They called us up from England at the breaking of the day,
And the wireless whisper caught us from a hundred leagues away—
"Sentries at the Outer Line,
All that hold the countersign,
Listen in the North Sea—news for you to-day."
All across the waters, at the paling of the morn,
The wireless whispered softly ere the summer day was born—
"Be you near or ranging far,
By the Varne or Weser bar,
The Fleet is out and steaming to the Eastward and the dawn."
Far and away to the North and West, in the dancing glare of the sunlit ocean,
Just a haze, a shimmer of smoke-cloud, grew and broadened many a mile;
Low and long and faint and spreading, banner and van of a world in motion,
Creeping out to the North and West, it hung in the skies alone awhile.
Then from over the brooding haze the roar of murmuring engines swelled,
And the men of the air looked down to us, a mile below their feet;
Down the wind they passed above, their course to the silver sun-track held,
And we looked back to the West again, and saw the English Fleet.
Over the curve of the rounded sea, in ordered lines as the ranks of Rome,
Over the far horizon steamed a power that held us dumb,—
Miles of racing lines of steel that flattened the sea to a field of foam,
Rolling deep to the wash they made,
We saw, to the threat of a German blade,
The Shield of England come.
A MATTER OF ROUTINE.
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.