Mark how virtue is rewarded! Another of our destroyers an hour or so
previously had been knocked clean out of action, before she had done
anything, by a big shell which gutted a boiler-room and started an oil
fire. (That is the drawback to oil.) She crawled out between the
battleships till she "reached an area of comparative calm" and
repaired damage. She says: "The fire having been dealt with it was
found a mat kept the stokehold dry. My only trouble now being lack of
speed, I looked round for useful employment, and saw a destroyer in
great difficulties, so closed her." That destroyer was our paralytic
friend of the intermittent torpedo-tubes, and a grateful ship she was
when her crippled sister (but still good for a few knots) offered her
a tow, "under very trying conditions with large enemy ships
approaching." So the two set off together, Cripple and Paralytic, with
heavy shells falling round them, as sociable as a couple of lame
hounds. Cripple worked up to 12 knots, and the weather grew vile, and
the tow parted. Paralytic, by this time, had raised steam in a boiler
or two, and made shift to get along slowly on her own, Cripple
hirpling beside her, till Paralytic could not make any more headway in
that rising sea, and Cripple had to tow her once more. Once more the
tow parted. So they tied Paralytic up rudely and effectively with a
cable round her after bollards and gun (presumably because of strained
forward bulkheads) and hauled her stern-first, through heavy seas, at
continually reduced speeds, doubtful of their position, unable to
sound because of the seas, and much pestered by a wind which backed
without warning, till, at last, they made land, and turned into the
hospital appointed for brave wounded ships. Everybody speaks well of
Cripple. Her name crops up in several reports, with such compliments
as the men of the sea use when they see good work. She herself speaks
well of her Lieutenant, who, as executive officer, "took charge of the
fire and towing arrangements in a very creditable manner," and also of
Tom Battye and Thomas Kerr, engine-room artificer and stoker petty
officer, who "were in the stokehold at the time of the shell striking,
and performed cool and prompt decisive action, although both suffering
from shock and slight injuries."