Let us transport ourselves to the signal bridge of Admiral Beatty’s flagship, the battle cruiser _Lion_, and take up station there upon the afternoon of May 31st, at half-past two. It is a fine afternoon, though hazy; the clouds lie in heavy banks, and the horizon, instead of appearing as a hard line, is an indefinable blend of grey sea and grey cloud. It is a day of “low visibility,” a day greatly favouring a weak fleet which desires to evade a decisive action. We have been sweeping the lower North Sea, and are steering towards the north-west on our way to rejoin Jellicoe’s main Fleet. Our flagship, _Lion_, is the leading vessel of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and following behind us, we can see the _Princess Royal_, _Queen Mary_, and _Tiger_. At a little distance behind the _Tiger_ appear the two ships which remain to us of the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, the _Indefatigable_ and _New Zealand_, fine powerful ships, but neither so fast nor so powerful as are our four Cats of the First Squadron. Some five or six miles to the west of us we can make out, against the afternoon sky, the huge bulk of the _Barham_, which, followed by her three consorts, _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_, leads the Fifth Battle Squadron of the most powerful fighting ships afloat. We are the spear-head of Beatty’s Fleet, but those great ships yonder, silhouetted against the sky, are its most solid shaft. [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.] Word runs round the ship that the enemy has been sighted, but since we know nothing of his numbers or of his quality—Jutland, though anticipated and worked for, was essentially a battle of encounter—our light cruisers fly off to make touch and find out for us. Away also soars seaplane, rising from the platform of our carrying ship _Engadine_, a clumsy-looking seagull, with its big pontoon feet, but very fast and very deftly handled. The seaplane flies low, for the clouds droop towards the sea, it is heavily fired upon, but is not hit, and it returns to tell us—or rather the Admiral, in his conning tower below—just what he wishes to learn. There is an enemy battle cruiser squadron immediately in front of us, consisting of five armoured ships, with their attendant light cruisers and destroyers. The German battle cruisers are: _Derfflinger_ (12-inch guns), _Lützow_ (12-inch), _Moltke_ (11-inch), _Seydlitz_ (11-inch), and another stated by the Germans to be the _von der Tann_, which had more than once been reported lost. Since our four big battle cruisers carry 13.5-inch guns, and two other guns of 12-inch, and the four battleships supporting us great 15-inch weapons, we ought to eat up the German battle cruisers if we can draw near enough to see them distinctly. By half-past three the two British battle cruiser squadrons are moving at twenty-five knots, formed up in line of battle, and the Fifth Battle Squadron, still some five miles away, is steaming at about twenty-three knots. The Germans have turned in a