About eight o'clock
If the grim game of war could only have been played now as it had been even five years before , the victory would have already been with her , for the cable from Gibraltar to the Lizard had that morning brought the news from Admiral Commerell , Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean , that he had been attacked by , and had almost destroyed , the combined French Mediterranean and Russian Black Sea Fleets , and that , with the aid of an Italian Squadron , he was blockading Toulon , Marseilles and Bizerta . The captured French and Russian ships capable of repair had been sent to Malta and Gibraltar to refit . This , under the old conditions , would , of course , have meant checkmate in the game of invasion , since not a hostile ship of any sort would have dared to put to sea , and the crowded transports would have been as useless as so many excursion steamers , but -- About eight o'clock , as the half-wrecked victors and vanquished were slowly struggling into the half-ruined harbour , five winged shapes became visible against the grey sky over Calais , rapidly growing in size , and a few minutes later two more appeared , approaching from the north-east . They , alas , were the heralds of a fate against which all the gallantry and skill of Britain 's best sailors and soldiers would fight in vain . The two from the north-east were , of course , the _ Flying Fish _ and the _ See Adler _ ; the others were those which had been ordered to load up at the Calais depot , and complete that victory of the Allied Fleets which the science and devotion of British sailors had turned into utter defeat . John Castellan , standing in the conning-tower of the _ Flying Fish _ , looking down over sea and land through his prismatic binoculars , suddenly ground his teeth hard together , and sent a hearty Irish curse hissing between them .