At dawn the _Lurcher_ and the _Firedrake_ carefully searched for U-boats the area that would be traversed by the battle-cruisers in the succeeding operations, and then began to spread the net into which it was hoped the Germans would fall. E 6, E 7, and E 8, travelling awash, proceeded in the direction of Heligoland, the destroyers following at some distance. They were “exposing themselves with the object of inducing the enemy to chase them to the westward.” In this decoy work the submarines were eminently successful. In the ensuing action they played no active part. “On approaching Heligoland,” to quote the Commodore’s dispatch, “the visibility, which had been very good to seaward, reduced to 5000 to 6000 yards, and this added considerably to the anxieties and responsibilities of the Commanding Officers of Submarines, who handled their vessels with coolness and judgment in an area which was necessarily occupied by friends as well as foes. Low visibility and calm sea are the most unfavourable conditions under which Submarines can operate, and no opportunity occurred of closing with the Enemy’s Cruisers to within torpedo range.” The German U-boats were no more fortunate. Three of them attacked the Battle Cruiser Squadron before it was engaged, to be frustrated by rapid manœuvring and the attention of four destroyers. The use of the helm also saved the _Queen Mary_ and the _Lowestoft_ during the battle. The most enthralling incident in the fight centres around E 4, whose commander witnessed the sinking of the German torpedo-boat U 187 through his periscope. British destroyers immediately lowered their boats to pick up survivors. They were rewarded by salvoes from a cruiser. Lieutenant-Commander Ernest W. Leir prepared to torpedo the vessel, but before he could do so she had altered course and got out of range. Having covered the retirement of the destroyers, he went to the rescue of the boats, which had necessarily been abandoned. The story of what followed is well told by a lieutenant in a letter to the _Morning Post_. “The _Defender_,” he writes, “having sunk an enemy, lowered a whaler to pick up her swimming survivors; before the whaler got back an enemy’s cruiser came up and chased the _Defender_, and thus she abandoned her whaler. Imagine their feelings; alone in an open boat without food; twenty-five miles from the nearest land, and that land the enemy’s fortress, with nothing but fog and foes around them. Suddenly a whirl alongside, and up, if you please, pops His Britannic Majesty’s submarine E 4, opens his conning-tower, takes them all on board, shuts up again, dives, and brings them home 250 miles! Is not that magnificent? No novelist would dare face the critics with an episode like that in his book, except, perhaps, Jules Verne; and all true!”