s not
cowardice, but a desire to save the German fleet from utter ruin once
victory was seen to be impossible. Not all the brave deeds were on one
side. How much the Grand Fleet's honour would be dimmed if its
opponents had been cowards or if its own commander had failed to give
the enemy his due! "The enemy," said Jellicoe in his dispatch, "fought
with the gallantry that was expected of him, and showed humanity in
rescuing officers and men from the water. I particularly admired the
conduct of those on board a disabled German light cruiser which passed
down the British line under a heavy fire that was returned by the only
gun still left in action." But of course this was well matched by many
a vessel on the British side, in a fight so fierce and a turmoil so
appalling that only men of iron training and steel nerves could face
it. Light craft of all kinds were darting to and fro, attacking,
defending, firing guns and torpedoes, smashing and being smashed,
sinking and being sunk, and trying to help or hinder the mighty lines
of battle whose own gigantic guns flashed and thundered without a
moment's pause.

As Jellicoe closed in to get the strangle-hold his mighty battle fleet
had, in very truth, to go through fire and water: the racing ships,
their slashing bows and seething wakes; the pall of smoke, stabbed by
ten thousand points of fire, together making the devil's
colours--yellow, red, and black; the leaping waterspouts thrown up by
shells that missed; the awful crashings when the shells struck home;
the vessels reeling under well-aimed, relentless salvoes; the ships on
fire beyond the reach of human aid; the weirdness of the mist that
veiled these dreadful horrors, or made them ghastlier still, or
suddenly brought friend and foe together either to sink or swim; the
summer sea torn into the maddest storm by ships and shells; while,
through and round the whole of this inferno, there swelled and
thundered the stunning roar of such a giant fight as other navies had
never seen or even dreamt of. So deafening was this roar, and so
absorbing were the changes of the fight, that when a ton-weight shell
swept overboard every atom of the bridge aboard the leading ship of a
flotilla--with compass, chart-house, engine-room-telegraph, steering
wheel, and every soul on duty there--the men on "monkey's island," just
above the bridge, never knew their ship was even hit till she began to
run amuck and rammed another British ves