With the Red Cross flotilla waiting behind the screen of patrols and defences things had moved rapidly. Each little ship had been told off to attend on one or other of the great warships which were hourly expected from the battle zone. Stretchers, bedding, cots and slings were piled on the decks, and extra hands had been lent for the work of removing the wounded. Another flotilla was in readiness to replace the casualties with reinforcements, which had been concentrated by special trains, in order that the battle fleets and squadrons might be again ready for sea in the shortest possible time. At the base trains and big ships were waiting with every known appliance to alleviate the suffering which was coming in from the sea. It was a typical May morning, with a light easterly breeze, when the first of the great line of ships--H.M.S. _Lion_--came into view. A hurricane of cheers greeted her from the deck of every ship that passed. Then the gallant _Warspite_, low by the stern and scarred and torn by tornadoes of shell; the _New Zealand_, scarcely touched by the fiery ordeal; the plucky little light cruiser _Southampton_, holed and battered; followed by cruiser after cruiser with attendant destroyers, some 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.