The first faint intermittent murmur of sound increased momentarily as the two forces converged, and at 5.40 p.m. the haze on the starboard bow was pierced by flashes of gunfire; a few minutes later a force of German light cruisers and destroyers became visible, heavily engaged with an unseen opponent to the westward.
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.
The Shark was then lying with disabled engines helpless under a heavy fire, and Lieutenant-Commander John O. Barren, who commanded the Acasta, and had been second in the line, gallantly brought his destroyer between the Shark and the enemy’s fire, and signalled to ask if he could be of any assistance. The captain of the Shark was then aft, cheering and encouraging the crews of the midship and after guns. The yeoman of signals, who remained at his side, read the signal and reported it to the captain, who replied, “No. Tell him to look after himself and not get sunk over us.”
The yeoman of signals accordingly semaphored Commander Jones’s last signal to the division under his orders, and the Acasta followed in the wake of the other two boats which were rejoining the battle cruisers.
It is probable that at this juncture Rear-Admiral Hood sighted the British Battle Cruiser Fleet, which he had been ordered to reinforce, and proceeded to carry out his orders. The Third Battle Cruiser Squadron vanished into the mist, and the enemy closed in upon the Shark, which lay rolling helplessly in the swell, blazing defiance from her after and midship guns.