"Right ahead of us," said one of her survivors, "and close at hand, we saw two columns of German destroyers. We were racing along at the time, and our skipper took us at full speed right toward the enemy lines. There was a column of their small craft on either side of us, and, as soon as we got abreast of them, we attacked at close range, and managed to torpedo a couple of enemy destroyers, one on each beam. All the time we were getting it hot. Guns were popping at us from all quarters, and we were firing back as hard as we could go, as well as using our torpedo-tubes. Of course a fight under these conditions could not last long for us. We had been engaged about ten minutes when two torpedoes hit fairly, one on each side of our ship, and ripped three holes in her, so that she sank almost at once. I and some others sprang on to a raft, where we stayed for five hours watching the battle--and there was something to look at. Zeppelins, torpedo-craft, submarines, and big ships were all there. Shells fell like hailstones into the water, and we could see the small craft getting it badly. The enemy losses in destroyers must have been very great, for whenever one got a big shell in her she was done. Some of them I saw hit went down like stones. Apparently there were a lot of German submarines, and they seemed to be very busy, but my impression is that a good many of them were done for by our ships running over them. The fire of the big ships was enough to stun anybody {191} with the noise it made. I saw five German battleships and battle-cruisers; they looked as though they were all firing at one time at one of our cruisers. The Germans seemed to be concentrating their fire upon one ship at a time as much as they could--a lot of these big ships would all turn the whole of their guns upon one of our cruisers, and then do the same thing to another. This meant a tremendous battering for the ships they fired at. You can imagine what it was to face these salvos from four or five of their vessels pouring upon one ship at the same time. I saw one or two ships go, but I could not give you any particulars about them, as there was so much going on that one could not grasp details very well. When I was picked up from the raft, I was about done, for it was very cold, and I had not much clothing on. Toward the latter part of the time, we had as much as we could to do keep life in ourselves. We kept our blood circulating by jumping overboard and swimming round the raft. All of us did this in turn, those on the raft hauling in the men who had finished their swim, and then going for a swim round the raft themselves. As it was, one of our men died from exposure before he could be landed."