Practically everything above the level of the armour had been either completely destroyed, or so crumpled and twisted, as to be almost unrecognisable. We had not one single boat left, and the _Hercules_ had to lend us two of theirs. The foremost funnel had fallen during the action, and the next one was so damaged that it fell overboard that same night. The fo’c’stle mess-decks, the sick-bay, the whole of the lower deck, the ward-room, and nearly all the upper cabins were now simply great blackened spaces, filled with tangled and crumpled iron bulkheads, deck plates and beams, from which every vestige of paint had been burnt off. Our galleys had been completely destroyed, and it was impossible to do any cooking, so the _Hercules_ cooked food for us and sent it on board till we could rig up temporary fittings. Of Dr. Clegg and the poor little Padré, or of their stretcher party, not a trace remained. We did find a foot in the wreckage of the after magazine cooling-room, but we could not tell to whom it belonged, and it was buried at sea by the _Hercules_ with the remains of Barton, the Forlorn Hope, and what we thought were thirty-two bodies. Twenty-four men were missing besides these, and we sent forty-one wounded on board the _Hercules_ to be treated there. To think that—— No! It’s no use thinking. Strangely enough the Captain’s quarters had not been damaged, nor had the gun-room and the gun-room flat; and when I first went below from that scene of desolation above to where the midshipmen’s chests stood in four rows, their hammocks slung above them, and their blankets hanging down untidily, just as they had been left when ’General Quarters’ had sounded, and the gun-room clock was still ticking cheerfully, I almost imagined that I _had_ woke from some horrible dream. I am thankful to say that the mids. were all sent on board the _Hercules_ to get them away from the ship, and also to let the ward-room officers come down into the gun-room. Their chests were sent after them the following day, and it was the saddest thing in the world to see the four belonging to Barton, the ’Angel,’ the Assistant Paymaster, and Marchant standing alone by themselves. We could not stand the sight of them, and Mr. Perkins had them taken away somewhere. The only bright spot in those dreary days was that Ginger and I told each other that we were silly fools, and made up our stupid quarrel. His mids., too, had behaved so jolly well to mine that there was every chance of them also making friends. The fact that _La Buena Presidente_ had escaped did not even give me any pleasure, for Gerald’s sake, because the Skipper was determined to sink her as soon as he could steam to San Fernando, off which she had anchored, and whatever she did, and however she damaged us above the water-line, she could not, in the narrow Laguna, escape our torpedoes.