It was easy to say, “To the guns!” but of the twelve 12-pounder guns in the lower battery only one, on the starboard side, was now serviceable, and there was no chance of using it. The torpedo-boats carefully came up from astern (according to the Japanese, this was about 4.20 P.M.), but in the light gun battery aft (behind the ward-room) there was still one uninjured 12-pounder. Maximoff, a volunteer, on whom the command of the battery had devolved after the officers had fallen, opened a hot fire, and the torpedo-boats, seeing that this strange-looking, battered vessel could still show her teeth, steamed off to wait for a more favourable opportunity. This event suggested to me the idea of noting the means we had with which to protect ourselves against torpedo attack, or, more properly, to what degree of helplessness we had arrived. There were in the lower battery about fifty men of the crew--all of various ratings. Among them, however, were two gun captains. Of the guns, only one was really serviceable, though the gun captains proposed to “repair” another by substituting for its injured parts pieces from the other ten which were quite unserviceable. There was also Maximoff’s gun in the stern light gun battery. Having finished my inspection of the lower battery I went through the upper to the forward light gun battery (not one of the turrets was fit for action), and I was struck with the picture it presented, illustrating, more clearly than I had yet seen, the action of the enemy’s projectiles. There were no fires; everything that could ignite had already been burned. The four 12-pounder guns had been torn off their mountings, and in vain I looked on them for marks of direct hits. None could be seen. The havoc had clearly been caused by the force of the explosion, and not by the impact of the shell. How was this? Neither mines nor pyroxylene were stored in the battery, so the enemy’s shells must have exploded with the force of mines. To my readers, walking about the crippled wreck of a ship like this and inspecting the damage done may appear strange, but it must be remembered that a peculiar, even extraordinary condition of affairs prevailed on board. “So fearful as not to be in the least terrible.” To every one it was perfectly clear that all was over. Neither past or future existed. We lived only in the actual moment, and were possessed with an overpowering desire to do something, no matter what. Having again gone down to the lower battery, I was proceeding to the stern light gun battery, which I wished to inspect, when I met Kursel.