We have now reached a very important phase in the battle. It is twenty minutes past six. At six o’clock the leading vessels of Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet had been sighted five miles to the north of us and his three battle cruisers—_Invincible_ (Admiral Hood), _Inflexible_, and _Indomitable_—have flown down to the help of Beatty. They come into action, steaming hard due south, and take station ahead of us in the _Lion_. By this lengthening of his line to the south Beatty has now completely enveloped the German battle cruisers, which turn through some twelve points and endeavour to wriggle out of the jaws of the trap which they see closing remorselessly upon them. They are followed in this turn by the battleships of the High Seas Fleet which, for more than an hour, have been faithfully hammered by Evan-Thomas’s Queen Elizabeths, and show up against the sky a very ragged outline. The range of the battle cruisers is now down to 8,000 yards, and they get well home upon battleships as well as upon opponents of their own class. We do not ourselves escape loss, for the _Invincible_, which has become the leading ship, is shattered by concentrated gun-fire. The gallant Hood, with his men, has gone to join his great naval ancestors. * * * * * And now let us put the clock back to the hour, 4.57, when the Queen Elizabeths had completed their turn to the north, and had taken up position astern of Beatty to hold off the main German Fleet while he is making his enveloping rush. From the spotting top of the battleship upon which we have descended we get a most inspiring view, though every now and then we are smothered in oily smoke from the huge flat funnels below us, and are drenched with water which is flung up in torrents by shells bursting alongside. The enemy ships upon which we are firing are some 18,000 yards distant, we can with great difficulty make them out amid the smoke and haze, and we wonder mightily how the keen-eyed spotting officers beside us can judge and correct, as they appear to be doing, the bursts of our shells more than ten miles distance. Our guns, and those of our consorts, are firing deliberately, for we do not know how long the battle will endure, and the supply of 15-inch shell and cordite cannot be unlimited in the very biggest of ships. We learn from the spotting officers that all our ships, except the _Valiant_, have been hit several times while coming into action by dropping shots, but that no serious harm has been done. Meanwhile the shells are falling fast about us, and all of our ships are repeatedly straddled. The _Warspite_ suffered the most severely, though even she was able to go home to the Forth under her own steam. This is the battleship whose steering gear went wrong later in the action, and which turned two complete “O’s” at full speed. Round she went in great circles of a mile in diameter, spitting shots with every gun that bore upon the enemy during her wild gyrations.