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Some of the lighter ships, to escape the assaults of the British destroyers during the night, headed north and got home by way of the Skagerrak and the Kiel Canal. Jellicoe had avoided a night pursuit for the sake of fighting on better terms the next morning, but at dawn he found his destroyers scattered far and wide.
The peninsula looks very dreary from this side; it is flat and covered with sand. On the sixteenth day we entered the Cattegat. For some time past we had always either been becalmed or had had contrary winds, and had been tossed about in the Skagerrak, the Cattegat, and the Sound for nearly a week. On some days we scarcely made fifteen to twenty leagues a day.
At the first report from the Galatea, which had been intercepted on the flagship, Iron Duke, Jellicoe ordered full speed, and despatched ahead the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, under Hood, to cut off the escape of the Germans to the Skagerrak, as Beatty was then heading to cut them off from their bases to the south.
We have already noted that as soon as Jellicoe learned of the presence of the enemy he ordered Hood, with the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, to cut off the German retreat to the Skagerrak and to support Beatty. Hood's course had taken him well to the east of where the action was in progress. At 5.40 he saw the flashes of guns far to the northwest, and immediately changed course in that direction.
Instead of the German fleet being at the bottom of the sea, considerably more British than German men-of-war find themselves in that position. Since the great battle of the Skagerrak, where the German High Sea Fleet successfully fought against the entire British Grand Fleet, the British losses have increased alarmingly.
The old fish did not seem to have the same elasticity; they only described a small arch like the dolphins, and only rose so far above the water that we could see the middle part of their body. These fish are not caught; they have little oil, and an unpleasant taste. On the thirteenth day we again saw land. We had entered the Skagerrak, and saw the peninsula of Jutland, with the town of Skaggen.
Towards evening the schooner doubled Cape Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, crossed the Skagerrak during the night skirted the extreme point of Norway through the gut of Cape Lindesnes, and then reached the Northern Seas.
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