Signals and signal halyards had been long since shot away, and all the signalmen killed or wounded; but the two ships conformed to each other's movements, and made a splendid fight of it. Admiral Ting had been insensible for some hours at the outset of the battle. He had stood too close to one of his own big guns on a platform above its muzzle, and had been stunned by the upward and backward concussion of the air; but he had recovered consciousness, and, though wounded by a burst shell, was bravely commanding his ship. Von Hanneken was also wounded in one of the barbettes. The ship was on fire forward, but the hose kept the flames under. The _Chen Yuen_ was almost in the same plight. Her commander, McGiffen, had had several narrow escapes. When at last the lacquered woodwork on her forecastle caught fire, and the men declined to go forward and put it out unless an officer went with them, he led the party. He was stooping down to move something on the forecastle, when a shot passed between his arms and legs, wounding both his wrists. At the same time he was struck down by an explosion near him. When he recovered from the shock he found himself in a terrible position. He was lying wounded on the forecastle, and full in front of him he saw the muzzle of one of the heavy barbette guns come sweeping round, rise, and then sink a little, as the gunners trained it on a Japanese ship, never noticing that he lay just below the line of fire. It was in vain to try to attract their attention. In another minute he would have been caught in the fiery blast. With a great effort he rolled himself over the edge of the forecastle, dropping on to some rubbish on the main deck, and hearing the roar of the gun as he fell. The battle now resolved itself into a close cannonade of the two ironclads by the main body of the Japanese fleet, while the rest of the ships kept up a desultory fight with the three other Chinese ships and the gunboats. The torpedo boats seem to have done nothing. Commander McGiffen says that their engines had been worn out, and their fittings shaken to pieces, by their being recklessly used as ordinary steam launches in the weeks before the battle. The torpedoes fired from the tubes of the battleships were few in number, and all missed their mark, one, at least, going harmlessly under a ship at which it was fired at a range of only fifty yards. The Japanese used no torpedoes. It is even said that, by a mistake, they had sailed without a supply of these weapons. Nor was the ram used anywhere. Once or twice a Chinese ship tried to run down a Japanese, but the swifter and handier vessels of Ito's squadron easily avoided all such attacks. The Yalu fight was from first to last an artillery battle. [=The End of the Battle=]