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The Grand Fleet began to move around the west coast of Scotland and the northern coast of Ireland, marking time until Scapa Flow could be made safe enough to take the fleet there. Initially the fleet laid up in the alternative anchorage of Loch Ewe on Scotland’s north-west coast for 17 days, before returning to Scapa Flow.

A month later, on 17 October 1914, the fleet put to sea again from Scapa Flow, but this time Loch Ewe was regarded as unsafe because a submarine had been reported near there 10 days earlier. The Grand Fleet thus retreated even further from the enemy, to Lough Swilly in the north of Ireland, where the 2nd Battle Squadron, including the recently refitted Audacious, would be based for some months.

As we saw in the preceding chapter, the loss of Pathfinder was quickly followed by the sinking of the three armoured cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy, with great loss of life by a single submarine, U 9, on 22 September 1914. Then, on 15 October 1914, the same German submarine, U 9, sank the British protected cruiser HMS Hawke with the loss of some 500 men.