he best chance to come
into line against them.

_The Third and Greatest Round: Jellicoe forms his Victorious Line of
Battle: 5.50 to 6.38 P.M._

For three hours and a half Jellicoe, with his twenty-four dreadnought
battleships, had been racing south to reach the scene of action. He
had gained at first, when Beatty was going east to find von Hipper. He
had lost when Hipper and Beatty were racing south to meet von Scheer.
But now the whole battle was coming north to meet him. As the
battlefield kept shifting about, and the fortunes of the fight kept
changing, he shaped his course accordingly. But he never slackened
speed, racing along under every pound of steam the straining ships
could carry, thanks to the skill of those quiet heroes of the
engine-room, who, seeing nothing of either friend or foe, never know
anything of either defeat or victory, life or death, till all is over
either with the battle or themselves.

As the great Battle Fleet came rushing from the north every eye was
strained to catch the first sight of Beatty and the Germans. The
thunder of a thousand guns rolled far across that summer sea. It was
heard along the coast of Jutland a hundred miles away; and the main
body of the Grand Fleet knew _The Day_ had come long before they
reached the battlefield. Presently the flashes began sparkling into
view; and then the ships themselves loomed up, dimly made out through
mist and smoke.

Jellicoe did not yet know exactly where the Germans were, and Beatty
could not tell what they would do now Jellicoe had come. But Beatty
turned sharp east immediately he sighted Jellicoe, and the Germans soon
turned too, fearing to have him cross their T while Jellicoe was
rounding on them. They wanted to escape, seeing the fight was
hopeless. But they could not take the quickest way, that of turning
all together--each ship turning right round where she was and making
off as hard as she could--because this would have changed the places of
the admirals and put the battle cruisers in the rear as well. Nor
could they safely turn right back on their course, while keeping the
same line-ahead, because some ships would then be masking the fire of
others till the whole line had been reversed; and they sorely needed
every gun they had. So the only way left was to keep parallel with
Beatty till a chance came to turn sharply enough to get away, but not
sharply enough to mask any of their own fire.

Imagine the whole eno