“With the dusk came the great opportunity of the mosquito craft and both sides made use of it to the full.  It was in this way that one of the saddest of many sad incidents occurred.  A destroyer, true to its name, dashed for the big enemy ship.  It soon got into effective range and loosed its torpedo and with deadly effect on a German battleship.  The ship went down and the destroyer raced for safety, the commander and officer standing on the bridge indulging in mutual congratulations at their success.  At that moment a shell hit the bridge and wiped out the entire group.

“We fought what was in its way a great fight, although it was not a sailor’s battle.  Both the grand and the terrible were present to an almost overpowering degree.  As a spectacle it was magnificent, awful.  How awful, it was impossible to realize until the fever of action had subsided, until the guns were silent and the great ships, some battered, others absolutely untouched, were plowing home on the placid sea.”

MEN THRILLED BY BATTLE FEVER.

After describing the battle itself, the officer reverted to incidents preceding it, saying: 

“I shall never forget the thrill which passed through the men on the ships of the grand fleet when that inspiring message was received from the battle-cruiser squadron many leagues away:  ’I am engaged with heavy forces of the enemy.’  One looked on the faces of his fellows and saw that the effect was electrical.  The great ships swung around into battle order and the responsive sea rocked and churned as the massive vessels raced for what were virtually enemy waters.  As the grand fleet drew near the scene of action the smoke of battle and mutter of guns came down on the winds.  The eagerness of the men became almost unbearably intense and it was a blessed relief when our own guns gave tongue.”

RUSSIAN TROOPS LAND IN FRANCE.

Between April 20 and June 1, a large flotilla of transports arriving at Marseilles, France, brought Russian soldiers in large numbers to the support of the French line.  The transports were understood to have made the voyage of 10,250 miles from Vladivostok under convoy by the British navy.

EARL KITCHENER KILLED AT SEA.

The British armored cruiser Hampshire, 10,850 tons, with Earl Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, and his staff on board, was sunk shortly after nightfall on June 5, to the west of the Orkney Islands, either by a mine or a torpedo.  Heavy seas were running and Admiral Jellicoe reported that there were no survivors.  The crew numbered officers and men.  Earl Kitchener was on his way to Russia for a secret conference with the military authorities when the disaster occurred.  His latest achievement was the creation, from England’s untrained manhood, of an army approximating 5,000,000 men, of whom he was the military idol.

CHAPTER XXVIII.