"Have you ever watched a dog rush in on a flock of sheep and scatter them? He goes for the nearest and barks at it, goes so much faster than the flock that it bunches up with its companions; the dog then barks at another and the sheep spread out fanwise, so that all round in front of the dog is a semicircle of sheep and behind him none. That was much what we did at 7 a.m. on the 28th. The sheep were the German torpedo-craft, who fell back just on the limits of range and tried to lure us within fire of the Heligoland forts. _Pas si bête!_ But a cruiser came out and engaged our _Arethusa_; they had a real heart-to-heart talk while we looked on, and a few of us tried to shoot at the enemy too, though it was beyond our distance. We were getting nearer and nearer Heligoland all the time; there was a thick mist, and I expected every minute to find the forts on the island bombarding us; so _Arethusa_ presently drew off after landing at least one good shell on the enemy. "Seeing our papers admit it, so may I--our fellows got quite a nasty 'tummy-ache'. The enemy gave every bit as good as he got there. We then re-formed, but a strong destroyer belonging to the submarines got chased, and _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ went back to look after her, and we presently heard a hot action astern. So the captain, who was in command of the flotilla, turned us round and we went back to help, but they had driven the enemy off, and on our arrival told us to form up on the _Arethusa_. "When we had partly formed and were very much bunched together, a fine target, suddenly out of the 'everywhere' arrived five shells not 150 yards away. We gazed at whence they came, and again five or six stabs of fire pierced the mist, and we made out a four-funnelled cruiser of the 'Breslau' class. These five stabs were her guns going off, of course. We waited fifteen seconds and the shots and the noise of the guns arrived pretty simultaneously fifty yards away. Her next salvo went over us, and I, personally, ducked as they whirred overhead like a covey of fast partridges. You would have supposed the captain had done this sort of thing all his life; he gives me the impression of a Nelson officer who has lived in a state of suspended animation since, but yet has kept pace with the times, and is nowise perturbed at finding his frigate a destroyer. He went full speed ahead at the first salvo to string the bunch out and thus offer less target, and the commodore from the _Arethusa_ made a signal to us to attack with torpedoes.