"Well, I carried on for the next hour or two with the distinct idea in my mind that one of the funnels was gone, and I even recall wondering several times in the course of the next hour or two whether any damage had been caused in the engine-room, or whether the wreckage was likely to get afire, or whether the smoke would be getting in the way of the guns. Indeed, it is quite possible I tried to get some assurance on these points by voice-pipe. I don't remember precisely. At any rate, it was quite definitely fixed in my mind that that funnel was gone, so that when the next time I poked out to have a look round, I found that it was not even dented, I could hardly believe my eyes. I really am not quite sure to this day what it was that made the infernal banging which I took to be that funnel going over the side. "Everything considered, the _Leipzig_ made as gallant a fight as it is possible to conceive. Under the fire of two ships, either of which was faster and more heavily gunned than herself, knowing all the time that her sister ships--almost as completely outclassed as herself--could never be counted upon to come to her aid, and, finally, desperately short of ammunition, the way in which she carried on to the end was worthy of the traditions of any navy. Indeed, it has often occurred to me that Von Spee and his officers--from their long service on the China station--had kept themselves entirely free of the contaminating influences of Potsdam which have made the names of the High Sea and the U-boat fleet words anathema. British Naval Officers who had met those of the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ in the Orient still speak of them with kindness, and even occasionally with affection, and certainly no one could have faced defeat and death with a finer or more resolute spirit than they did at the Falklands. Perhaps, for the sake of their souls, it was fortunate that they never got nearer home than the South Atlantic. "As I have told you, it was about our third salvo which made our first hit upon the _Leipzig_, a shell of this carrying away her topmast. The latter, in falling, appears to have killed the Gunnery Lieutenant, which must inevitably have made it at least a temporary interference with the control. The Torpedo Lieutenant, whom we picked up among the survivors, took over the direction of the firing from the foretop from that time on.