Have you ever noticed that men who do Homeric deeds often describe
them in Homeric language? The sentence "I looked round for useful
employment" is worthy of Ulysses when "there was an evil sound at the
ships of men who perished and of the ships themselves broken at the
same time."
Roughly, very roughly, speaking, our destroyers enjoyed three phases
of "prompt decisive action"--the first, a period of daylight attacks
(from 4 to 6 P.M.) such as the one I have just described, while the
battle was young and the light fairly good on the afternoon of May 31;
the second, towards dark, when the light had lessened and the enemy
were more uneasy, and, I think, in more scattered formation; the
third, when darkness had fallen, and the destroyers had been strung
out astern with orders to help the enemy home, which they did all
night as opportunity offered. One cannot say whether the day or the
night work was the more desperate. From private advices, the young
gentlemen concerned seem to have functioned with efficiency either
way. As one of them said: "After a bit, you see, we were all pretty
much on our own, and you could really find out what your ship could
do."