swarm of destroyers and motor craft sowed themselves abroad upon their
multifarious particular duties. The night was overcast and there was a
drift of haze; down the coast a great searchlight swung its beams to and
fro; there was a small wind and a short sea.

[Sidenote: The _Vindictive_ heads for the Mole.]

[Sidenote: The wind helps make a smoke-screen.]

From _Vindictive's_ bridge, as she headed in towards the Mole with her
faithful ferry-boats at her heels, there was scarcely a glimmer of
light to be seen shorewards. Ahead of her, as she drove through the
water, rolled the smoke-screen, her cloak of invisibility, wrapped about
her by the small craft. This was a device of Wing-Commander Brock,
R.N.A.S., "without which," acknowledges the Admiral in Command, "the
operation could not have been conducted." The north-east wind moved the
volume of it shoreward ahead of the ships; beyond it, the distant town
and its defenders were unsuspicious; and it was not till _Vindictive_,
with her bluejackets and marines standing ready for the landing, was
close upon the Mole that the wind lulled and came away again from the
south-west, sweeping back the smoke-screen and laying her bare to the
eyes that looked seaward.

[Sidenote: The star shells discover the ships and battle opens.]

[Sidenote: The _Vindictive_ reaches the Mole.]

There was a moment immediately afterwards when it seemed to those in the
ships as if the dim coast and the hidden harbor exploded into light. A
star shell soared aloft, then a score of star shells; the wavering beams