rmous battlefield as something like a target, with
the Germans circling round the bull's-eye, Beatty round the inner, and
Jellicoe just coming into the outer. From Beatty's reports and his own
observation Jellicoe could not know even that before six. So he sent
out his own battle cruiser squadron under Admiral Hood to lengthen
Beatty's line and overlap the Germans. Hood then sent one of his light
cruisers, the _Chester_, speeding ahead to scout. But three German
light cruisers held her up in a furious fight of twenty minutes. The
_Chester_ fought desperately, losing more than half her men, but
getting her scout work done in spite of the fearful odds against her.
How well she fought may be found out from the story of Jack Cornwell;
for he was only one of her many heroes. Ship's boy, first class, and
sixteen years of age, Jack Cornwell would have been the youngest V.C.
in the world had he lived to wear it. With every man in the gun's crew
round him dead or dying, and with the gun-shield shot away, he stood
there, under a terrific fire, mortally wounded, with the receivers at
his ears, reporting exactly what had happened to everyone except
himself, and calmly waiting for orders how to carry on.

When the battered _Chester_ told Hood he was too far south-east he
turned back north-west till he sighted Beatty coming toward him at full
speed. On Beatty's orders he then carried out Jellicoe's plan by
turning back so as to lengthen Beatty's line of battle cruisers at the
forward end, thus overlapping the Germans. This splendidly skilful and
most daring move so alarmed the Germans that they trained every gun
they could on him in a furious effort to wipe out the deadly overlap.
He led the gallant line, "bringing his squadron into action ahead in a
most inspiring manner, worthy of his great naval ancestors." (He was
the great-great-grandson of the Lord Hood whom Nelson always called the
best of naval officers.) His flagship, the _Invincible_, hit back with
all her might, helped by the ships astern. "Keep it up," called Hood
to his gunnery officer, Commander Dannreuther, one of the six
survivors, "every shot is hitting them." But the converging fire of a
hundred giant guns simply smashed the _Invincible_ from stem to stern.
At last a huge shell reached her magazine, and she blew up like a
volcano; sheets of flame leaping higher than her masts, boats and loose
gear whirling higher still, like leaves in an autumn gale, and