Admiral Sefton was dumbfounded. Had there been a convenient wall, he might have turned his face towards it and groaned in spirit. Instead he set his jaw tightly and thought hard.
"What do you make of it?" enquired the general. "Looks bad on the face of it, eh?"
"We must wait for further details," was his companion's guarded reply. The journey was resumed, but all the joy had vanished from the minds of the party. No longer, the beautiful scenery appealed to them; the crisp, bracing air and brilliant sunshine called in vain.
Down the steep "hairpin" road through Nailsworth, and along one of the prettiest valleys of the Cotswolds, the car literally crawled. General Crosthwaite, contrary to his usual practice, was driving slowly and listlessly. His keen zest had disappeared. As he gripped the steering-wheel he thought deeply, remembering that his son was somewhere out there in the trackless, mine-strewn North Sea.
The admiral, too, was meditating. He would dearly have liked to have paced to and fro, with his hands clasped behind his back in true quarter-deck style; but since the limits of the car made such a proceeding impossible, and it was equally difficult to alight unless the car stopped, he "sat tight" and made a mental review of the battle, constructing his theories upon the slender foundations conveyed in the official report.
Gradually his perplexities vanished. The firm belief in the well-being of the navy that had gripped his mind ever since those long-past Britannia days was not to be shattered by a disquieting and obviously incomplete report, even though it bore Admiralty endorsement.
"Hang it all!" he exclaimed, startling his friend by bawling into Crosthwaite Senior's ear. "Hanged if I'll go by that report. Just you wait, my dear fellow, until supplementary information is forthcoming. It's my belief the Admiralty have something up their sleeve, and that we've won hands down."
"You think so?" asked the general eagerly.
"Think so! I know it," was the now decided reply. "Carry on, Crosthwaite, full-speed ahead, and we'll see what news there is when we get to Gloucester."
"Hope you're right," thought the army officer. Visions of a previous naval disaster--that of the gallant Craddock's defeat off Coronel, the first news of which came from German sources--urged that such a thing as a naval defeat might be possible, especially in view of the great part played by chance. A misunderstood order might result in disaster. A chance shot or an accidental internal explosion might imperil the superiority of the British fleet.