[Sidenote:  A still sea and no moon.]

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 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.]