light buoy that was to be her guide, and those on board saw her no more.
She passed thence into the hands of the small craft, whose mission it
was to guide her, light her, and hide her in the clouds of the
smoke-screen.

[Sidenote: Precise orders are planned for each stage of operation.]

There was no preliminary bombardment of the harbor and the batteries as
before the previous attempt; that was to be the first element in the
surprise. A time-table had been laid down for every stage of the
operation; and the staff work beforehand had even included precise
orders for the laying of the smoke barrage, with plans calculated for
every direction of wind. The monitors, anchored in their
firing-positions far to seaward, awaited their signal; the great siege
batteries of the Royal Marine Artillery in Flanders--among the largest
guns that have ever been placed on land-mountings--stood by likewise to
neutralize the big German artillery along the coast; and the airmen who
were to collaborate with an aerial bombardment of the town waited
somewhere in the darkness overhead. The destroyers patrolled to seaward
of the small craft.

[Sidenote: The signal is given for the guns to open.]

The _Vindictive_, always at that solemn gait of hers, found the
flagship's light-buoy and bore up for where a coastal motor-boat,
commanded by Lieutenant William R. Slayter, R.N., was waiting by a
calcium flare upon the old position of the Stroom Bank buoy. Four
minutes before she arrived there, and fifteen minutes only before she
was due at the harbor mouth, the signal for the guns to open was given.
Two motor-boats dashed in towards the ends of the high wooden piers and