gapped and leaning out of the true, flying a vast
streamer of flame as her stokers worked her up--her, the almost
wreck--to a final display of seventeen knots. Her forward funnel was a
sieve; her decks were a dazzle of sparks; but she brought back intact
the horseshoe nailed to it, which Sir Roger Keyes had presented to her
commander.

[Sidenote: One destroyer, the _North Star_, is sunk.]

[Sidenote: Monitors and siege guns bombard the enemy.]

Meantime the destroyers _North Star_, _Phoebe_, and _Warwick_, which
guarded the _Vindictive_ from action by enemy destroyers while she lay
beside the Mole, had their share in the battle. _North Star_, losing her
way in the smoke, emerged to the light of the star-shells, and was sunk.
The German _communique_, which states that only a few members of the
crew could be saved by them, is in this detail of an unusual accuracy,
for the _Phoebe_ came up under a heavy fire in time to rescue nearly
all. Throughout the operations monitors and the siege guns in Flanders,
manned by the Royal Marine Artillery, heavily bombarded the enemy's
batteries.

[Sidenote: The attack on Ostend.]

The wind that blew back the smoke-screen at Zeebrugge served us even
worse off Ostend, where that and nothing else prevented the success of
an operation ably directed by Commodore Hubert Lynes, C.M.G. The coastal
motor boats had lit the approaches and the ends of the piers with
calcium flares and made a smoke-cloud which effectually hid the fact
from the enemy. _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_ were already past the Stroom
Bank buoy when the wind changed, revealing the arrangements to the
enemy, who extinguished the flares with gunfire.

[Sidenote: The _Sirius_ runs aground.]

The _Sirius_ was already in a sinking condition when at length the two
ships, having failed to find the entrance, grounded, and were forced
therefore to sink themselves at a point about four hundred yards east of
the piers, and their crews were taken off by motor launches.

[Sidenote: Operations cannot be rehearsed.]

The difficulty of the operation is to be gauged from the fact that from
Zeebrugge to Ostend the enemy batteries number not less than 120 heavy
guns, which can concentrate on retiring ships, during daylight, up to a
distance of about sixteen miles. This imposes as a condition of success
that the operation must be carried out at night, and not late in the
night. It must take place at high water, with the wind from the right