Here is Lord Charles Beresford's own account of the Condor's day at Alexandria, as briefly given once to an interviewer. 'The Téméraire got aground on the northern part of the Boghaz Pass, so we went down and towed her off. Whilst doing so the Marabout Fort opened fire on the English ships inside the bar. The idea struck me that the Condor being small, with low freeboard, might get through the zone of fire and under the fort. It wasn't altogether easy work, for had one shell struck the Condor fair and square we should have been sunk to a dead certainty. However, she was easy to handle, and when once we were on the angle of the fort and under it we were all right. My dodge was to throw a couple of missiles into the fort at a time, and then back or fill, as the case might be, so that just when the Egyptians thought they had got our right range, the Condor was out of the way, and so it went on pretty well all day.[122] The men behaved splendidly,—upon my word, I don't think they have their equals!'
For upwards of two hours the Condor fought Fort Marabout, and then the Admiral, apparently thinking that she had as much as she could manage, signalled to the Beacon, another gun-vessel (Commander G.W. Hand), and the senior officer's ship of the flotilla, for the Bittern, Cygnet, and Decoy to go to her assistance. The fort, though, had already, by that, been practically subdued. The Egyptians had had enough, and soon afterwards ceased firing, although they kept their flag flying until next day, when the officer who is now Admiral Sir A.K. Wilson, V.C., landed, and hauled it down. He presented the colours of Marabout to Lord Charles Beresford, in whose possession they are now, together with another trophy of the fight, a fragment of one of the Condor's shells which was found to have passed through the magazine of Fort Marabout, and did not explode until outside. Among his most treasured mementos Lord Charles also preserves the Condor's binnacle, as taken from the ship when, some ten or twelve years later, she passed into the shipbreakers' hands at Dead Man's Bay, Plymouth Sound.
In her action with Fort Marabout the Condor expended over nineteen and a half hundredweights of powder (a ton all but fifty-four pounds), and two hundred and one projectiles:—65 rounds of 7-inch shell, 128 64-pounder shells, and eight 7-pounder shells; besides 200 rounds of Gatling gun ammunition, 13 war-rockets, and 1000 rounds of Martini-Henry small-arm ammunition.
When the gun-boats had finished their work Admiral Seymour made the signal of recall, and they returned, passing close to the Invincible to their stations.
Now it was that the celebrated signal to the Condor was made. The little vessel was passing the flagship, from on board which the Invincible's men were cheering her enthusiastically, when the Admiral on the quarter-deck turned to his flag-lieutenant, Lieutenant Hedworth Lambton,—the future captain of the Powerful and the man who saved Ladysmith,—and said, as if musing to himself, 'I should like to tell them something.' Lieutenant Lambton made a suggestion, and within less than a minute, the flags went up at the Invincible's mast-head making the words, 'Well Done, Condor!' That is the story of the Condor at Alexandria. The day ended for her with covering the landing-party sent ashore at the close of the bombardment to spike the guns of Fort Mex.
The story of the Condor alone, of all the ships at the bombardment of Alexandria, has been told. For one reason or another, what the little gun-boat did in the action appealed specially to people at the time, and attracted universal attention. It was, of course, largely a matter of opportunity—the seizing of an exceptional chance for an effort of individual daring. All at Alexandria did well, and the Condor had the best of the luck. In fairness, a few words must be also said of others of the ships present on the occasion, and of the part that they individually took in the fighting.
In addition to the Condor, another ship won the honour of a special signal 'Well Done!' from the Admiral—the big Inflexible, captained on that day by the officer who is now Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, G.C.B., First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. The Inflexible during the earlier part of the engagement was posted outside the reefs off the 'Corvette Pass' entrance to Alexandria harbour, enfilading the Lighthouse batteries. 'It is invidious to particularise,' says the Times correspondent, who was on board another ship in the fleet, 'but the Inflexible's firing to-day was certainly second to none.' Describing how the Inflexible shifted her position, and at ranges between 3000 and 5000 yards shelled the Mex Fort with one turret, and the Ras-el-Tin batteries with the other, the correspondent continues: 'Every shell seemed either to burst right over the Ras-el-Tin works, or to pitch upon the very parapet of the Mex Fort upon the hill.' It was just after this that Admiral Seymour signalled, 'Well done, Inflexible!' The Inflexible bore the brunt of the firing from the Ras-el-Tin batteries for three and a half hours, until she had silenced the Egyptian guns. After that, with the aid of the Téméraire, she silenced the Lighthouse Fort and Fort Adda, the front of which strongly fortified work her fire is said to have literally blown in.
It was on board the Inflexible also that the late Commander Younghusband performed an exploit of great daring—though only characteristic of the man, and of the spirit that has ever existed in the service to which he belonged. In the midst of the fighting the vent of one of the Inflexible's 80-ton guns had become choked; with the result that for the time being the gun was completely out of action. Lieutenant Younghusband (as the gallant officer then was) calmly got inside the gun—a muzzle-loader—and caused himself to be rammed by the hydraulic rammer right up the bore of the gun (a tube 16 inches in diameter) until he reached the powder-chamber, when he managed with his fingers to remedy the defect, all the time at imminent risk of suffocation from the powder gases. When he had done his work, a rope fastened to his feet hauled him back and drew him out of the gun.
The Inflexible at Alexandria had numerous dents made in her armour, and the unarmoured part of the hull was pierced by shot in several places. Her most serious injury was from a 10-inch shell, which struck the ship below the water-line outside the central armoured 'citadel,' and, glancing up, passed through her decks, killing one of the men, and mortally wounding Lieutenant Francis Jackson as he was directing the fire of one of the light guns on the superstructure.