had been lost during the second hour before Jellicoe arrived I should have felt no surprise—we were then deliberately risking big losses—but during the first hour of fighting, when we had ten ships against five—and five much weaker individually than our ten—we lost two fine battle cruisers. I confess that I am beaten. It almost looks as if at the beginning the German gunners were better than ours, but that they went to pieces later. What do you think?” He turned to the Salt Horse, who spoke little, but very forcibly when he could be persuaded to open his lips. “Everyone with Beatty, to whom I have spoken,” declared the Salt Horse, “agrees that the German gunnery was excellent at the beginning. We were straddled immediately and hit again and again while coming into action. Our gunners must have been a bit over-anxious until they settled down. We ought to have done something solid in a whole hour against five battle cruisers with our thirty-two 13.5-inch guns and thirty-two 15-inch. And yet no one claims more than one enemy ship on fire. That means nothing. The burning gas from one big shell will make the deuce of a blaze. There is no explanation of our losses in the first part, and of Fritz’s comparative immunity, except the one which you, my dear Gunner, are very unwilling to accept. Fritz hit us much more often than we hit him. There you have it. I have spoken.” Admiral Salt Horse, a most abstemious man, rang the bell of the club of which we were members, and ordered a whisky and soda. “Just to take the taste of that admission out of my mouth,” he explained. The Maker of Ships and Guns smiled ruefully. “I have reckoned,” said he, “that the Cats fired twenty rounds per gun during the first hour and the Queen Elizabeths ten. That makes 640 rounds of 13.5-inch shell and 320 rounds of 15-inch. Three per cent. of fair hits at the ranges, and in the conditions of light, would have been quite good. But did we score twenty-eight hits of big shell, or anything like it? If we had there would have been much more damage done than one battle cruiser on fire. The Salt Horse has spoken, and so have I. I also will wash the taste of it out of my mouth.” “You will admit,” muttered the Gunner, “that in the second part, after Beatty and the Queen Elizabeths had turned, our control officers and long-service gunners came into their own?” “Willingly,” cried Admiral Salt Horse. “Nothing could have been finer than the hammering which Evan-Thomas gave to the whole High Seas Fleet. And Beatty crumpled up his opposite numbers in first-class style. Our individual system, then, justified itself utterly. Fritz’s mechanical control went to bits when the shells began to burst about his fat ears, but it was painfully good while it lasted. Give Fritz his due, Master Gunner, it’s no use shutting our eyes to his merits.”