d
giving battle to about the whole of the High Sea Fleet. They were taking
a heavy pounding without turning a hair, so far as a man could see, and
even when the _Warspite_ had her steering gear knocked out and went
steaming in circles it didn't seem to upset the other three very much.
We sighted our own Battle Fleet about six, and rejoined the flotilla in
good time to be back with the battle cruisers when Beatty took them
round the head of the Hun line and only failed to cut off their retreat
through night coming on.

"Compared with what the next six or eight hours held for some of our
destroyers--or even with what we had just been through ourselves--the
night for us was fairly quiet. We were in action once or twice, and I
saw several ships--mostly enemy, but one or two of our own--go up in
flame and smoke before I went on watch down here at midnight. But
through it all the devil's own luck which had been with us from the
first held good. Although we were through the very hottest of the day
action, and not the least of the night, the old _Nairobi_ did not
receive one direct hit from an enemy shell. She accounted for at least
two Hun ships, saw the other three destroyers of her division sunk or
put out of action, and returned to base with almost empty oil tanks and
perhaps the largest mileage to her credit of any craft in the Jutland
battle--all without a serious casualty or more than a few scratches to
her paint. On top of it all, on the way back to harbour, by the queerest
fluke you ever heard of, she rammed and exploded the air-chamber of a
mouldie that had been fired by a Hun U-boat at the destroyer next in
line ahead of her. As the Yanks say, 'Can you beat it?'"

CHAPTER IV

HUNTING

"If it's destroyer work you want, there are five of them getting under
weigh at four o'clock," said the "Senior Officer Present," looking at
his watch. "You'll have just about time to pick up your luggage and
connect if you want to go. I can't tell you what they're going to
do--they won't know that themselves till they get to sea, and their
orders may be changed from hour to hour, and things may happen to send
them to the Channel, France, or to several other places, on and off the
chart, before they put in here again. But there'll be work to do--plenty
of it. That's the best part of this corner of the North Atlantic in
which our Allies have done the American destroyers the honour of setting
them on the U-boats. Whatever els