It is possible that the PTs—excellent rescue craft manned by sailors eager to help stricken shipmates—were so new to the theatre that the top brass didn’t even know of their presence, or at least weren’t in the habit of thinking about them. At any rate, the PTs were tied up at Tulagi while American sailors drowned almost within sight of the harbor. On the night between November 13th and 14th, two Japanese heavy cruisers, screened by a light cruiser and four destroyers, steamed toward Guadalcanal with another load of bombardment shells. The situation on Guadalcanal was grave. The base was crammed with the sick and weary survivors of the naval battle. The veteran defenders knew another punishing flotilla was on its way with possibly the final, fatal load of fragmentation shells aboard—and there were no big American ships near enough to say them nay. The United States Navy had almost shot its bolt, at least temporarily. Almost but not quite. Two PTs were still in the fight. One, commanded by Stilly Taylor, and another, commanded by John Searles, had been screening the heavy cruiser _Portland_, which had been badly damaged in the previous night’s battle and was being towed to Tulagi. Stilly Taylor tells what happened in one of the most momentously important torpedo-boat adventures of the Pacific War: “The Japs began to shell Henderson Field, first putting a very bright flare in the vicinity of the field, and so naturally both of us [the two PTs] started in on them independently.... “As soon as the Japs opened fire it was obvious to us that there was at least one fairly heavy ship. We thought it was probably a battleship.... We could tell it was definitely a heavy ship because of the long orange flash from its gunfire rather than the short white flash which we knew from experience was the smaller fire of the destroyers.... “Due to the light put up by the Nip flares, I was able to use my director for the first time. I set the target’s speed at about 20 knots, and I think he was doing slightly more than this. I kept him in the director for approximately seven of his salvos and really had a beautiful line on him. [PT boats usually were forced, by bad visibility at night and in bad weather, to shoot from the hip. A chance to use a director for visually aimed fire was an unaccustomed luxury well worth gloating over in an action report.] “After closing to about 1,000 yards, I decided that if we went in any farther we would get tangled up in the destroyer screen which I knew would be surrounding him at about 500 to 700 yards. “I therefore fired three fish. The fourth misfired and never left the tube. The three fish landed beautifully and made no flash as we fired them. “We immediately turned around and started back for the base, but we had the torpedoes running hot and straight toward the target. “I am positive that at least one of them found its mark.