I should explain that we were able to converse easily, above the roar of our propellers, by talking into telephone head-pieces. “Look!” cried Astor. “Our ships are beginning a manoeuvre.” The _Pennsylvania_, with red-and-white flags on her foremast, was signalling to the fleet: “Prepare to engage the enemy.” We watched eagerly as the great ships, stretching away for miles, turned slightly to starboard and, with quickened engines, advanced in one long line of battle. At half-past eleven another smoke column appeared on our port bow, and within half an hour we could make out enemy vessels on either hand. “They’re coming on in two divisions, miles apart,” said Astor, studying the two smoke columns with his glasses. “We’re headed right between them.” We flew ahead rapidly, and presently could clearly discern that the vessels to starboard were large battleships and those to port were destroyers. At one o’clock the two fleets were about nineteen thousand yards apart and were jockeying for positions. Suddenly four vessels detached themselves from the German battleship line and steamed at high speed across the head of the American column. “What’s that? What are they doing?” asked Astor. “Trying to cap our line and torpedo it. Admiral Togo did the same thing against the Russians in the Yellow Sea. Admiral Fletcher is swinging his line to port to block that move.” “How do they know which way to manoeuvre? I don’t see any signals.” “It’s done by radio from ship to ship. Look! They are forcing us to head more to port. That gives them the advantage of sunlight. Ah!” I pointed to the German line, where several puffs of smoke showed that they had begun firing. Ten seconds later great geyser splashes rose from the sea five hundred yards beyond the _Pennsylvania,_ and then we heard the dull booming of the discharge. The battle had begun. I glanced at my watch. It was half-past one. _Boom! Boom! Boom!_ spoke the big German guns eight miles away; but we always saw the splashes before we heard the sounds. Sometimes we could see the twelve-inch shells curving through the air--big, black, clumsy fellows. Awe-struck, from our aeroplane, Astor and I looked down upon the American dreadnoughts as they answered the enemy in kind, a whole line thundering forth salvos that made the big guns flame out like monster torches, dull red in rolling white clouds of smokeless powder. We could see the tense faces of those brave men in the fire-control tops. “See that!” I cried, as a shell struck so close to the _Arizona_, second in line, that the “spotting” officers on the fire-control platform high on her foremast were drenched with salt water. I can give here only the main features of this great battle of the Caribbean, which lasted five hours and a quarter and covered a water area about thirty miles long and twenty miles wide. My plan of it, drawn with red and black lines to represent movements of rival fleets, is a tangle of loops and curves.