midnight
We flooded P and Q to capacity , which gave her 50 tons negative , but it seems to have little effect in steadying her , and it is evident that a really heavy gale is running on top . * * * * * Surfaced at 10 p.m. ; a very heavy sea running and impossible to do much more than heave to . This weather has one point in its favour and that is that the destroyers are driven in . It got steadily worse all night , and at midnight we lost our foremost wireless mast overboard ; we have now -LRB- 10 a.m. -RRB- been 48 hours without communication . At dawn we could see nothing to fix by ; not a buoy in sight , nothing but an expanse of foam-topped short steep waves of dirty neutral-tinted water ; how different to the great green and white surges of the broad Atlantic . Under these circumstances Alten decided to risk it and return without laying our mines ; for once in a way I agreed with him , as it is better not to lay a minefield at all than dump one down in some unknown position which one may have to traverse oneself in the course of a month or so . We are now slowly , very slowly , struggling back to Zeebrugge .