"Well, I'll send a Boche or two ahead of me to pipe the side before I step over it. And if I come back"—he gave one of his reckless devil-may-care laughs (the laugh I once heard him give when he flung his last louis on the table at Monte Carlo)—"faith, Bill, you shall foot it at my wedding...." He turned abruptly on his heel, and as he strode away I heard him humming:
"Wid me bundle on me shoulder,
Sure there's no man could be bolder...."
At the prearranged point we shifted from the bridge; the Navigator and Quartermaster moved into the conning tower, and I took up my position in the port flame-thrower's hut from where I conned the ship. I had previously been round the gun and howitzer positions, and exchanged a few words with the waiting officers and men, and as I passed from one motionless group to the other my heart swelled with pride and love for them. There wasn't an anxious face or a wavering eye. Broad grins and whispered jests, like children waiting for the curtain to go up at a pantomime; and among the Marines grouped in the rear of each brow some whispered catchword of Milsom's was rife.
"'Urry up there, please! Step smartly, plenty of room in the front...."
Gallant, gallant lads! And astern of us in the quiet darkness lay England—England lighting its candles and going to bed; England bending over cradles; and here and there, beside some open window that looked out to the sea, perhaps some English girl kneeling and praying as she never prayed before.
A guttering smoke buoy went down our port side, and the next moment we were enveloped in the artificial fog of our own making. We had parted company from the Destroyers some minutes before, and the blockships had swerved aside to make the entrance. Then, as I stood with my hand on the key of the fire gongs, peering ahead into the swirling murk, I felt a breath of damp air blow strong in my face. The wind had changed and was rolling back our fog on top of us. Like magic I saw a space of water clear ahead, and the next instant the Mole stood out black and distinct a couple of cables away, limned against the glare of searchlights and star shell.
There was a blinding yellow flash—it seemed on top of us; and that instant, as the old ship answered to her helm, hell was unloosed.
Every gun and howitzer on board opened fire with a roar that shook the ship from bridge to keel. The machine-guns in the top broke into a hysterical chatter, and all along the Mole bursts of flame belched forth. The shrapnel was spattering about the upperworks like hailstones, and as I got the bows round, heading for the Mole, I felt the ship check and shudder as a heavy shell struck her. Another burst aft and again another; they must have struck us in the battery where all those men were waiting, and try as I would I could not shut out of my consciousness the thought of the carnage that they must have caused. The foremost howitzer gun's crew were lying in heaps round the gun, and as they rolled over fresh men came running and stumbling over the dead to take their places. The tide was flooding strong, and the ground swell of yesterday's breeze broke ominously against the stonework. The ship lifted her bows to it, and plunging and scending, we grated alongside. I left the shelter of the hut then and got out on to the bridge to superintend the placing of the grappling anchors. Three of the brows were out, rising and falling above the parapet of the Mole as the ship lurched in the swell; at one moment they were six feet above the level of the stonework, the next they were striking it with a shuddering jar. And as I watched I saw Milsom and Mouldy go lurching out along them with their men at their heels. A dazzling star shell lit the scene like day, and I saw Milsom stoop and vault a clear drop of six feet, turn and catch a burly Marine in his arms, and rush forward to help secure the grappling anchor. They had got another brow out by now, and men were pouring over it with scaling ladders. The din surpassed all description. The almost ceaseless roar of guns, the grinding and crash of the brows, the sob of the waves as they broke against the pier, flinging the spray high, and ever and anon the explosion of shrapnel overhead spattering their deadly hail broadcast. Our monitors and aircraft were busy, too, and ashore the tall flames of a score of great conflagrations leaped into the sky.
It must be explained that the outer pathway along the top of the Mole was about six feet wide. Then came a drop of 30 feet on to the Mole itself, and once they passed over into this abyss both storming and demolition parties were lost to view. They took ladders for the purposes of this descent, and the sight of those reeling brows a-swarm with men, laden as they were with these ladders, flamethrowers, machine-guns, bombs, cutlasses, and demolition implements, will always haunt me. They dropped like flies, to lie where they fell, dangling across the narrow gangways or clinging piteously for a moment ere they let go and slipped into oblivion. The forecastle was just a battered heap of dead and shattered wreckage, and aft along the batteries I saw Jock Macrae's assistants bending among the motionless heaps and rushing the wounded below.
The Pilot joined me after a while, and together we watched the blockships pass through the entrance a few cables away, vomiting flashes and spurts of heavy and machine-gun fire. How they got across that harbour, lit like day by searchlights, whipped into a sheet of foam by shrapnel and machine-gun fire, only God and their Captains know. We saw Jimmy Thorogood in the Dauntless go crashing through the flimsy anti-submarine defences, and I believe we gave him a crazy, cracked cheer. They were plastering him with gas shell, and he was on fire aft and blazing like a hay-rick. But he held on and made the entrance to the Canal, and was lost to view behind some sheds. Daring came next, and Determination, trailing in the rear and almost hidden by waterspouts of falling shell. And then Selby gripped my arm and pointed to the foremost brow. Our Padre was lurching along it with splinters flying all round him, looking for all the world like a tightrope walker learning his profession. He reached the Mole intact, and stood looking about him. Then suddenly bending down, he swung the unconscious form of a giant Marine over his shoulder, and carrying him thus, turned and retraced his steps. Other matters claimed my attention for the moment, but when I next looked along the ship's side I saw him returning with another precious human freight slung on his back.