Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had worked to perfection. The two great battle cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from England, the Squadron had secretly concentrated and then searched the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands had been secured from a successful surprise attack which would have given much joy to our enemies, yet not a whisper of his fast-approaching doom had sped over the ether to von Spee. Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he had dawdled irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our ships were ready for battle, even the light cruiser _Glasgow_, so heavily battered in the Coronel action that her inside had been built up with wooden shores till it resembled the “Epping Forest,” after which the lower deck had christened it, and she had a hole as big as a church door in one side above the water-line. She had steamed to Rio in this unhappy plight and had been there well and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his men were full of fight; they had their hurts and their humiliation to avenge and meant to get their own back with interest. They did; their chance came upon the following day, and they used it to the full. Whitehall had done its best, and now came a benevolent Joss to put the crowning seal upon its work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the Falkland Islands will go down to history as a shining example of the whiteness of the Navy’s good Joss when in a mood of real benignity. We desired two things to round off the scheme roughed out at the Admiralty on November 6th: we wanted—though it was the last thing which we expected—we wanted the German Pacific Squadron to walk into the trap which had so daintily been prepared, and they came immediately, on the very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland Islands, at the actual moment when Vice-Admiral Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of the _Carnarvon_), with heads bent over a big chart, were discussing plans of search. They might have come and played havoc with the Islands on any morning during the previous five weeks, yet they did not come until December 8th, when we were just ready and most heartily anxious to receive them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day with what the Navy calls “full visibility.” We got it on December 8th. And this was a very wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are cursed with a vile cold climate, almost as cold in the summer of December as in the winter of June. It rains there about 230 days in the year, and even when the rain does not fall fog is far more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the Falklands is even some points more forbidding than the dreadful climate of Lewis in the Hebrides, which it closely resembles. Yet now and then, at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of them, the best of the year, dawned upon December 8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility was at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light breeze blew gently from the north-west. Our gunners had a full view to the horizon and a