Somebody on a Japanese cruiser must have been at least mildly nervous, for a searchlight came on, swept the water toward Tulagi, zipped right across Bob Searles in 38, and then went black. Searles stretched his luck; he cut his speed to 10 knots and began a slow stalk of the cruiser that had muffed its chance to sound the alarm. So cocky were the Japanese that the cruiser was almost dead in the water; even at 10 knots, the 38 closed the range from behind. Bob Searles greased the 38 along the still waters of the sound, holding his breath and dreading to see the glare of that searchlight again. He could see the target clearly silhouetted in the gun flashes, and it was a brute—a light cruiser, Bob thought, judging from its shape, its size, and the roar of its guns. Searles figured that he would probably be the first and only PT skipper to enjoy the carefully preserved surprise that the PT sailors hoped would bag them a big one—so he had to make his first shot good or waste the chance they had all been hoarding. A torpedo, like any other weapon that has to be aimed, is more likely to hit the closer you get to your target before you shoot. So Bob went in to 400 yards in stealthy silence. Four hundred yards in a naval battle is the equivalent of arm’s length in an infantry fire fight. At 400 yards, a spread of torpedoes will usually score, but the machine guns and autocannon of a cruiser’s secondary battery, guided by a searchlight, will almost certainly tear up a torpedo boat. Searles, just to be sure of a hit, was doing the same thing as a commando would do if, armed with a high-powered rifle, he crept to within five feet of a sentry armed with a sawed-off shotgun. At any range that rifle is a deadly weapon—like a torpedo—but at close range the shotgun is just as deadly and ten times surer of hitting with the first shot. At 400 yards Bob fired two fish. He chased along behind them to 200-yard range—almost rock-throwing range—and fired his last two torpedoes. The instant he felt the boat jump from those shots, he poured on the coal and roared past the cruiser, 100 yards astern. As they went by, all hands topside on the PT felt the scorching blast of a double explosion forward of the cruiser’s bridge. The surprise was over. From here on the whole Japanese task force would be alarmed and shooting back—but that big boy the PT sailors had been after was in the bag. The 38’s crew was sure of it. Searles had the good sense not to hang around the hornet’s nest he had stirred up. His torpedoes were gone anyhow, so he lit out for home, convinced that he had scored the first PT victory of the comeback trail. The other PTs had scattered, looking for other targets in the dark. There were plenty of targets, for they had penetrated the destroyer screen, without either side knowing it, and were in the heart of the Japanese formation. After the blast from the 38’s torpedo attack on the cruiser, the PTs themselves were as much targets as they were hunters.