ed, no less than the plugman's and the
gun-layer's. Sir David watched the ranging shots which fell short at
first, until finally they were on, and the Germans were beginning to
reply. When his staff warned him that he ought to go below, he put
them off with a preoccupied shake of his head. He could not resist the
temptation to remain where he was, instead of being shut up looking
through the slits of a visor.

But an admiral is as vulnerable to shell-fragments as a midshipman,
and the staff did its duty, which had been thought out beforehand like
everything else. The argument was on their side; the commander
really had none on his. It was then that Vice-Admiral Beatty sent Sir
David Beatty to the conning tower, much to the personal disgust of
Sir David, who envied the observing officers aloft their free sweep of
vision.

Youth in Sir David's case meant suppleness of limb as well as youth's
spirit and dash. When the Lion was disabled by the shot in her feed
tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag. He
signalled for his destroyer, the Attack. When she came alongside he
did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of
the Lion. An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken
some of them, or at least received a shock to his presence of mind.

Before he left the Lion Sir David had been the first to see the
periscope of a German submarine in the distance, which sighted the
wounded ship as inviting prey. Officers of the Lion dwelt more on the
cruise home than on the battle. It was a case of being towed at five
knots an hour by the Indomitable. If ever submarines had a fair
chance to show what they could do it was then against that battleship
at a snail's pace. But it is one thing to torpedo a merchant craft and
another to get a major fighting ship, bristling with torpedo defence
guns and surrounded by destroyers. The Lion reached port without
further injury.

XXIX
On The "Inflexible"

What Englishman, let alone an American, knows the names of even
all the British Dreadnoughts? With a few exceptions, the units of the
Grand Fleet seem anonymous. The Warspite was quite unknown to
the fame which her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth had won. For
"Lizzie" was back in the fold from the Dardanelles; and so was the
Inflexible, heroine of the battle of the Falkland Islands. Of all the ships
which Sir John Jellicoe had sent away on special missions, the
Inflexible ha