruiser, though Lieutenant-Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins clambered up and tried to fix them, sitting at work on the wall until they were shot dead. The _Thetis_, with a nucleus crew—the others had been taken off by motor-boats—approached the mole, but failed to reach it. One of her propellers got entangled in a steel defence net. Becoming unmanageable, she struck the edge of a shoal and refused to budge. Shell after shell crashed against her old sides, but it was not until she was virtually a wreck that Commander R. S. Sneyd, D.S.O., exploded the charges in her hold and sank her. Then he signalled the course to the other ships.