[Illustration: The action off Heligoland up to the intervention of Commodore Goodenough’s Light Cruiser Squadron] At this point the position was reported to Admiral Beatty. This cruiser was finally driven off by _Fearless_ and _Arethusa_, and retreated badly damaged to Heligoland. Four minutes after, the _Mainz_ was encountered. _Arethusa_, _Fearless_, and the destroyers engaged her for five-and-twenty minutes, and when she was in a sinking condition Commodore Goodenough’s squadron came on the scene and finished her off. _Arethusa_ then got into action with a large four-funnelled cruiser at long range, but received no hits herself, and was not able to see that she made any. It was now 12:15. _Fearless_ and the first flotilla had already been ordered home by the Commodore. The intervention of the battle-cruisers was very rapid and decisive. The four-funnelled cruiser that had been the last to engage _Arethusa_ was soon cut off and attacked, and within twenty minutes a second cruiser crossed the _Lion’s_ path. She was going full speed, probably twenty-five knots, and at right angles to _Lion_, who was steaming twenty-eight. But both _Lion’s_ salvoes took effect, a piece of shooting which the Vice-Admiral very rightly calls most creditable to the gunnery of his ship. The change of range must have been 900 yards a minute. I know of no parallel to this feat, though it must be remembered that the range was short. _Lion’s_ course was now taking her towards known mine-fields, and the Vice-Admiral very properly judged that the time had come to withdraw. He proceeded to dispose of the cruiser he first attacked--which turned out to be _Köln_--before doing so. The expedition had been a complete success. Three German cruisers had been sunk and one destroyer. Three other cruisers had been gravely damaged, and many of the German destroyers had been hit also. Our losses in men were small, and we lost no ships at all. _Arethusa_ had perhaps suffered most, though some of the destroyers had been pretty roughly handled. But all got safely home, and none were so injured but that in a very few days or weeks they were fit again for service. The affair was in every respect well conceived and brilliantly carried out. The two essential matters were to begin by employing a force sufficiently weak to tempt the enemy to come out, and yet not so small nor so slow a force as to risk being overwhelmed. If something like a general action amongst the small craft could be brought about, the plan was to creep up with a more powerful squadron in readiness to rescue the van, if rescue were necessary, at any rate to secure the final and immediate destruction of as many of the enemy’s ships as possible. But there was no squadron fighting at all. Goodenough’s light cruisers, and Beatty’s battle-cruisers did, no doubt, keep in formation, but they found no formed enemy. There were no obvious tactical lessons.