Chance sent me almost immediately after the Jutland fight a Lieutenant of one of the destroyers engaged. Among other matters, I asked him if there was any particular noise.
"Well, I haven't been in the trenches, of course," he replied, "but I don't think there could have been much more noise than there was."
This bears out a report of a destroyer who could not be certain whether an enemy battleship had blown up or not, saying that, in that particular corner, it would have been impossible to identify anything less than the explosion of a whole magazine.
"It wasn't exactly noise," he reflected. "Noise is what you take in from outside. This was inside you. It seemed to lift you right out of everything."
"And how did the light affect one?" I asked, trying to work out a theory that noise and light produced beyond known endurance form an unknown anaesthetic and stimulant, comparable to, but infinitely more potent than, the soothing effect of the smoke-pall of ancient battles.
"The lights were rather curious," was the answer. "I don't know that one noticed searchlights particularly, unless they meant business; but when a lot of big guns loosed off together, the whole sea was lit up and you could see our destroyers running about like cockroaches on a tin soup-plate."
"Then is black the best colour for our destroyers? Some commanders seem to think we ought to use grey."
"Blessed if I know," said young Dante. "Everything shows black in that light. Then it all goes out again with a bang. Trying for the eyes if you are spotting."