re in a neighbouring town. There
were also many other ships coaling, resting and being repaired, for the
base was a large and important one.

In the intelligence office an assistant paymaster, weary of decoding
cypher wireless messages from flotillas, patrols and sweepers spread far
out over the leagues of sea lying between this port and the German
coast, sat talking to the executive officer on night duty.

About 8 P.M. a messenger from the wireless cabin entered with the
familiar signal form and the A.P. spread it out carelessly on the desk
in front of him, taking the sturdy little lead-covered decipher book
from the safe at his side. A few scratches of the pen beneath the secret
signal and the deciphering was complete. He looked up quickly and with
a gesture of keen satisfaction handed the signal to the officer
temporarily in command of the base.

The older man read it and paused for a moment before replying. It was
the brief and now historic statement that an action between Sir David
Beatty's battle cruisers and the German High Seas Fleet was imminent. A
crowd of orders to be executed in the event of all kinds of emergencies
were rapidly reviewed in his active brain. For a brief space the scene
of what was occurring out in the blackness of the North Sea occupied his
thoughts, for he had fought in the battle of the Dogger Bank and knew
what those brief words really meant. It was the evening of the battle of
Jutland.

Rising quickly to his feet, the night duty officer seized the telephone,
rang up the Admiral Commanding, who had gone home to dinner, and
hurriedly left the intelligence office to carry out a host of
prearranged orders.

The "old man," as admirals are invariably called, was evidently ready
for the emergency, for his large grey car tore past the sentries at the
approaches to the base, and in a few minutes he was closeted with his
commanders and other officers in the small matchboarded cabin. Charts
were pinned down on the table in front of him, and for the next
half-hour officers and messengers were kept busy with telephones and
other means of rapid concentration.

In the neighbouring large town the police had received the order for a
"general naval recall" and were active in the streets politely informing
officers and men on short leave that their services were required
immediately at the bases. In the theatres and cinema halls the cryptic
message, "All naval officers and men to return at once to t