Meanwhile the four Queen Elizabeths, under Admiral Evan-Thomas, now considerably in the rear of Admiral Beatty, were still heavily engaged with von Scheer's battleships lower down his line and not yet turned. It had been the original idea of Admiral Evan-Thomas to follow up the battle-cruisers ahead of the Grand Fleet; but these were so far in front of him that it was clearly preferable—and indeed it was apparent that this would be Admiral Jellicoe's own view—that the Grand Fleet should deploy in the gap, Admiral Evan-Thomas himself thus bringing up the rear. At the same time, after the loss of the Invincible, Beatty had again placed himself at the head of the line, the Third Battle-Cruiser Squadron taking station behind him, between the New Zealand and the on-coming Battle Fleet.

That all this should have taken place in the deepening twilight at great speed, and in spite of repeated torpedo-attacks, was the highest tribute, not only to the Commander-in-Chief, but to the seamanship and intuition of his supporting admirals—and here it must be remembered that, to a certain extent, Admiral Jellicoe himself had been taken by surprise. Between the position of the German Fleet, as it had been signalled to him, and the position in which he eventually came into contact with it, there was a difference of twelve miles—quite understandable in view of the conditions in which courses had been plotted, but none the less adding to the difficulties of the on-coming Commander. Thus, at five minutes to six, he was still uncertain of the exact whereabouts of the enemy—the utmost care was necessary in order to distinguish between our own and hostile vessels—and he was steering on a course, southwest by south, at a speed of 20 knots. It was scarcely avoidable also, under such circumstances, that there should have been a certain number of casualties; and it was while manoeuvring in what we have called this gap that some of the cruisers ahead of the Battle Fleet found themselves not only too close to the enemy battleships, but, a few minutes later, between the enemy line and the advancing Queen Elizabeths. It was there that the Defence, under Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, was blown up and sunk, and the Warrior so severely damaged that she was subsequently lost, though not before they had disabled, between them, one of the enemy's light cruisers.

"At 5.40," said one of the Warrior's survivors, "we went to Action Stations, and, ten minutes later, we heard the first gun fired by the armoured cruiser Defence. A few minutes afterward, the Warrior fired her starboard battery's big guns, and then we slewed round and fired the port guns. We had not sent off more than a couple of salvos, when, looking out, I saw the Defence blown clean out of the water. We were then closely engaged with three German ships—a battle-cruiser and two light cruisers. Our first round went home. We had not been firing many minutes before we noticed that one of the enemy light cruisers was on fire, and big clouds of smoke were coming from her. Gradually we got to closer range (ten thousand yards), firing all the time; and we ourselves had been hit many times by heavy projectiles, and almost the whole of the afterpart of the ship was on fire. Finally, we got within 5,400 yards of the battle-cruiser, but we had only fired one salvo with all our guns when the Warspite came to our assistance. By that time our ship was almost helpless; our engine-rooms and stokeholds were flooded, owing to a projectile having penetrated below the water-line, so that we could not obtain steam for the engines. Shells or heavy armour-piercing shot had penetrated almost everything. The ship was also making water badly, and there was a fire in the after part of the vessel. Part of the ship's company was all this time engaged with the hose in trying to put out the fire, and the men not required for that were set to work to construct rafts, for the ship was gradually settling down. At 6.30 the order was given to cease fire, for we had, by that time, lost all trace of the German Fleet, and the Warrior was regarded as being out of action. As soon as the fire was got under control, we commenced to identify the dead, who were that night buried (the funeral service being held the next day), and to get up the wounded. That being done, all hands were set to work at the pumps so as to keep the ship afloat, and we had to keep them going all night. Early in the evening—at 7.50—a seaplane depot-ship came alongside and took us in tow for ten hours. The Warrior settled down more and more all through the night. On the following morning, the sea was very rough. Early in the forenoon, the order was reluctantly given to abandon ship. The depot-ship again came alongside, and our wounded were all safely transferred to her. Then the ship's company and officers left the ship, and the last we saw of the Warrior was between nine and ten in the forenoon when she was rapidly settling down aft. We were naturally all very sorry to see the last of the grand old ship, but after all she came to a gallant end."

It will have been noticed that the Warspite is mentioned by this observer as coming to the Warrior's rescue; and this refers to an incident, occurring at this period, that was one of the most remarkable of the whole battle. While emptying salvos into von Scheer's leading battleships, the steering-gear of the Warspite became jammed; and, to the horror of her consorts in Admiral Evan-Thomas's squadron, she suddenly began to describe a great circle toward the enemy. This immediately exposed her to the extremest, and what seemed an inevitably fatal, disadvantage, and she disappeared from sight behind a veritable Niagara of shell-spouts, smoke, and explosions. Presently, to everybody's amazement, she emerged again, stricken but not disabled, and replying vigorously, and then once more, still at full speed, proceeded upon the same astounding course. It was just before the Defence was sunk that her steering-gear became jammed; and it was while describing her two great circles that she drew the enemy's fire from the Warrior. To the latter, as we have seen, it seemed as if she had been deliberately doing this, and afterward her commander boarded the Warspite to tender his thanks—where Captain Phillpotts, whose skilful handling had brought his vessel safe home to harbour, while very pleased to have been of service, had regretfully to deny the imputed gallantry.

Another most brilliant action was fought at this time by the Third Light Cruiser Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Napier, the Falmouth and Yarmouth—the latter a distinguished member of the China Squadron before the war—both firing torpedoes and scoring a hit on the German battle-cruiser leading the line, the whole squadron then closing in and engaging these much more powerful vessels with their guns. Nor were the destroyers any less busy, though considerably outnumbered by the Germans, and the action of the Shark may be taken as typical both of their enterprise and devotion. Unhappily she was lost with her brave leader (also awarded the Victoria Cross) Commander Loftus Jones, but, for ten minutes, she fought a fight according to the greatest traditions of her class.

