Brown on Resolution by C.S. Forester — Read

Nelson once wrote that five minutes makes the difference between victory and defeat. It was hardly more than five minutes which made the difference between the detection of Ziethen and her possible escape from observation. Had Ziethen only sailed half an hour earlier she would have got away undetected to begin her career of destruction, and the history of the world -- of the British Cabinet at any rate -- would have been different. For as Penzance, detached by Captain Saville-Samarez to look round the Galapagos Archipelago, came down upon Resolution from the northeast, Ziethen was steering northwest away from the island. Just as Resolution came in sight a pair of keen eyes on Penzance detected a little trace of smoke far away on the westerly horizon. Smoke in that lost corner of the world was uncommon, and therefore suspicious, and Penzance headed after it in all the pride of her twenty-seven knots. In half an hour Ziethen was definitely identified, and the ether was thrilling with the news as Penzance broadcast her information.

Vain it was now for Ziethen to try to jam Penzance's messages. Leopard was only a hundred miles away; besides, the men who built and equipped Penzance had a very clear idea of the duties she was to perform, which is more than can be said of those who built Charybdis. Penzance was one of the most modern of cruisers, designed solely to be of the utmost service to battleships. She was a battleship's eyes, a battleship's message bearer, and her immense speed and her powerful wireless installation were given her solely for these ends. Her news trickled in to Leopard hardly mutilated, and that great ship swung her twenty-thousand tons round in pursuit.