As far as the eye could reach, the battle cruisers were alone on that grey waste of water. But swift as was their passage, something swifter overtook them out of the north as the morning wore on. It was the voice of the battle fleet moving south in support. “Speed so-and-so, on such-and-such a course,” flickered the curt cipher messages through sixty miles of space. And south they came in battle array, battleships, light cruisers, and destroyers, ringed by the misty horizon of the North Sea, with the calling gulls following the white furrows of their keels like crows after the plough.
A division of light cruisers, driving through the crested seas at the speed of a galloping horse, linked the battle fleet with the battle cruisers. Seen from either force they were but wraiths of smoke on the horizon: but ever and anon a daylight searchlight winked out of the mist, spanning the leagues with soundless talk.
It was still early afternoon when a trail of bubbles flickered ahead of the flagship of the battle fleet’s lee line. It crossed at right angles to their course, and a thousand yards abeam of the third ship in the line something silvery broke the surface in a cloud of spray. It was a torpedo that had run its course and had missed the mark. Simultaneously, one of the escorting destroyers, a mile abeam, turned like a mongoose on a snake, and circled questing for a couple of minutes. Then suddenly a column of water leaped into the air astern of the destroyer, and the sound of the explosion was engulfed by the great loneliness of sea and sky. She remained circling while the battle fleet swept on with swift, bewildering alterations of course, and later another far-off explosion overtook them.
“Strong smell of oil; air bubbles. No wreckage visible. Consider enemy submarine sunk. No survivors,” blinked the laconic searchlight, and the avenger, belching smoke from four raking funnels, came racing up to her appointed station.
As the afternoon wore on, a neutral passenger ship crossed the path of the fleet. She was steering a westerly course, and altered to pass astern of the battle cruisers.
The captain wiped his glasses and handed them to one of the passengers, an amiable merchant of the same nationality as himself, and a self-confessed admirer of all things British.
“Ha!” said the captain. “You see? The clenched fist of Britain! It is being pushed under the nose of Germany—so!” He laughingly extended a gnarled fist in the other’s face. The merchant was a frequent passenger of his, and the sort of man (by reason of his aforesaid proclivities) to appreciate the jest. The merchant stepped back a pace rather hurriedly: then he laughed loudly. “Exactly!” he said, “very neat, my friend.” And borrowing his friend’s glasses he studied the far-off tendrils of smoke in silence awhile.
A quarter of an hour later, a light cruiser altered course from the fleet in the direction of the neutral steamer. Then it was that the amiable merchant was struck by a sudden recollection. It was a matter of considerable urgency and concerned an order for a large number of bolts of calico and a customer’s credit. So pressing was the business that he obtained the captain’s permission to send a radio telegram to his firm while the approaching cruiser was still some miles away.
The message was duly dispatched, and, with surprising rapidity, by methods with which this narrative is not concerned (of which, indeed, the narrator is entirely ignorant), reached Wilhelmshaven by nightfall. Here four German battle cruisers were raising steam preparatory to carrying out a bombardment at dawn of a populous English watering-place. The message that reached them had, however, nothing to do with calico or credit, but it bade them draw fires and give the usual leave to officers and men; orders for the bombardment were cancelled. The German battle cruisers were not unaccustomed to rapid changes of programme of this sort, and they asked no questions.
At nine o’clock the following morning, a British taxpayer sat down to breakfast in a house commanding a fine view of the sea from the popular watering-place already mentioned. It was a large house, and incidentally offered an admirable target from the sea. The taxpayer unfolded his morning paper, and took a sip of his tea. Then he put the cup down quickly. “You’ve forgotten the sugar,” he said.