Richard Collins: Baboons walk in line to be close to their friends
Baboons walking in progression on South Africa's Cape Peninsula. Picture: Vittoria Roatti
‘Crossing the T’ was a naval-warfare strategy. A commander would manoeuver his ships into a line at right angles to, and in front of, his opponent’s. By doing so, he could deploy both his fore and aft guns, while his adversary could use only the forward ones. At the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, the British ‘crossed’ the German fleet twice, but the tactic failed in poor visibility. The British lost 6,093 sailors, the Germans lost 2,551. Eels, feeding on the corpses that autumn, were said to have grown as fat as human limbs.
Sixteen years later, Captain Langsdorf scuttled the Graf Spee, just inside Uruguay’s territorial waters, to avoid British cruisers waiting, in crossed T position, beyond the mouth of the River Plate.
