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Bottling Up Zeebrugge and Ostend

THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE The Vindictive as she lies in Ostend Harbor.

THOSE who recall High Wood upon the Somme--and they must be many, as it was after the battles of 1916--may easily figure to themselves the decks of H.M.S. Vindictive as she lies to-day, a stark, black profile against the sea haze of the harbor amid the stripped, trim shapes of the fighting ships which throng these waters. That wilderness of debris, that litter of the used and broken tools of war, lavish ruin and that prodigal evidence of death and battle, are as obvious and plentiful here as there. The ruined tank nosing at the stout tree which stopped it has its parallel in the flame-thrower hut at the port wing of Vindictive's bridge, its iron sides freckled with rents from machine-gun bullets and shell-splinters; the tall white cross which commemorates the martyrdom of the Londoners is sister to the dingy, pierced White Ensign which floated over the fight of the Zeebrugge Mole. The Iris and the Daffodil, which shared the honors.