Instantly the guns on the raider and those in the masked battery on shore opened a furious fire. The leading destroyer, caught by the tornado of shell, was hulled again and again. With her funnels riddled like sieves, her deck gear swept away, and in a sinking condition, she turned for the open sea. Failing in that object her lieutenant-commander ran her aground on the outer reef just as she was on the point of foundering.
The second destroyer, blinded by the glare of the searchlights, and finding that she was the target for two distinct batteries, neither of which was in the spot where the Pelikan was supposed to be, turned about, screening her movements with smoke from her funnels.
Slowing down outside the lagoon she picked up the survivors from her consort and steamed out to sea.
Fro
