It was a night that promised well for the enterprise--nearly windless,
and what little breeze stirred came from a point or so west of north; a
sky of lead-blue, faintly star-dotted, and no moon; a still sea for the
small craft, the motor-launches and the coastal motor-boats, whose work
is done close in shore. From the destroyer which served the Commodore
for flagship, the remainder of the force was visible only as swift
silhouettes of blackness, destroyers bulking like cruisers in the
darkness, motor-launches like destroyers, and coastal motor-boats
showing themselves as racing hillocks of foam. From Dunkirk, a sudden
and brief flurry of gunfire announced that German aeroplanes were
about--they were actually on their way to visit Calais; and over the
invisible coast of Flanders the summer-lightning of the restless
artillery rose and fell monotonously.

[Sidenote: _Vindictive_ passes.]

"There's _Vindictive_!" The muffled seamen and marines standing by the
torpedo-tubes and the guns turned at that name to gaze at the great
black ship, seen mistily through the streaming smoke from the
destroyer's funnels, plodding silently to her goal and her end.
Photographs have made familiar that high-sided profile and the tall
funnels, with their Zeebrugge scars, always with a background of the
pier at Dover against which she lay to be fitted for her last task; now
there was added to her the environment of the night and the sea and the
greatness and tragedy of her mission.

[Sidenote: Small craft guide the _Vindictive_.]

She receded into the night astern as the destroyer raced on to lay the