tivity against the invisible foe.

Ultimate victory no man doubted: death might sweep, swift and
shattering, along these electric-lit enclosed spaces where they stood
waiting; the great ship was being driven head-long by unseen forces
towards an unseen foe. But of that foe, none of the hundreds of men
between decks save the straining gunlayers with their eyes at the
sighting-telescopes would ever catch a single glimpse.

The silence was riven by a roaring concussion that seemed to shake the
framework of the ship. The great turret guns on the upper deck had
opened fire with a salvo, and, as if released by the explosion, a burst
of frantic cheering leaped from every throat and echoed and
reverberated along the decks. Somewhere in the outside world of mist
and sea, under the grey Northern sky, the Battle-Fleet action had begun.

* * * * *

The fore-top was a semi-circular eyrie, roofed and walled with steel,
that projected from the fore topmast some distance above the giant
tripod. It was reached by iron rungs let into the mast, and here
Gerrard, with the din of bugles and the cheering still ringing in his
ears, joined the assembled officers and men whose station it was in
action.

From that dizzy elevation it was possible to take in the disposition of
the vast Fleet at a single glance. It was like looking down on model
ships spread out over a grey carpet preparatory to a children's game.
A white flicker of foam at each blunt ram and the wind singing past the
hooded top alone gave any indication of the speed at which the ships
were advancing. It was an immense monochrome of grey. Grey ships with
the White Ensign flying free on each: grey sea flecked here and there
by the diverging bow-waves breaking as they met: a grey sky along which
the smoke trailed sullenly and gathered in a dense, low-lying cloud
that mingled with the haze astern.

The Lieutenant in the top drew Gerrard to his side. "Put your head
down here," he said, "out of the wind ... can you hear?" There was a
queer ring of exultation in his voice. "Guns!"

Gerrard bent down and strained all his faculties to listen. For a
moment he heard nothing but the hum of the wind and the vibration of
the engines transmitted by the mast. Then, faint and intermittent,
like the far-off grumble of a gathering thunderstorm, his ear caught a
sound that sent all his pulses hammering.

"Thank God I've lived to hear that noise!" muttere