its projectile, and up to a certain point the higher the gun is pointed the further will go the shell.  A certain paradox seems to enter here.  It is a fact that a distant ship presents a target more easily hit if its bow or stern is toward the gunner.  If it presents a broadside there is the danger that the shells will go either beyond the ship or will fall short of it, for the greatest beam on a warship is not much more than 90 feet.  If the bow or stern is toward the gunner he has a chance of landing a shell on any part of the 600 or more feet of the ship’s length.  The first firing in a battle at a distance is known as “straddling,” by which is meant that a number of shots are sent simultaneously, some falling short, some falling beyond the target, and some hitting it.

The man who really “aims” the gun never sees what he is shooting at.  At some point of vantage on his ship one of the officers observes the enemy and reports to the chief gunner the distance, the direction, and the effect of the first shots.  The gunnery officer then makes certain calculations, taking into consideration the speed of his own ship and the speed of the enemy ship.  He knows that at a given moment his target will be at a given point.  He knows also just how fast his shells will travel and makes calculations that enable him to place a shell at that point at just the right second.  In this battle the shells of the British ship took about twenty seconds to go from the mouths of the guns to the German hulls.  And they made a curve at the highest point of which they reached a distance of more than two miles; and most wonderful of all was the fact that at the beginning of the firing a man standing on the deck of one of the German ships could not even see the ship which was firing the shells at her, though the weather was very clear.

By a quarter to ten o’clock the Lion had come up with and had passed the slow Bluecher, firing broadsides into her as she went by.  The Tiger then passed the unfortunate German ship, also letting her have a heavy fire, and then the Princess Royal did likewise.  Finally the New Zealand was able to engage her and later even the slow Indomitable got near enough to do so.  By that time the Bluecher was afire and one of her gun turrets, with its crew and gun, had been swept off bodily by a British shell.

Meanwhile the Lion, Tiger, and Princess Royal kept straight ahead till they were able to “straddle” even the leading ship of the enemy’s line.  The Tiger and Lion poured shells into the Seydlitz, but were unable to do much damage to the Moltke.  While they were thus engaged the Princess Royal singled out the Derfftinger for her target.  The light British cruiser Aurora, Arethusa, and Undaunted were far ahead of the rest of the British fleet and were firing at the Moltke, but thick black smoke which poured from their funnels as their engines were speeded up got between the gunners of the Lion and their target, the Moltke, completely obscuring the latter.  As a result the three light British cruisers were ordered to slow down and to take positions to the rear.