“Do you think there is any chance that it will be a drawn game?” said Astor, pale with excitement. “No,” I answered. “A battle like this is never a drawn game. It’s always a fight to a finish.” Our aeroboat behaved splendidly, in spite of a freshening trade-wind breeze, and we circled lower for a better view of the battle which now grew in fierceness as the fleets came to closer quarters. At one time we dropped to within two thousand feet of the sea before Astor remembered that our American flag made a tempting target for the German guns and steered to a higher level. “They don’t seem to fire at us, do they? I suppose they think we aren’t worth bothering with,” he laughed. As a matter of fact, not a single shot was fired at us during the entire engagement. I must say a word here regarding an adroit German manoeuvre early in the battle by which the invaders turned an apparent inferiority in submarines into a distinct advantage. The American fleet had thirty submarines (these had been towed painfully around South America) while the Germans had only five, but these five were large and speedy, built to travel with the fleet under their own power and not fall behind. The thirty American submarines, on the other hand, could not make over twelve knots an hour. Consequently, when the German line suddenly quickened its pace to twenty-five knots, Admiral Fletcher had to choose between abandoning his underwater craft and allowing his fleet to be capped by the enemy; that is, exposed to a raking fire with great danger from torpedoes. He decided to abandon his submarines (all but one that had the necessary speed) and thus he lost whatever assistance these vessels might have rendered, and was obliged to fight with a single submarine against five, instead of with thirty against five. When I explained this manoeuvre to Mr. Astor he asked the natural question why Admiral Fletcher had not foreseen this unfortunate issue and left his burdensome submarines at Panama. I pointed out that these thirty vessels had cost half a million dollars apiece and it was the admiral’s duty to take care of them. It naturally was not his fault if Congress had failed to give him submarines that were large enough and swift enough for efficient fighting with the fleet. Meantime the battle was booming on in two widely separated areas, the battleships in one, the destroyers in the other. Mr. Astor had held the wheel for five hours and, at my suggestion, he retired to the comfortable little cabin and lay down for fifteen minutes, leaving the aeroboat to soar in great slow circles under its admirable automatic controls over the main battle area. When he returned he brought hot coffee in a silver thermos bottle and some sandwiches, and we ate these with keen relish, in spite of the battle beneath us.