Speaking at a luncheon given in London[21] in honour of American Press representatives visiting England, Vice-Admiral Sims remarked that some of his countrymen regarded it as a miracle of their Navy that it had got a million and a half troops across the Atlantic in a few months and had protected them on the way. “We didn’t do that,” he avowed. “Great Britain did. She brought over two-thirds of them and escorted a half. We escort only one-third of the merchant vessels that come here.” America has been most generous in her appreciation of the part played by Britain in the war. CHAPTER IV _Pygmies among Giants_ “_This is the first time since the Creation that all the world has been obliged to unite to crush the Devil._”—RUDYARD KIPLING. Two weeks after the declaration of war Count von Reventlow was cock-a-hoop regarding the “attitude of reserve” of what he was kind enough to term the “alleged sea-commanding Fleet of the greatest naval Power in the world.” “This fleet,” he asserted, “has now been lying idle for more than a fortnight, so far from the German coast that no cruiser and no German lightship has been able to discover it, and it is repeatedly declared officially, ‘German waters are free of the enemy.’” Whether the Count was aware of the fact or not, British submarines were watching in the vicinity of the ironclad fortress of Heligoland three hours after hostilities had begun. Had the High Sea Fleet ventured out it would have been greeted with anything but an “attitude of reserve,” as part of it found to its cost on the 28th August, 1914. The initiative on that splendid occasion was taken by the British, who compelled the enemy to give battle by means of a delightful little ruse in which submarines not only played the leading part, but had “supplied the information on which these operations were based.” At midnight on the 26th August Commodore Roger Keyes hoisted his broad pennant on the _Lurcher_, a small T.B.D. of only 765 tons, and accompanied by the _Firedrake_, of similar displacement, escorted eight submarines to sea. On the night of the 27th the vessels parted company, the submarines to take up positions preparatory to the following day’s work. Destroyer flotillas, the Battle Cruiser Squadron, the First Light Cruiser Squadron, and the Seventh Cruiser Squadron also left their various bases and made toward the Bight.