From this bridge of the Lion on the morning of the 24th of January, 1915, Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty saw appear on the horizon a sight inexpressibly welcome to any commander who has scoured the seas in the hope that the enemy will come out in the open and give battle.  Once that German battle-cruiser squadron had slipped across the North Sea and, under cover of the mist which has ever been the friend of the pirate, bombarded the women and children of Scarborough and the Hartle-pools with shells meant to be fired at hardened adult males sheltered behind armour; and then, thanks to the mist, they had slipped back to Heligoland with cheering news to the women and children of Germany.  This time when they came out they encountered a British battle-cruiser squadron of superior speed and power, and they had to fight as they ran for home.

Now, the place of an admiral is in his conning tower after he has made his deployments and the firing has begun.  He, too, is a part of the machine; his position defined, no less than the plugman’s and the gun-layer’s.  Sir David watched the ranging shots which fell short at first, until finally they were on, and the Germans were beginning to reply.  When his staff warned him that he ought to go below, he put them off with a preoccupied shake of his head.  He could not resist the temptation to remain where he was, instead of being shut up looking through the slits of a visor.

But an admiral is as vulnerable to shell-fragments as a midshipman, and the staff did its duty, which had been thought out beforehand like everything else.  The argument was on their side; the commander really had none on his.  It was then that Vice-Admiral Beatty sent Sir David Beatty to the conning tower, much to the personal disgust of Sir David, who envied the observing officers aloft their free sweep of vision.

Youth in Sir David’s case meant suppleness of limb as well as youth’s spirit and dash.  When the Lion was disabled by the shot in her feed tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag.  He signalled for his destroyer, the Attack.  When she came alongside he did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of the Lion.  An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken some of them, or at least received a shock to his presence of mind.

Before he left the Lion Sir David had been the first to see the periscope of a German submarine in the distance, which sighted the wounded ship as inviting prey.  Officers of the Lion dwelt more on the cruise home than on the battle.  It was a case of being towed at five knots an hour by the Indomitable.  If ever submarines had a fair chance to show what they could do it was then against that battleship at a snail’s pace.  But it is one thing to torpedo a merchant craft and another to get a major fighting ship, bristling with torpedo defence guns and surrounded by destroyers.  The Lion reached port without further injury.