A signal lamp flickered from the flagship:—
"All destroyer flotillas proceed to support the light-cruisers. Engage enemy destroyers."
Like hounds released from leash the long, lean, black-hulled craft dashed forward. No need to give a compass course: the now rapidly-recurring flashes told them where their work lay.
Under copious supplies of oil fuel, the "Livingstone's" engines quickly developed more horse-power than they had ever done before. Trailing lurid flames issued from her four squat funnels, and threw their ruddy glare upon the determined faces of the guns'-crews.
Ahead, and on the starboard hand, and astern the position of the rest of the flotilla was likewise indicated by the spurts of flames from their furnaces. Noxious oil-fumed smoke belched in dense columns, glowing like fanned charcoal as it eddied clear of the funnels. The scene resembled a section of the Black Country transferred bodily to the North Sea on a pitch-dark night.
"By Jove, we're in luck!" shouted Gilroy, in order to make himself heard above the hiss of the wind as the destroyer tore at thirty-six knots towards the scene of action. "We've just picked up a wireless to the Flag. We're up against the 'Moltke,' 'Seydlitz,' and 'Derfflinger,' three of Germany's best battle-cruisers, with that old crock the 'Bluecher' chucked in, to say nothing of a swarm of light-cruisers and destroyers. Beatty's got his chance this time: he'll bag the lot with the force he has at his disposal."
And the lieutenant pointed in the direction of the British battle-cruisers, whose position could now be faintly distinguished, well on the port beam, by the splash of flame from their funnels.
"We'll give them something in return for Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool," continued Gilroy. "Ten to one the beggars were off to try the same game again. By Jove! I pity any German submarine that gets foul of that crowd," and he indicated the far spread-out line of destroyers speeding towards their foes.
Just then the lieutenant-commander of the "Livingstone" ascended the bridge.
"Rotten luck, Gilroy," he announced. "The Germans are funking it. They've turned tail."