Such then was the Bight of Heligoland, commanded at its centre by the rocky island itself; flanked on each side by the sentinel islands of the Frisian and Schleswig coasts; and with its tributary river-mouths each an intricate meshwork of shallow and treacherous sandbanks. Subject to fogs, and responding to its prevalent winds with short steep seas of peculiar violence, it had been mined and protected since the outbreak of war with every means that ingenuity could suggest. As for the island itself, from which all women and civilians, with the exception of five nurses, had been removed, new guns had been mounted there, houses pulled down, and trees felled to assist the gunners; and it is only when this is remembered that some idea becomes possible of all that was involved in those first patrols, and in the affair of outposts, as one officer has described it, afterward to be known as the Battle of the Bight. This was brought about as the result of the detailed information afforded by our scouting submarines, who had obtained an accurate knowledge of the procedure of the enemy's day and night patrols, and had reported that they could always collect a large force of destroyers round them whenever they showed {32} themselves in the Bight. From this it became evident that a force, approaching at dawn from the direction of Horn Reef, would have every prospect of being able to cut off the enemy's returning night patrols; and an operation was accordingly decided upon, of which the following were the broad outlines. On the morning of August 28, 1914, the day appointed for the action, some submarines, with a couple of destroyers in attendance, were to penetrate into the Bight and expose themselves to the enemy, and were then to lure them, if possible, into contact with other forces that would be waiting. In close proximity, therefore, to the submarines it was arranged for two light cruisers, the _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_, to rendezvous with two flotillas of destroyers, while, behind these, were to lie ambushed out at sea the Light Cruiser and Battle-Cruiser Squadrons. The general design, with full details as to the meeting-places, was communicated to each of the responsible commanders and, in absolute secrecy, from their various bases, the forces to be engaged put to sea.