The darkness of the
night was supplemented by a nightmare daylight of battle-fired guns, and
machine guns along the mole. The batteries ashore woke to life.
It was in a gale of shelling that the Vindictive laid her nose against
the thirty-foot-high concrete side of the mole, let go her anchor, and
signaled to the Daffodil to shove her stern in. The Iris went ahead and
endeavored to get alongside likewise.
The fire was intense while the ships plunged and rolled beside the mole
in the seas, the Vindictive, with her greater draft, jarring against the
foundations of the mole with every lunge. They were swept diagonally by
machine-gun fire from both ends of the mole and by the heavy batteries
on shore. Captain Carpenter conned the Vindictive from the open bridge
until her stern was laid in, when he took up his position in the flame
thrower hut on the port side. It is marvelous that any occupant should
have survived a minute in this hut, so riddled and shattered was it.
The officer of the Iris, which was in trouble ahead of the Vindictive,
described Captain Carpenter as handling her like a picket boat. The
Vindictive was fitted along her port side with a high, false deck, from
which ran eighteen brows, or gangways, by which the storming and
demolition parties were to land. The men gathered in readiness on the
main lower decks, while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines,
waited on the false deck just abaft the bridge.
Pages:
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794