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.
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