"The lower deck was a shambles as the commander made the rounds of the ship, yet those wounded and dying raised themselves to cheer as he made his tour. . . .
"The _Iris_ had troubles of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the mole ahead of the _Vindictive_ failed, as her grapnels were not large enough to span the parapet. Two officers, Lieutenant Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs had both legs shot away and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer though wounded, took command and refused to be relieved.
"The _Iris_ was obliged at last to change her position and fall in astern of the _Vindictive_, and suffered very heavily from fire. A single big shell plunged through the upper deck and burst below at a point where fifty-six marines were waiting for the order to go to the gangways. Forty-nine were killed. The remaining seven were wounded. Another shell in the wardroom, which was serving as a sick bay, killed four officers and twenty-six men. Her total casualties were eight officers and sixty-nine men killed, and three officers and 103 men wounded.
"Storming and demolition parties upon the mole met with no resistance from the Germans other than intense and unremitting fire. One after another buildings burst into flame or split and crumbled as dynamite went off. A bombing party working up toward the mole extension in search of the enemy destroyed several machine-gun emplacements, but not a single prisoner rewarded them. It appears that upon the approach of the ships and with the opening of fire the enemy simply retired and contented themselves with bringing machine guns to the short end of the mole."
[Illustration: One of the camouflaged guns of the German shore batteries which raked with fire the _Vindictive_, the _Daffodil_, and the _Iris_ when they grappled with the mole, during the night raid. The outer end of this mole, where a viaduct joins the mole to the shore, was destroyed for a distance of sixty to one hundred feet by an old British submarine, loaded with high explosives, running into the channel and blowing itself up at the entrance.]