There was little or no wind, and only a gentle swell from the south.
The ships rose and fell lazily as they steamed to the south-eastward,
while only occasionally a handful of light spray fell across a sunlit
forecastle, drying almost as it fell. But if the air was still the
ships were certainly not so--as vast as a great moving town, the Fleet
was travelling at the speed of a touring car. From the Flagship's
foretop the view was extraordinary. Destroyers or light cruisers when
pressed seem to be slipping along with something always in hand and
with no apparent effort; a battleship, however, seen under the same
conditions, makes one think of St Paul's Cathedral being towed up the
Thames; she carries a "bone in her teeth," and her bows seem to
settle low and her stern to rise. In this case the Grand Fleet was
hurrying--moving south-east at full speed, because--well, they _might_
just cut the enemy off; but the Hun was canny, and knew exactly the
danger-limit in this game of "Prisoner's base."
The visibility was good, and as far as the eye could see the water was
torn and streaked with the wakes of ships--cruisers, destroyers,
battleships, and craft of every queer and imaginable warlike use. The
great mass of steel hulls had one thing only in common--they could
steam, and could steam always with something in hand above the "speed
of the Fleet." From the ships came a faint brown haze of smoke that
shimmered with heat and made the horizon dance and flicker. From the
foretop, looking aft, it seemed incredible that there could be any
power existing which could drive such a huge beamy hulk as the
Flagship was, and leave such a turmoil of torn and flattened water
astern. Battleships in a hurry are certainly not stately; an elderly
matron in pursuit of a tram-car shows dignity compared to any one of
them. But if they looked flustered and undignified, they carried a
cargo which no one could smile at. "_Battleships are mobile
gun-platforms._" I forget who said that--probably Admiral Mahan--but
it is true; and if these ships showed an ungraceful way of moving,
they certainly complied with the definition of gun-platforms. The
low-sloped turrets all pointed the same way--out to the starboard bow.
The long tapering guns moved up and down, following the horizon
against the roll, and sighing as they moved, as if the hydraulic
engines were weary of the long wait. On the tops of the turrets the
figures of officers could be seen pacing to and fro across the
steel--checking now and then to stare at the southern horizon.
Somewhere out there beneath the blazing sun were the scouts, and
beyond them--well, that question was one that the scouts were there to
answer. The smaller ships in sight seemed like motor-cycle pacers
escorting a long-distance foot-race. With their sterns low and their
bow-waves running back close to the beautifully-shaped hulls, they
gave the impression of sauntering along at their leisure and of
looking impatiently over their shoulders at the big heavy-weights
astern of them. A destroyer division suddenly heeled and altered
course like redshank, each ship turning as the leader swung, and with
a fountain of spray at their sharp high stems they cut through the
intervals of a Battleship division, swinging up again together to the
south-east course as they cleared. The watcher in the top had seen the
trick before, but familiarity could not prevent his eyes from widening
a little as he saw the stem of his next astern throw up a little cloud
of spray as it met the foaming V-wake that followed a few yards from
the leader's counter. He smiled as he thought of an old picture in
'Punch' of a crowd of small children urging and dragging a huge
policeman along to a scene of disturbance. The darting, restless
destroyers seemed like the small bloodthirsty boys--hurrying on ahead
to see the fun, and then back to wait for the ponderous but willing
upholder of the law--anxious to miss nothing of the excitement.
The Fleet was running down to intercept, and might be in action at any
moment if the luck held, but there was no signalling or outpouring of
instructions. There was just nothing to be said. Everybody knew more
or less what the tactical situation was; all knew that the enemy might
be met with any time in the next few hours, but in the turrets the
guns' crews proceeded with the all-important task of getting outside
as much dinner as they could comfortably stow. The procedure of
endeavouring to meet the High Sea Fleet and of dealing with it on
sight had been rehearsed so often, that the real thing, if it came,
would call for one signal only, and no more. Many prophets have said
that the increase of Science and Applied Mechanics in the Navy would
make men into mere slaves of machines, and into unthinking units. This
is another theory which has been shown to be hopelessly
wrong--certainly so in the Navy, as in it both officers and men are
taught, and have to be taught, far more of the reasons for and the
object aimed at in the Rules for Battle than ever Nelson thought it
necessary to communicate to his subordinates in the last Great War.
The Prussian system may be good, but it produces a bludgeon--ours
produces the finest tempered blade.
The sight from the foretop was a thing that one would remember all
one's life, and be thankful not to have missed. The almost
incalculable value of the great mass of ships--the whirl of figures
conjured up by a rough estimate of the collective horse-power and the
numbers of men present; the attempt and failure to even count the
actual ships in sight; the vision of a scared and wondering neutral
tramp lying between the lines with engines stopped as the great masses
of grey-painted steel went past her along the broad highroads of
churned water,--this was the Fleet at sea; and the known fact that it
would wheel, close, or spread at the word of one man, from the ships
that foamed along four hundred yards away to those whose mastheads
could only just be seen above the horizon, made the wonder all the
greater. One thought of the thousands of eyes looking south in the
direction of the big gun-muzzles, of the shells that the guns held
rammed close home to the rifling, and of the thousands of brains that
were turning over and over the old question, "Is it to be this time,
or have they slipped in again?"...