"Right ahead of us," said one of her survivors, "and close at hand, we saw two columns of German destroyers. We were racing along at the time, and our skipper took us at full speed right toward the enemy lines. There was a column of their small craft on either side of us, and, as soon as we got abreast of them, we attacked at close range, and managed to torpedo a couple of enemy destroyers, one on each beam. All the time we were getting it hot. Guns were popping at us from all quarters, and we were firing back as hard as we could go, as well as using our torpedo-tubes. Of course a fight under these conditions could not last long for us. We had been engaged about ten minutes when two torpedoes hit fairly, one on each side of our ship, and ripped three holes in her, so that she sank almost at once. I and some others sprang on to a raft, where we stayed for five hours watching the battle—and there was something to look at. Zeppelins, torpedo-craft, submarines, and big ships were all there. Shells fell like hailstones into the water, and we could see the small craft getting it badly. The enemy losses in destroyers must have been very great, for whenever one got a big shell in her she was done. Some of them I saw hit went down like stones. Apparently there were a lot of German submarines, and they seemed to be very busy, but my impression is that a good many of them were done for by our ships running over them. The fire of the big ships was enough to stun anybody with the noise it made. I saw five German battleships and battle-cruisers; they looked as though they were all firing at one time at one of our cruisers. The Germans seemed to be concentrating their fire upon one ship at a time as much as they could—a lot of these big ships would all turn the whole of their guns upon one of our cruisers, and then do the same thing to another. This meant a tremendous battering for the ships they fired at. You can imagine what it was to face these salvos from four or five of their vessels pouring upon one ship at the same time. I saw one or two ships go, but I could not give you any particulars about them, as there was so much going on that one could not grasp details very well. When I was picked up from the raft, I was about done, for it was very cold, and I had not much clothing on. Toward the latter part of the time, we had as much as we could to do keep life in ourselves. We kept our blood circulating by jumping overboard and swimming round the raft. All of us did this in turn, those on the raft hauling in the men who had finished their swim, and then going for a swim round the raft themselves. As it was, one of our men died from exposure before he could be landed."

Meanwhile, in such circumstances and under such conditions, the deployment of the Battle Fleet had been carried through. It was not until fourteen minutes past six that Admiral Jellicoe received definite confirmation from Admiral Beatty as to the position of the High Seas Fleet; and, two minutes later, still on a course southeast by east, he ordered the Fleet to deploy into line of battle on the port wing column, at the same time reducing speed to 14 knots in order to allow the battle-cruisers to pass ahead. For this manoeuvre, since a starboard deployment would have brought him more rapidly into contact with the enemy, Admiral Jellicoe had several cogent reasons. In the first place, the High Seas Fleet was so near that, assuming its destroyers to be probably ahead of it, there would have been a very great danger, under the prevailing weather conditions, of a successful enemy destroyer-attack during deployment—and the consequent grave risk of the whole Battle Fleet being thrown into confusion. There would also have been the risk of the ships of the First Battle Squadron—inferior in many respects to the German, and our own weakest battleships—being very severely handled before our remaining divisions could get into line. Yet a third reason for the port deployment, in the estimated position of the German High Seas Fleet, was that the alternative would have meant a very large turn for every deploying division, in order to avoid the risk of being outflanked.

For these reasons, Admiral Jellicoe decided therefore—and it had to be an instant decision—to deploy in the manner described. The port wing division, therefore, stood on in a direction across the bows of the German Battle Fleet. The other squadrons followed, thus compelling the Germans to turn yet further to starboard to avoid being placed in a position of disastrous tactical disadvantage. By 6.33 P. M., the battle-cruisers were clear, and the speed of the Battle Fleet was increased to 17 knots; and, by 6.38, deployment was complete, many of our battleships being already in action. Of these the first to be engaged were those of the First Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral Burney, his flag-ship, the Marlborough, especially distinguishing herself by the rapidity and effectiveness of her fire. Between a quarter past six and a quarter past seven, she had engaged two battleships and a cruiser; been herself torpedoed; and then, in spite of this, had put out of action yet another enemy battleship. Admiral Jellicoe's own battleship, the Iron Duke, had begun to hit at her third salvo; and, throughout the action, the Grand Fleet's gunnery maintained the highest standard. As a German officer afterward admitted, "We were utterly crushed from the moment your Battle Fleet came into action."

With the third phase of the battle, however, that would have seen, on a clear summer evening, the annihilation of the German Fleet, the weather had so changed, that only with the greatest difficulty was the enemy kept in sight at all. For a few minutes, about half-past seven, Beatty was able to engage, setting a ship on fire; but soon the fog was thicker than ever, and he had to send his light cruisers to locate the enemy. Three-quarters of an hour later, the line was found again, the Lion setting the leading ship on fire, and the Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indomitable crippling and setting fire to two others.

That, as it turned out, was the last action fought by any of our capital ships; and it would be well, perhaps, to pause here for a brief survey of the general position of the two fleets. Admiral Beatty, still at the head of the line, was by now far to the south and shaping a southwesterly course, the Battle Fleet streaming behind him, to the north, and then to the west, somewhat in the shape of a vast hook with its shaft tilted toward the northwest. Within this hook, the enemy's line, broken in many places, was struggling homeward—the shaft of the hook already lying well between him and his bases. It was such a predicament as, but for mist and darkness, must undoubtedly have proved fatal; and it must be confessed that von Scheer showed considerable skill in making all possible use of his respite.