It is impossible to give any idea of the thrill of excitement which passed through the officers and men of the ships when the facts became known. The bugles blared, and they hurried to their action stations. 'Enemy in force!' Did it mean that they were in touch with the High Sea Fleet? Had their chance come at last, the chance for which they had all been hoping ever since that fateful 4th August 1914?
Men looked anxiously at their neighbours to see how they took the momentous news; but nowhere did a face show signs of fear. On the contrary, their expression and demeanour testified to their implicit and unshaken confidence in themselves and their leaders. They laughed, jests passed from man to man and from group to group, and they went about their business with an intense keenness born of a new hope.
The big battle-cruisers swung rapidly into fighting formation and increased speed, their wash churning the calm sea into great waves. They presented a magnificent spectacle as they steamed into action with the smoke curling from their funnel-tops, white ensigns flying at each masthead, and the huge guns in their turrets pointing their lean muzzles skywards.
At two-thirty-five P.M. a considerable amount of smoke was sighted to the eastward, and a little less than an hour later the gigantic shapes of five hostile battle-cruisers were looming up over the horizon.
'All guns, load!' came the first order from the control positions. 'Salvos by director! Guns—ready!'
Inside a turret a burly A.B., clad in flannel shirt and trousers, spat solemnly on his hands, stretched out a hairy tattooed arm, and moved a small, brightly polished steel lever. Instantly a clattering hydraulic chain rammer uncoiled itself like a snake, and an enormous shell weighing three-quarters of a ton was pushed bodily out of the loading-tray to vanish into the open breech of the gun with a smack and a thud. The rammer was withdrawn, another man manipulated a handle, and two cream-coloured, sausage-shaped bundles with red ends rolled into the space just vacated by the projectile. They were the cordite charges, swathed in innocent-looking silk coverings, the red extremities being the muslin bags containing the powder-igniters. The silk, somehow, seemed strangely out of place in the gun-turret of a battle-cruiser. It reminded one irresistibly of the counter of a drapery establishment; but for many a long year artillery experts have known that a silk-covered cartridge leaves little or no burning residue in the breech of the gun when the weapon is fired. Hence its use.
Again the hairy, tattooed gentleman moved his lever, and the rammer, darting forward, propelled two quarter charges into the yawning breech of the gun. The operation was repeated, while a man fiddled for a moment with the lock, and then the great steel breech-block swung to with a clang.
'Right gun, loaded!' some one bawled, as something slipped into place with a click.
'Right gun, ready!' from another man.
The gunlayer watched a dial, and the gun's crew stood tense and expectant, while the huge breeches of the weapons moved ponderously up and down, with a wheezing and a groaning of the water through the hydraulic machinery. The turret twitched slowly to the right, stopped, and then moved again. Ammunition-cages containing more shell and cartridges ready for the next round came clattering up from the loading-chambers.