As there was some doubt as to the starboard anchor having gone clear, the port anchor was dropped close to the foot of the Mole and the cable bowsed-to, with less than a shackle out. A three-knot tide was running past the Mole, and the scene alongside, created by the slight swell, caused the ship to roll. There was an interval of three or four minutes before the Brigadier or the Gloucester could arrive and commence to push the Vindictive bodily alongside.
During the interval the Vindictive could not be got close enough for the special Mole anchors to hook and it was a very trying period. Many of the brows had been broken by shell fire and the heavy roll had broken the foremost Mole anchor as it was being placed. The two foremost brows, however, reached the wall and enabled storming parties, led by Lieutenant-Commander Bryan F. Adams, to land and run out alongside them, closely followed by the Royal marines.
It was at this juncture that a slight change was made in the original program. It developed, as the first storming party moved out, that Commander Adams' men were not in sufficient strength for the work ahead. Captain Carpenter of the Vindictive called for support from the Brigadier. Jack acted promptly.
"Lieutenant Chadwick!" he called.
Frank stepped forward and saluted.
"You will take one hundred men and join the storming party," said Jack.
At this moment the Brigadier was rubbing close to the Vindictive. This was fortunate at the moment, for there was then no other means by which a party from the Brigadier could reach the Mole.
Hurriedly Frank gathered the men, and then leaped from his own vessel to the deck of the Vindictive. A moment later they joined Commander Adams and his party.
Owing to the rolling of the ship, a most disconcerting motion was imparted to the brows, the outer ends of which were "sawing" considerably on the Mole parapet. Officers and men were equipped with Lewis guns, bombs, ammunition, etc., and were under heavy machine-gun fire at close range; add to this a drop of thirty feet between the ship and the Mole, and some idea of the conditions which had to be faced may be realized.
Yet the storming of the Mole was carried out without the slightest delay and without any apparent consideration of self preservation. Some of the first men on the Mole dropped in their tracks under the German fire, but the others pushed on, with the object of hauling one of the large Mole anchors across the parapet.