311 



DISCOVERY 



to-day. and the work of demolition'a'much more diffi- 

 cult matter : the heavy and bulky materials had to 

 be brought ashore and then dragged across the sand- 

 dunes for over a mile to the lock gates. VVIiile this 

 \v;is being done it was necessary to mislead the enemy 

 as to the real objective ofthe raid, and so a detach- 

 ment of troops cruised aboard some frigates to the west 

 of the town, to make a feint of landing, while Coote and 

 I'opham, as a piece of bluff, sent a formal demand for 

 the surrender of the town, and threatened, in case of 

 refusal, to bombard it. To this the French comman- 

 dant made the spirited reply that he would not surrender 

 until he was buried beneath the ruins of his town ; but 

 the necessary time had been gained, and at 10.20 a.m. 

 Popham saw the flash of the explosion, and knew that 

 the main object of the expedition had been achieved. 



In a despatch written the same day, and headed " On 

 a Ridge of Sand Hills, three miles to the East of Os- 

 tend," Coote announced " the compleat and brilliant 

 success attending the expedition," but the very fact 

 that he had time to sit and write a despatch ashore 

 meant disaster. As the men fell back to their rendezvous 

 for re-embarkation, with a casucdty list of no more than 

 five all told, they found that the wind had become so 

 strong that it was quite impossible to get aboard. Two 

 boats which were filled with men capsized immediately 

 in the surf, and it was with difficulty that the occupants 

 were saved from drowning. There was nothing to be 

 done but to wait on the weather, and Coote was forced 

 to choose the best ground he could and to dig in. 

 About daybreak the British found themselves attacked 

 by two columns from the front, while behind them the 

 thunder of the surf cut off all hope of retreat ; then 

 other bodies of troops appeared on either flank, and 

 after a desperate struggle the British left, held by the 

 nth Foot, was driven in, and Coote, while trying to 

 rally them, was badly wounded. Major-General Burrard 

 took over the command, but realised he was^hopelessly 

 outnumbered, and that both his flanks were turned, so 

 the two generals decided to surrender at discretion, 

 thinking it " more our duty to preserve the lives of the 

 brave men we commanded, than to sacrifice them to 

 what, as we conceived, was a mistaken point of Honor. 

 Had we acted differently, it is probable, that in less 

 time than what I mentioned, their fate would have 

 been decided by the bayonet." Some 940 of all ranks 

 surrendered, and there were 162 casualties : thus it 

 came that Coote 's cheerj' despatch of the 19th was 

 capped next by day a letter of a very different tone 

 from Burrard, a prisoner of war, sitting beside the bed 

 of his wounded commander in Ostend. As for Popham, 

 he had managed to land early in the morning only to 

 see the troops surrounded and captured, and there was 

 nothing for him to do but to communicate with the 

 shore by a flag of truce, and then set sail for England. 



The first news reached Grey early on the 22nd in 

 the shape of despatches from Popham, and from the 

 officer in command of the troops who had not been 

 landed. Grey put the best face he could on the 

 matter. " The elements have cruelly fought against 

 us," he wrote ; " had we but been a week earlier, when 

 the weather was fine, all would have gone happily well, 

 and the other objects of the expedition carried into 

 effect. As it is, our loss is trifling compared to the 

 importance of the object gained, and which is certainly 

 completed in all its parts." The full details did not 

 arrive till the middle of July, when a surgeon who had 

 been sent to Ostend by the Commander-in-Chief, the 

 Duke of York, brought on his return a large bundle of 

 despatches from Coote and Burrard, and Dundas had 

 the opportunity of reading, with a wry smile, the 

 optimistic letter written by Coote just before the final 

 disaster. 



As to the success of the expedition, its main object 

 had certainly been achieved, and the canal left without 

 a drop of water at low tide ; but the cost was great, for 

 at that time England could ill afford the loss of any 

 well-trained troops, such as the four companies of 

 Guards. The general tendency was to magnify the 

 success, and discount the cost ; indeed, as in the St. 

 George's Day raid of 19 18, the moral effect was cer- 

 tainly very great. Grey himself, the ven,' embodiment 

 of the spirit of the offensive, summed up the matter in 

 his energetic and sprawling hand: "There appears 

 now a perfect lull on both sides ; perhaps the old say- 

 ing, after a calm comes a storm, may be verified. I 

 hope it may on our part, for we ought never to allow 

 the opposite coast to sleep in peace." 



Note. — The official despatches, on which this notice is 

 based, are preserved in the Public Record Office : W.O. I,'i77. 

 .\dmiralty Instructions in Ad. 2/1353. There are also several 

 references in private correspondence, and in the newspapers of 

 the day. See also Fortescue, History of the British Army, 

 vol. iv, pt. i, pp. 587-9. For the raids of 1918 see C. S. Terry, 

 Ostend and Zeebrtigge (Oxford University Press, 1919). 



DIRTY MONEY AND DISEASE 

 Writing on this subject in the October issue of the 

 Scientific American Monthly, M. Jacques Bayer states 

 that even slightly-soiled bank-notes will, on examination, 

 be found to harbour a " number of varieties of Saccharo- 

 mycetes (including brewer's yeast and various other 

 yeasts), great numbers of microscopic alga; and bacteria, 

 various bacilla?, especially the Bacterium terna, which is 

 the agent of putrefaction, and the Leptothrix buccalis, a, 

 parasite which is particularly abundant upon the tongue, 

 in the saliva, and within the interstices of the teeth." 

 The writer has noticed that the " differences in the 

 bacteria found on bank-notes and on coins are not so great 

 as might be supposed," though microbes are more dis- 

 posed to the bank-note, and microscopic algsc to coinage. 

 The morals are obvious ! 



