Of the opening phases of the Jutland battle Commander C---- did not see a great deal personally. "We were steaming at a moderate speed," he said, "when Von Hipper's signal was received stating he was engaging enemy battle-cruisers and leading them south--that is, in the direction from which we were approaching. As there were a number of pre-dreadnoughts in the fleet, its speed--as long as it kept together--was limited to the speed of these. In knots we were doing perhaps sixteen when the first signal was received, and even after forming battle line this speed was not materially increased for some time. I understood the reason for this when I heard that the engine-room had been ordered to make no more smoke than was positively necessary. We had given much attention to regulating draught, and on this occasion it was only a few minutes before there was hardly more than a light grey cloud issuing from every funnel the whole length of the line. The idea, of course, was to prevent the English ships from finding out any sooner than could be helped that they were being led into an 'ambush.' As long as we did not increase speed it was easy to keep down the smoke, and I am sure that the first evidence the enemy had of the presence of the High Sea Fleet was when they saw our masts and funnels. But we saw them before that--we saw the two great towers of smoke that went high up into the sky when two of them blew up, and we saw the smoke from their funnels half an hour before their topmasts came above the horizon. At this time, although all of the ships of the High Sea Fleet were coal burners, they were making less smoke than the four oil-burning ships of the _Queen Elizabeth_ class, which we sighted not long after the English battle-cruisers. As soon as we began to increase speed, of course, we made more smoke than they did.