Meanwhile von Spee's five cruisers had been pressed south by the clever network of Japanese warships working over the vast area of the Pacific under the orders of a staff officer watching every move from his desk at Tokyo. Sir Christopher Cradock was waiting to catch the Germans. But his slow battleship _Canopus_ had not yet joined him when (November 1), with only three cruisers and one armed merchantman, he attacked them off Coronel on the coast of Chili; though they were very hard to see, being against the mountains, while his own ships were clearly outlined against a brilliant sunset. Ordering the armed merchantman away he began the fight between the armoured cruisers: _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ against _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_. The German ships were newer, faster, better armed, and the best shooting vessels of the German fleet. The first of their salvoes (volleys) to get home set the _Good Hope_ blazing fore and aft. There was a gale blowing and big seas running; so the end soon came. Cradock's last signal was for the light cruiser _Glasgow_ to save herself, as she could do no further service. But she stood by the _Monmouth_, whose own captain also ordered her away with the signal that, being too hard hit to escape himself, he would try to close the enemy so as to give the _Glasgow_ a better chance. Suddenly, like a volcano, the _Good Hope_ was rent by a shattering explosion. Then the _Monmouth_ began sinking by the head, and her guns ceased firing. No boat could live in those mountainous seas. So the _Glasgow_, now under the fire of the whole German squadron, raced away for her life. Von Spee then swept the coast; and British vessels had to take refuge in Chilean harbours. But Captain Kinnear, a merchant skipper, ran the gauntlet with a skill and courage which nothing could surpass. Off the dreaded Straits of Magellan a German cruiser chased him at twenty-one knots, his own _Ortega's_ regular full speed being only fourteen. But he called for volunteers to help the stokers, whereupon every one of the two hundred Frenchmen going home to fight at once stepped forward, stripped to the waist, and whacked her up to eighteen. Yet still the cruiser kept closing up. So Kinnear turned into Nelson's Channel, the very worst channel in the very worst straits in the world, unlit, uncharted, and full of the wildest currents swirling through pinnacle rocks and over hidden reefs. The cruiser stopped, dumbfounded. The _Ortega_ then felt her way ahead, got through without a scratch, and took her Frenchmen safe to France.