Thorogood reached the 6-inch battery breathless, and found the guns' crews busy tricing up their mess-tables overhead. The Gunner was passing along the crowded deck ahead of him. He stopped opposite the after gun: "They're out, lads!" he said grimly. "Give 'em hell, this time. Clear away and close up round your guns--smartly then, my hearties!" From the other side of the deck came the voice of Tweedledee giving orders to his battery, raised above the clatter of the ammunition hoists, the thud of projectiles as they were placed in the rear of each gun, the snap and clang of the breech as the guns were loaded.... Fire and wreckage parties stood in little groups along the main-deck, and first-aid parties were gathered at the hatchways; two Midshipmen, pale and bright-eyed with excitement, talked in low voices by the foremost gun: gradually a tense hush closed down upon the main deck; the crews stood silent round their guns, waiting in their steel-walled casemates for the signal that would galvanise them into death-dealing activity against the invisible foe. Ultimate victory no man doubted: death might sweep, swift and shattering, along these electric-lit enclosed spaces where they stood waiting; the great ship was being driven head-long by unseen forces towards an unseen foe. But of that foe, none of the hundreds of men between decks save the straining gunlayers with their eyes at the sighting-telescopes would ever catch a single glimpse. The silence was riven by a roaring concussion that seemed to shake the framework of the ship. The great turret guns on the upper deck had opened fire with a salvo, and, as if released by the explosion, a burst of frantic cheering leaped from every throat and echoed and reverberated along the decks. Somewhere in the outside world of mist and sea, under the grey Northern sky, the Battle-Fleet action had begun. * * * * * The fore-top was a semi-circular eyrie, roofed and walled with steel, that projected from the fore topmast some distance above the giant tripod. It was reached by iron rungs let into the mast, and here Gerrard, with the din of bugles and the cheering still ringing in his ears, joined the assembled officers and men whose station it was in action. From that dizzy elevation it was possible to take in the disposition of the vast Fleet at a single glance. It was like looking down on model ships spread out over a grey carpet preparatory to a children's game. A white flicker of foam at each blunt ram and the wind singing past the hooded top alone gave any indication of the speed at which the ships were advancing. It was an immense monochrome of grey. Grey ships with the White Ensign flying free on each: grey sea flecked here and there by the diverging bow-waves breaking as they met: a grey sky along which the smoke trailed sullenly and gathered in a dense, low-lying cloud that mingled with the haze astern.