At 5 the Hospital Battery fired its last shot.
At 5.10 the Inflexible proceeded across to engage Fort Silsileh, all the other forts from Ras-el-Tin eastward having been silenced.
At 5.15 the general signal, "Cease firing," was made, followed at 6.5 by, "Anchor in same position as last night."
While the off-shore squadron was thus occupied, the other division of the fleet under the Admiral's immediate command was not idle. The Invincible at anchor, with the Monarch and Penelope under weigh inside the reefs, assisted by the Inflexible and Temeraire, in the Corvette and Boghas Channels, were engaging from a distance of 1,300 to 1,500 yards the batteries and lines of Mex, also the Forts of Marza-el-Kanat and Omuk Kubebe at various ranges. The enemy replied briskly both from rifled and smooth bore guns. At 8.45 one of the Monarch's shells exploded the powder magazine at Marza-el-Kanat. At 8.27 the Admiral signalled to her, "Close nearer the forts, keeping as close to them as possible." By 9 a.m. the enemy's guns, except four at Fort Mex, were silenced. These four nevertheless gave considerable trouble to the ships, for it was difficult to hit upon their exact position, placed as they were almost on a level with the water, and only dimly and occasionally seen through the smoke.
About an hour before this Lord Charles Beresford, in the Condor, stationed as repeating ship, saw that the 10-inch rifled guns in Fort Marabout were playing with great accuracy, at a range of 4,200 yards, upon the ships engaged off Fort Mex, the shots falling only from 10 to 30 yards short. Steaming within range of his 7-inch gun, he chose with great skill a position, 1,200 yards off, upon which the enemy's guns could not be brought to bear, and engaged the fort single-handed for two hours. The Condor's excellent practice soon checked the fire from Fort Marabout, and elicited from the Admiral, who sent the other gunboats to his aid, the signal, "Well done, Condor." It is satisfactory to be able to add that during this operation no casualties occurred on any of the vessels engaged.[19]
At 10.35 the flag-ship signalled to the Monarch, "Steam close in to the batteries we have silenced and drop a few shells into them at close range." This was followed by, "Go as close to forts as water will permit." The Monarch then steamed in shore and poured in a tremendous fire from all her guns. At 11.30, there being no return fire, she, as well as the Invincible, ceased firing.
At 11.40, the gunboats having returned from Marabout, the Monarch, which remained under way, was signalled to support them in an attempt to destroy the Mex works, but ordered not to fire unless fired upon. All the gunboats were at the same time signalled to close in to the batteries, and, remaining under way, to destroy their rifled guns. The Condor, ten minutes after, signalled that she had only twenty-one shells for each gun left, and received the order to cease firing. The gunboats, supported by the Monarch, continued to fire on the works.
At 11.58, the Monarch observing soldiers running back into the batteries, permission was given her to reopen fire.
Permission was also given to the Penelope to fire at the rifled guns in the batteries with her 40-pounders. At 12.20 p.m. the Monarch ceased firing, signalling that she had driven about 200 soldiers out of the works. At 12.50 p.m. the Penelope was ordered to get under way, and taking advantage of her light draught, to try to dismount the guns at Mex. She then weighed and proceeded in towards Mex Fort, firing at intervals. At 1.10 the windmills in the neighbourhood of the forts were seen to be full of soldiers, and the Monarch was ordered to open fire on them with her light guns.
About 2 p.m. the Admiral, seeing that the gunners of the western battery of Mex had abandoned their guns, and that the supports had probably retired also, landed a party, under cover of the gun-vessels and gunboats, who destroyed with gun-cotton two 10-inch rifled guns, and spiked six smooth-bore guns in the right hand battery. The party returned without a casualty beyond the loss of one of their boats, which got capsized on the rocks, on an alarm (happily unfounded) being raised that some soldiers were approaching to attack the little force.