On hearing that at last he was to be supported, Sir David Beatty raised his battle-cruiser speed to twenty-two knots and made a last effort to get in touch with the retiring enemy. He soon found and engaged him at a range of 15,000 yards and contact coincided with a sudden improvement in the seeing conditions. Four ships only, two battle-cruisers and two battleships, evidently the van of the enemy’s line, were visible, and these were at once brought under a hot fire, which caused the enemy to resort to smoke-screen protection, and, under cover of this he turned away to the west. At 7:45 the mist came down again and the enemy was lost to sight. The First and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons were then spread out. They swept to the westward and located the head of the enemy’s line again, and at 8:20 the battle-cruisers--whose course had been southwest up to now--changed course to west and got into action apparently with the same four ships as before, at the short range of 10,000 yards. The leading ship soon turned away emitting high flames and with a heavy list to port. She had been brought under the fire of _Lion_. _Princess Royal_ set fire to one of the two battleships. _Indomitable_ and _New Zealand_ engaged a third and sent her out of the line, heeling over and burning also. Then the mist came down once more and the enemy was last seen by _Falmouth_ at twenty-two minutes to nine. The Commander-in-Chief is far less explicit as to the occasions on which his ships got into action. The action between the battle fleets, he said, lasted intermittently from 6:17 to 8:20. At 6:17 we know that Burney’s division got into action, and at 6:30 until some time up to 7:20 the other divisions also. But no details of any kind of encounters later than that are mentioned. It is clear that after 6:50 the weather made any continuous engaging quite impossible. There was a second torpedo attack during the stern chase--and once more the enemy “opened the range.” THE NIGHT ACTIONS AND THE EVENTS OF JUNE 1 The form that the deployment actually took, and the fifteen minutes’ respite from attack won by the torpedo attack at 7:40 which enabled Scheer to get his whole fleet on to a southeasterly from an easterly course were, tactically speaking, the explanation of the German escape on the 31st. It is more difficult to understand exactly why they were not brought to action on the following day. Very little is actually known of what happened in the course of the night, and the despatches throw little light on it because, though many incidents are mentioned, very few have any definite hour assigned to them. The facts, so far as they can be gathered, are as follows: