We may now picture this great Fleet, with its flotillas and cruisers, steaming slowly out of Portland Harbour, squadron by squadron, scores of gigantic castles of steel wending their way across the misty, shining sea, like giants bowed in anxious thought. We may picture them again as darkness fell, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed and in absolute blackness through the Narrow Straits, bearing with them into the broad waters of the North the safeguard of considerable affairs.

Although there seemed to be no conceivable motive chance or mischance which could lead a rational German Admiralty to lay a trap of submarines or mines or have given them the knowledge and the time to do so, we looked at each other with much satisfaction when on Thursday morning (the 30th) at our daily Staff Meeting the Flagship reported herself and the whole Fleet well out in the centre of the North Sea.[[29]]

The German Ambassador lost no time in complaining of the movement of the Fleet to the Foreign Office. According to the German Official Naval History, he reported to his Government on the evening of the 30th that Sir Edward Grey had answered him in the following words:—

‘The movements of the Fleet are free of all offensive character, and the Fleet will not approach German waters.’

‘But,’ adds the German historian, ‘the strategic concentration of the Fleet had actually been accomplished with its transfer to Scottish ports.’ This was true. We were now in a position, whatever happened, to control events, and it was not easy to see how this advantage could be taken from us. A surprise torpedo attack before or simultaneous with the declaration of war was at any rate one nightmare gone for ever. We could at least see for ten days ahead. If war should come no one would know where to look for the British Fleet. Somewhere in that enormous waste of waters to the north of our islands, cruising now this way, now that, shrouded in storms and mists, dwelt this mighty organisation. Yet from the Admiralty building we could speak to them at any moment if need arose. The king’s ships were at sea.

CHAPTER X
THE MOBILISATION OF THE NAVY
July 31–August 4

‘The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger’s troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return.’