Meanwhile, in preparation for the great movement, assiduous drill and target practice proceeded in the neighbourhood of Portland. The British battleships daily put to sea to fire and execute evolutions. The most serious difficulty, however, was to provide the ample supplies of ammunition needed, now that the Germans were in possession of so much of England, that the railway service was disorganised, and that an enormous consumption of cordite by the British land forces was taking place. The coal question was also serious, as the South Wales miners had struck for higher wages, and had only been induced to return to their work by the promise of great concessions. The officers and men of the Navy could not but be painfully struck by the strange want of zeal and national spirit in this great emergency shown by the British people. On the 11th two of the “County” cruisers steamed south from Dingwall to replace the two ships which had, earlier in the operations against the Shetlands, been despatched to Aberdeen, and which were now to rejoin the Channel cruisers and concentrate in the Dornoch Firth. They reported that the German cruiser off Aberdeen had made good her escape, and that they had scouted so far south as the entrance of the Forth without discovering any trace of German vessels. On the 12th the four other cruisers of the “County” class and the destroyers reached Aberdeen early in the morning, and the Rear-Admiral set to work with zeal and energy to disturb and harass his enemy to the utmost. The _Southampton_ and _Kincardine_, two of the fast cruisers, with two ocean-going destroyers, were instructed to steam direct for the German coast, and sink any vessel that they sighted. The _Selkirk_ and _Lincoln_, with the rest of the destroyers, under his own orders, would clear the Forth entrance and move cautiously southward towards Newcastle, if no enemy were encountered. Yet another pair of cruisers, the _Cardigan_ and _Montrose_, were to steam for the Dutch coast and there destroy German vessels and transports. Two of the older protected cruisers were brought to link up the advanced detachments by wireless telegraphy with the Forth, when the Germans were forced away from that point. About noon the Rear-Admiral, with his cruisers, appeared off the Forth, and learnt that for three days no German vessels had been reported off the coast, but that the entrance to the estuary was believed to have been mined afresh by the Germans and was exceedingly unsafe. The armoured cruiser _Impérieuse_, which had been damaged in the battle of North Berwick, had now been sufficiently repaired to take the sea again. She had coaled and received ammunition, and was at once ordered to join the Northern Squadron.