This incident took place on the 9th August, and for the next fortnight or so the "fog of war" rolled very thick over the North Sea. There is reason to believe that things were not exactly peaceful during all this time, since on the 19th there was an official reference to some "desultory fighting", resulting in no loss to either side. Between the 24th and 28th the Germans sank twenty-two fishing-boats. Immediately after, a well-planned move by the British Navy resulted in what is known as the "Battle of the Bight". The rocky, cliff-bound islet known as Heligoland--the German Gibraltar of the North Sea covering the approaches to Cuxhaven and the Kiel Canal--was not so long ago a British possession. It had been ours for over a century when we exchanged it for Zanzibar, because we thought "there was more money in it". We had never made any use of it when we had it. Had we fortified it, as the Germans have now done, its value in the war would have been priceless. That we did not do so may be set down to our fear of offending German susceptibilities and to our fixed resolve not to contemplate a war with Germany as being in the plane of practical politics. If any Government had attempted to make an advanced naval base of it, what an outcry there would have been! It has been described by a German naval writer as "the strategical basis of the German fleet, distant about 40 miles from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Jadhe. It is a fortress of the most modern kind, furnished with the newest weapons, and fortified with the utmost technical skill. Its guns, contained in armour-plated revolving towers and bomb-proof casemates, dominate the sea over a circle from 20 to 25 miles in diameter. Powerful moles, some 650 feet long, protect the flotillas of torpedo-boats and submarines, and great stores of ammunition and supplies facilitate the provisioning of our ships."[84] Over and around this rock-bound fortress in the early hours of the morning of 28th August hung a thick mist--almost a light fog. Now and again the watchers on duty caught sight of the phantom shapes of the German destroyers and torpedo-boats as they carried out their never-ending sentry-go over the approaches to the Elbe. Presently out at sea there were ruddy glimmers through the haze, followed by the slam of small cannon. Away to the westward, in a lift of the mist, the German patrols suddenly "spotted" the porpoise-like forms of three big submarines brazenly exposing themselves on the surface, and a general dash was made in the direction of this splendid "bag". But they were too late. The intruders had dived, and were out of sight or hearing. Then suddenly broke out a rapid banging all round in the mist.