“At 8:20 A.M. the signal station reported another column of smoke in sight to the southward, and at 8:45 A.M. the Kent passed down the harbour and took up a station at the entrance.
“The Canopus, Captain Heathcoat S. Grant, reported at 8:47 A.M. that the first two ships were eight miles off, and that the smoke reported at 8:20 A.M. appeared to be the smoke of two ships about twenty miles off.
“At 8:50 A.M. the signal station reported a further column of smoke in sight to the southward.
“The Macedonia was ordered to weigh anchor on the inner side of the other ships, and await orders.”
Here the signal, it will be observed, says “a four-funnel and two-funnel man of war.” The ships were probably end on when they were seen, and in the Nürnberg there was a considerable gap between the after-funnel and the two forward funnels. Seen from a point a little off the direct keel line, she would seem therefore to have two funnels only.
Port William and Port Stanley are two inlets with a tongue of land between them, and opposite this tongue of land is the channel to the sea. Port Stanley is in the more southerly division of the harbour, which is also the larger of the two. Canopus was anchored to the eastward of the town of Port Stanley, so that her guns could fire over the low-lying land between her and the sea. The land rises to the north as it creeps round towards the mouth of the harbour, and on this higher land there was an observation station where arrangements had been made by which the fire of Canopus could be directed out to sea at any squadron that threatened to attack. The reader is therefore to imagine the Macedonia lying in the outside mouth of the harbour; Kent anchored in the channel half way between Macedonia and where the harbour divides Port Stanley to the south and Port William to the north; with Inflexible, Invincible, and Carnarvon anchored in line in Port William; the Bristol and Glasgow in the southern bay, with Port Stanley behind them to the westward, and Canopus behind them to the east.
The Vice-Admiral wasted no time. As a fact, all his ships were then coaling. And the officers not engaged in this were making plans for a day’s shooting over the rough moors in the neighbourhood of the town—where hares and partridges were to be found—and were many of them in mufti, and most of them at breakfast when the startling and welcome news of the advent of the enemy came to them. Everything, of course, gave way to the necessity of getting out of harbour with the utmost speed. Colliers were cast off. The furnaces were fed, and all hands were started to clean first the ships and then themselves. At eight the first ships seemed to be probably twenty miles off. Twenty minutes later, a further detachment came into sight; half an hour later than that, the last of the Germans were seen upon the horizon.
Round about 9 o’clock Kent was outside the harbour, while Gneisenau and Nürnberg were approaching at about twenty knots.
3. “At 9:20 A.M. the two leading ships of the enemy (Gneisenau and Nürnberg), with guns trained on the wireless station, came within range of the Canopus, who opened fire at them across the low land at a range of 11,000 yards. The enemy at once hoisted their colours and turned away. At this time the masts and smoke of the enemy were visible from the upper bridge of the Invincible at a range of approximately 17,000 yards across the low land to the south of Port William.
“A few minutes later the two cruisers altered course to port, as though to close the Kent at the entrance to the harbour, but about this time it seems that the Invincible and Inflexible were seen over the land, as the enemy at once altered course and increased speed to join their consorts.