ron of fog and shell-smoke the British
Battle-Fleet groped for its elusive foe. One minute of perfect
visibility, one little minute of clear range beyond the fog-masked
sights, was all they asked to deal the death-blow that would end the
fight--men prayed God for it and died with the prayer in their teeth.

But the minute never came. The firing died away down the line; the
dumb guns moved blindly towards the shifting sounds of strife like
monsters mouthing for the prey that was denied them, but the fog held
and the merciful dusk closed down and covered the flight of the
stricken German Fleet for the shelter of its protecting mine-fields.

It was not until night fell that the British Destroyers began their
savage work in earnest. Flotilla after flotilla was detached from the
Fleet and swallowed by the short summer night, moving swiftly and
relentlessly to their appointed tasks like black panthers on the trail.

Cut off from their base by the British Fleet the scattered German
squadrons dodged and doubled through the darkness, striving to elude
the cordon drawn across their path. They can be pictured as towering
black shadows rushing headlong through the night, with the wounded
groaning between their wreckage-strewn decks; and on each bridge, high
above them in the windy darkness, men talked in guttural
mono-syllables, peering through high-power glasses for the menace that
stalked them.... On the trigger of every gun there would be a
twitching finger, and all the while the blackness round them would be
pierced and rent by distant spurts of flame....

The wind and sea had risen, and over an area of several hundred square
miles of stormy sea swept the Terror by Night. Bursting star-shell and
questioning searchlight fought with the darkness, betraying to the guns
the sinister black hulls driving through clouds of silver spray, the
loaded tubes and streaming decks, the oilskin-clad figures on each
bridge forcing the attack home against the devastating blast of the
shrapnel. Death was abroad, berserk and blindfold. A fleeing German
Cruiser fell among a flotilla of Destroyers and altered her helm, with
every gun and searchlight blazing, to ram the leading boat. The
Destroyer had time to alter course sufficiently to bring the two ships
bow to bow before the impact came. Then there was a grinding crash:
forecastle, bridge and foremost gun a pile of wreckage and struggling
figures. The blast of the German guns swept