Then I heard the captain give the order to switch on No. 1 searchlight, which was in charge of Cunninghame, our junior cadet. This light was just forward of mine, and I nipped back in a hurry in case mine should switch on. No. 1 failed to pick up the object the flagship had fired at—which, by the _lights_ it was showing, should by rights have been a fishing-smack—and his beam was very badly focussed. I knew my beam was all right, as I had tested it when preparing for night defence, and, as I had trained on the lights in question as soon as I had seen them, when the captain ordered me to switch on, my beam revealed the object at once. It proved to be two German destroyers: one showing the lights usually shown by a fishing-smack, the other showing no lights at all! Now the other searchlights quickly focussed on the enemy, and one of our 12-pounders fired two shots in swift succession. A few seconds later I saw two flashes in the beam of the searchlights where the shells struck the water close to their objective, and two white columns of water were flung high into the air. Then came a blinding flash, followed immediately by the sound of an explosion: a blast of hot air, smelling strongly of cordite, caught me unprepared and threw me off my balance. The six-inch gun immediately below me had fired without any warning. I never saw the fall of that shell although, as soon as I had recovered myself, I watched the enemy ships carefully. Only a minute later one of them fired a torpedo at us. For some way we could follow the track of bubbles in the gleam of the searchlights—then it passed out of the light, and there came a moment of breathless suspense. Had they got us? No! the brute passed harmlessly between us and the flagship. Then our aftermost six-inch gun fired, but this time I was prepared, and, bracing myself against the blast, watched eagerly for the fall of the shot. It pitched some hundred yards from the torpedo-boats—ricochetted like a stone—hit the second of them right amidships and exploded: and the enemy craft simply vanished from the face of the waters! A jolly lucky shot! The other destroyer evidently thought so anyway, for, extinguishing her lights on the moment, she dashed away at full speed and was lost to sight in the darkness. Presumably pursuit was useless, for shortly afterwards we extinguished our searchlights and proceeded on our way without encountering any more excitement. The next day, which we spent at sea, was quite uneventful, and on the following evening we entered Spithead. Here, with the last rays of the setting sun illuminating their pale grey hulls, lay the whole of the 2nd Fleet at anchor off Portsmouth. We had parted company with the two last ships of our division just outside, they having gone on to Portland and Plymouth respectively, and we entered Portsmouth in the wake of the flagship, lining ship and dipping our ensign as we passed the old _Victory_, and shortly afterwards dropping anchor in the harbour.