[Sidenote:  The demolition parties on the Mole dynamite buildings.]

The storming and demolition parties upon the Mole met with no resistance from the Germans, other than the intense and unremitting fire.  The geography of the great Mole, with its railway line and its many buildings, hangars, and store-sheds, was already well known, and the demolition parties moved to their appointed work in perfect order.  One after another the building burst into flame or split and crumpled as the dynamite went off.

[Sidenote:  The enemy fights with the machine-guns.]

A bombing party, working up towards the Mole extension in search of the enemy, destroyed several machine-gun emplacements, but not a single prisoner rewarded them.  It appears that upon the approach of the ships, and with the opening of the fire, the enemy simply retired and contented themselves with bringing machine-guns to the shore end of the Mole.  And while they worked and destroyed, the covering party below the parapet could see in the harbor, by the light of the German star shells, the shapes of the block ships stealing in and out of their own smoke and making for the mouth of the canal.

[Sidenote:  The Thetis shows the road to all the ships.]

Thetis came first, steaming into a tornado of shell from the great batteries ashore.  All her crew, save a remnant who remained to steam her in and sink her, had already been taken off by the ubiquitous motor launches, but the remnant spared hands enough to keep her four guns going.  It was hers to show the road to Intrepid and Iphigenia, who followed.

[Sidenote:  The Thetis is sunk.]

She cleared the string of armed barges which defends the channel from the tip of the Mole, but had the ill-fortune to foul one of her propellers upon the net defence which flanks it on the shore side.  The propeller gathered in the net and rendered her practically unmanageable; the shore batteries found her and pounded her unremittingly; she bumped into a bank, edged off, and found herself in the channel again, still some hundreds of yards from the mouth of the canal, in a practically sinking condition.  As she lay she signalled invaluable directions to the others, and here Commander R.S.  Sneyd, D.S.O., accordingly blew the charges and sank her.  A motor launch, under Lieutenant H. Littleton, R.N.V.R., raced alongside and took off her crew.  Her losses were five killed and five wounded.

[Sidenote:  The Intrepid follows.]

Intrepid, smoking like a volcano and with all her guns blazing, followed; her motor launch had failed to get alongside outside the harbor, and she had men enough for anything.  Straight into the canal she steered, her smoke blowing back from her into Iphigenia’s eyes, so that the latter, blinded and going a little wild, rammed a dredger with a barge moored beside it, which lay at the western arm of the canal.  She got clear though, and entered the canal pushing the barge before her.  It was then that a shell hit the steam connections of her whistle, and the escape of steam which followed drove off some of the smoke and let her see what she was doing.