me with great bright steel splinters of shell still sticking tight in
the gouged armour-plate; others with holes plugged with wood and
broadsides stained with the bright yellow of high explosives. Gun
shields caught by the gusts of shell were cut out like fretwork; funnels
were blotched with blackened holes; but of them all not one was out of
action. Few, if any, of the heavy guns and armoured barbettes were
damaged, and all except one--the _Warspite_--came in proudly under their
own steam. This was the return of the battle cruiser and light cruiser
squadrons, which, under Sir David Beatty, had met and defeated
practically the entire German navy. Steaming back into the northern mist
was the Grand Fleet--the largest assembly of warships ever known--which,
had it been given the opportunity so eagerly sought, would undoubtedly
have annihilated the remains of Von Hipper's fleet.

An observer from a distance would have found it difficult to believe
that this was the fleet which had just fought the greatest sea fight in
the history of the world. Yet the decks of the seaplane carrier
_Engadine_ were covered with men in motley clothes, a grim reminder of
the severity of the ordeal, for they were the survivors from the
thousands who had manned the _Princess Royal_ and _Invincible_. On the
high poop a fleet chaplain was surrounded by figures in borrowed duffel
suits giving thanks to the God of Battles for their rescue.

As the engines of each great ship came temporarily to rest a vessel of
the Red Cross flotilla ranged alongside and the more sombre work of war
began. A shell through the sick-bay of H.M.S. _Lion_ had caused Sir
David Beatty to have many of the wounded on that ship placed in his own
cabins. The only casualty on the _New Zealand_ was caused by a gust of
bursting steel over the signal bridge. A big shell had passed
longitudinally through the line of officers' cabins in the battered
little _Southampton_, and many were the curious escapes from death. In
modern naval war a heavy casualty list seems unavoidable, and the deadly
nature of a sea fight will perhaps be better realised when it is stated
that on one of the battle cruisers there were just over three hundred
casualties, of which number very nearly two hundred were killed
outright, and this on a ship which still sailed proudly into port in
fighting condition. Where the shells had burst in the steel flats the
fierce heat generated had burnt off the clothes and skin