“The officer at the wheel, and Berseneff!”[17] was shouted in my ear by a sub-lieutenant--Shishkin--whose arm I had touched, pointing to the bodies. “Berseneff first--in the head--quite dead.” The range-finder was worked. Vladimirsky shouted his orders in a clear voice, and the electricians quickly turned the handles of the indicator, transmitting the range to the turrets and light gun batteries. “We’re all right,” thought I to myself, going out of the conning tower, but the next moment the thought flashed across me: “They can’t see what is going on on board.” Leaving the tower, I looked out intently on all sides from the fore-bridge. Were not my recent thoughts, which I had not dared to put into words, realised? No! The enemy had finished turning. His twelve ships were in perfect order at close intervals, steaming parallel to us, but gradually forging ahead. No disorder was noticeable. It seemed to me that with my Zeiss glasses (the distance was a little more than 4,000 yards), I could even distinguish the mantlets of hammocks on the bridges, and groups of men. But with us? I looked round. What havoc!--Burning bridges, smouldering _débris_ on the decks,--piles of dead bodies. Signalling and judging distance stations, gun-directing positions, all were destroyed. And astern of us the _Alexander_ and _Borodino_ were also enveloped in smoke. No! it was very different to the 10th August. The enemy, steaming ahead, commenced quickly to incline to starboard, endeavouring to cross our T. We also bore to starboard, and again we had him almost on our beam. _It was now 2.5 p.m._ A man came up to report what had taken place in the after 12-inch turret. I went to look. Part of the shield over the port gun had been torn off and bent upwards, but the turret was still turning and keeping up a hot fire. The officer commanding the fire parties had had both his legs blown off and was carried below. Men fell faster and faster. Reinforcements were required everywhere to replace casualties, even at the turrets into which splinters could only penetrate through the narrow gun ports. The dead were, of course, left to lie where they had fallen, but yet there were not enough men to look after the wounded.