The realization of the plan would depend entirely upon the pace of the Grand Fleet in getting into action. Had all the divisions of the Grand Fleet kept their course at full speed until reaching the track of Sir David Beatty’s squadron, the starboard division would have cut that line in about ten minutes and the port division in about twelve and a half to thirteen. There would have been an interval of five miles between the leading ships. Even at twenty-seven knots the four battle-cruisers led by _Lion_ could hardly have got clear of the port division and, to avoid collision, all would have had to ease their speed slightly. But undoubtedly at 6:15 or, at least, 6:20, a line might have been formed exactly in Sir David Beatty’s track. Had this line followed him as he closed down after Hood at 6:25 the enemy would have been completely outflanked at both ends of his line and even surrounded at its head. There would have been half an hour between the Grand Fleet getting into action and the failure of the light. It is difficult to suppose that, at ranges of from 11,000 yards to 8,000, the guns of the Grand Fleet could not have beaten the High Seas Fleet decisively. Scheer could not have turned. His choice would have been between annihilation and a flight _pêle-mêle_. Not only does it seem that some such deployment as this was manifestly possible; it looks as if it was exactly this deployment that Admiral Beatty had expected. On any other supposition his manœuvre in throwing first his own and then Hood’s battle cruisers into a short-range fight with the Germans was to run the gravest risks of disaster, without any high probability of justifying it by a final defeat of the enemy. If he expected the Grand Fleet to deploy on to his course and so come into action with its entire strength, possibly within fifteen, certainly within twenty minutes of the enemy being sighted, then to have incurred the loss, not of one but of half of his and Hood’s ships would have been amply justified.