The _Kent_ went out of harbour to reconnoitre, to report on the movements of the enemy, and to relieve the _Macedonia_. The enemy's two leading ships--the _Gneisenau_ and _Nürnberg_--were in sight and were approaching the wireless station, intending to wreck it. When near the Wolf Rocks they stopped engines and turned to the north-eastward. The bearing and elevation of the enemy ships having been telephoned from the observation station, the _Canopus_, finding that they could get no closer, opened fire over the low neck of land at 9.20 A.M. with her 12-inch guns, firing five rounds at a range of 12,000 yards (_see_ page 83). It was the first time that most of us had heard a shot fired in a naval action, and it brought home very forcibly the fact that we should soon be tackling the job to which we had looked forward for so long. Hoisting their colours, the enemy turned away S.E. to join the main squadron, which headed out to the eastward. It afterwards transpired that the Germans had seen the tripod masts of our battle-cruisers over the land, which probably decided von Spee in turning away from his objective. In one moment all his hopes of destroying our Fleet--supposed to consist of _Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_ and _Bristol_, and possibly the _Canopus_ and _Glasgow_--the wireless station, and then capturing the colony, were dashed to the ground. From survivors it appears that one of the _Canopus's_ shells had ricocheted, striking the _Gneisenau_ at the base of her after funnel; it was also claimed that a piece of another hit the _Nürnberg_--good shooting by indirect fire at such a range, with guns of an old type and improvised fire-control arrangements. Officers of the _Canopus_, who were in the observation station ashore, saw through the telescope of their theodolite the men on board the _Gneisenau_ fallen in on deck; they could be distinguished, quite plainly, dressed ready for landing, in order to capture the wireless station under cover of their ship's guns. But when the _Canopus_ opened fire with her first two projectiles they lost no time in scuttling away to their action stations. An amusing incident occurred on board the _Canopus_ when the enemy first hove in sight. The stokers off watch climbed up inside the foremost funnel to see what was going on and sat round the edge, feeling quite secure as they knew the ship was ashore--hard and fast. They very soon came down, however, when they were informed that the boilers of that funnel were being lit up and the ship going to sea.