Word soon came back from the advance scouts that the enemy had turned tail. The Germans had rightly judged that a small flotilla of destroyers would not alone and unsupported give chase to a squadron of great battleships, but that they were the screen of a larger force.
Admiral von Hilliger had boasted that he was thirsty to come to grips with the British fleet, but he was less eager now that his valour was put to the test. He could bring out a squadron to bombard undefended towns, but, menaced by an enemy who could hit back, he realised that his game was up. And so, turning tail, he ran off on a bee line for the shelter of Heligoland and its protecting mine-fields.
The black smoke from his squadron's funnels was seen blurring the clean line of the horizon. There were about a hundred and twenty miles of open sea between him and safety, and behind him, like a pack of vengeful wolves at his heels, rushed an enemy squadron swifter and more formidable than his own.
And now the British ships, forming into line abreast and avoiding the immediate wake of the Germans, piled up yet more steam, tearing through the water with their bows smothered in white spray as their whirling turbines worked up their speed to the twenty-eight knot gait of which the slowest vessel was capable.
Long before they came within sight of their quarry, every man was at his battle station. All were behind armour: the fire-control parties at their instruments, the gun-layers with their guns ready to train upon the first visible target, the hydraulic engines in the turrets pumping and grunting.
The chase across the Dogger Bank was a long one; but the greater speed of the British ships steadily lessened the dividing distance, the confused cloud of smoke gradually separated into distinct plumes, masts and funnels took shape, and at length the enemy's hulls loomed into view and the guns began to speak.
The ranges were sent down from the fire-control platforms, the dials indicated what projectiles were to be used. It was each ship to its kind, Dreadnought against Dreadnought, cruiser against cruiser, destroyer against destroyer.
The Saturn, leading the British line, opened fire upon the Goethe, the slowest and rearmost, as well as the biggest of the German battleships. With a crimson flash and a dense burst of smoke from their muzzles, the two great guns in the flagship's forward turret thundered forth, and two monster lyddite shells seemed to tear the very air into ribbons as they went screeching through the mist with their message of challenge.
Following the flagship came the mighty Avenger, with the Patroclus close on her heels, the Tremendous next, and then the Auckland.
Very soon the Saturn overhauled the slow Goethe, and in passing gave her a broadside, which carried away her bridge and caused frightful damage on board. But the Saturn's chosen quarry was far ahead, and she sped on with ever-increasing speed with the object of bringing to action the fastest ships of the fugitive enemy.