duel with them. These now opened fire into the smoke and over it at the
monitors; the Marines and the monitors replied; and, meanwhile, the
aeroplanes were bombing methodically and the anti-craft guns were
searching the skies for them, Star-shells spouted up and floated down,
lighting the smoke banks with spreading green fires; and those strings
of luminous green balls, which airmen call "flaming onions," soared up
up to lose themselves in the clouds. Through all this stridency and
blaze of conflict, the old _Vindictive_, still unhurrying, was walking
the lighted waters towards the entrance.

It was then that those on the destroyers became aware that what had
seemed to be merely smoke was wet and cold, that the rigging was
beginning to drip, that there were no longer stars--a sea-fog had come
on.

[Sidenote: Destroyers keep in touch by lights and sirens.]

The destroyers had to turn on their lights and use their sirens to keep
in touch with each other; the air attack was suspended, and
_Vindictive_, with some distance yet to go, found herself in gross
darkness.

[Sidenote: The fog and smoke are dense.]

[Sidenote: A motor-boat leads the way for _Vindictive_.]

There were motor-boats to either side of her, escorting her to the
entrance, and these were supplied with what are called Dover
flares--enormous lights capable of illuminating square miles of sea at
once. A "Very" pistol was fired as a signal to light these; but the fog