Still, for all that, there was uncertainty in the matter. The sport of bull-fighting owes its continuance solely to the fact that the instincts of each brute playmate in that cruel game are exactly identical with those of every other. However busy any bull may be with a tossed and disembowelled horse, it is a matter of mathematical certainty that a red cloak dangled before his eyes will divert him from goring the rider. The animal’s reactions to each well-known pin-prick or provocation are inevitable. The safety of every toreador, piccador, and matador depends not on their power of meeting the unexpected, but upon the rapidity, deftness, and agility with which they can first time the movements which long experience has taught them to expect, and then execute the counter-stroke or evasion which an old-established art has prescribed. Scheer, it seems to me, showed something more than rashness in relying on a German analysis of our naval mentality, and upon a single instance--and endorsement--of that mentality in action, as if it established a rule of conduct as irrevocable as instinct. But, then, it must be understood, he had no choice.
At six the Grand Fleet was five miles to the north, approximately twelve miles from the enemy. It could not come into action in less than a quarter of an hour. The speed of _Lion_, _Tiger_, _Princess Royal_, and _New Zealand_ was twenty-seven knots, at least eight, possibly nine or even ten knots faster than that of the enemy. The head of the enemy’s line bore southeast from the flagship. Scheer, already aware of Sir John Jellicoe’s approach, was beginning his eastward turn. Beatty realized that at full speed he could head the German Fleet, so that by the time the Grand Fleet’s deployment was complete, he would be in a commanding position on the bow of the enemy’s van. It would probably not be possible for Evan-Thomas to gain this position, too. But there was no reason why he should. Assuming Sir David’s purpose to be the realization of the most elementary of tactical axioms, viz. to strike as nearly as possible simultaneously with all the forces in the field, Evan-Thomas would be just as useful at one end of the line as the other. The twenty-four ships of the Grand Fleet, led by the battle cruisers and with the four _Queen Elizabeths_ as a rear squadron, would outflank the enemy at both ends of his line.