Fire was immediately opened and Rear-Admiral Hood turned to starboard, bringing the enemy on to the port bow of his squadron. Three light cruisers, a flotilla leader, and ten destroyers were now visible, the latter apparently turning to launch a torpedo attack upon the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron. The four destroyers who had hitherto been disposed in two subdivisions, one on each bow of the _Invincible_, were thereupon ordered to attack the enemy. Led by Commander Loftus Jones in the _Shark_, the division swung round, and hurled itself at the German force, opening fire with every gun that would bear. In the meanwhile the enemy opened a heavy though ill-directed fire on the battle cruisers. A large proportion of the salvos were falling short, and the British destroyers had in consequence to advance through a barrage of fire which surrounded them on all sides with columns of water and bursting shell. In spite of their numerical superiority, the German destroyers turned away in the face of this determined onslaught, and Commander Loftus Jones, satisfied that the intended torpedo attack on Rear-Admiral Hood’s squadron had been frustrated, and having fired two of his three torpedoes, turned sixteen points to regain his position on the bow of the _Invincible_. The remaining three destroyers followed in his wake. Three German battle cruisers had then appeared out of the mist in support of the enemy light cruisers, and the gallant division, with _Shark_ at their head, turned under a concentrated deluge of shells from the entire German force. A fragment of a projectile struck the _Shark’s_ wheel, shattering it, and wounding the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, on the right hand. The captain immediately ordered the after wheel to be manned and followed the coxswain down the ladder to the shell-torn upper-deck to con the ship from aft. The yeoman of signals, Petty Officer Banham, who up to this point had been the third occupant of the bridge, hurried after the captain. The enemy were now using shrapnel, and the captain was wounded in the thigh and face as he reached the bottom of the ladder. He stumbled aft, endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood with his hands, to find on reaching the engine-room hatchway that a shell had burst inside the engine-room, and the main engines and steering gear were completely disabled. The coxswain had been struck at the same time as the captain, and dropped insensible from a wound in the head. The foremost gun, under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Vance, had been blown away, and only one survivor of its crew lay badly wounded amid the wreckage.