The captain of the fleet, the captain, the commander, the officer of the watch and the boatswain were waiting at the head of the starboard gangway as I stepped on deck, and out of the fog, which had thickened till I could not see the muzzles of the guns of "Y" turret, the Germans were advancing from aft. The frown on Admiral Meurer's heavy brows was magnified by the cross light of the "yard-arm group" at the gangway, and his mouth, with its thin hard lips, showed as a straight black line. With a click of the heels and the characteristic automaton bow of the German, he saluted the British officers in turn, beginning with the captain of the fleet, stepped down the short gangway and disappeared into the waiting barge to the shrilling of the pipes. Bowing and clicking, the others followed suit, a weedy "sub," with an enormous roll of papers under his arm, going over last. The _Oak_, herself invisible in the fog, groped blindly with her searchlight to pick up the barge. "We must hold the light steady," facetiously quoted the Press correspondent at my elbow from a speech of President Wilson's which had appeared in the morning papers, and then added thoughtfully, "It may be a _light_ that kind need for guidance, but if I had the leading of them for the next generation it would be by a ring in the nose." Now, panorama resumed. It was the day of the surrender, and the _Cardiff_, with her high-flown kite balloon in tow, was leading the line of German battle-cruisers out of the eastern mist. I was watching from the bridge of the _Erin_, and an officer beside me, recognizing the _Seydlitz_, flying the rear-admiral's flag, in the lead, with the _Moltke_ and _Derfflinger_ next in line, told how, from the light cruiser in which he had chased them at Dogger Bank, he had seen at least two of the three, leaving the _Blücher_ to her fate, dashing for the shelter of their minefields with flames swirling about their mastheads. Another spoke casually of how, in the _Tiger_ at Jutland, he had been for a wild minute or two, while his ship was rounding a "windy corner" as Beatty turned north to meet the British Battle Fleet, under the concentrated fire of all the battle-cruisers--with the exception of the _Hindenburg_, but with the _Lützow_ added--now steaming past us. We remarked the "flattery of imitation" in the resemblance of the _Hindenburg_ with her long run of forecastle and "flare" bows, to the _Repulse_ and _Renown_, and of the symmetrical, two-funnelled _Bayern_ as she appeared between the _Kaisers_ and the _Königs_ in the German battleship line to the British _Queen Elizabeth_ class laid down before the war. The _Queen Elizabeth_ herself, falling out of line to take the salute of the ships of the fleet she had led to victory as they passed, brought that reel of panorama to an end.