Verner von Kursel, a Courlandian by birth, and a general favourite with every one in the _Suvoroff’s_ ward-room, had been in the merchant service almost since his cradle, and could speak every language in Europe, though he was equally bad at all of them. When they chaffed him about this in the ward-room he used to say quite seriously: “I think that I’m better at German than any other!”[25] He had seen and been through so much that he never lost his presence of mind, and nothing prevented him meeting his friends with a pleasant smile. And so now, nodding his head to me in the distance, he cheerily asked: “Well! How are you passing the time?” “Badly,” I answered. “Oh! that’s it, is it? They don’t seem able to hit me yet, but I see that you have been wounded.” “I was.” “Where are you off to?” “To have a look at the light guns in the stern and get some cigarettes from my cabin; I have smoked all I had.” “To your cabin?” and Kursel grinned. “I have just come from there, I’ll go with you.” Indeed, he seemed likely to be a useful companion, as he knew the most sheltered way. Having got as far as the officers’ quarters, I stopped in amazement. Where my cabin and the two adjoining ones had been was an enormous hole! Kursel laughed heartily, thoroughly enjoying his joke, but growing angry I waved my hand and quickly retraced my steps. Kursel overtook me in the battery and offered me a cigar. The fires in the lower battery had all been got under and, encouraged by this success, we determined to try our luck in the upper battery. Two firemen produced some new half-made hoses; one end of them we fastened to the water-main with wire, and the other we tied to the nozzle. Then, armed with these and using damp sacks to protect us from the flames, we leaned out through the church hatch whence, having succeeded after some little time in putting the fire out which had been burning in the dressing station we were able to go into the upper battery. All hands worked splendidly, and we soon had extinguished the fire in the part assigned to the church. Then another fire started abaft the centre 6-inch turrets--the place which had been selected, on account of its being protected, for putting the cartridge boxes of the 47-millimetre guns taken down from the bridges. Their removal had been well ordered, for no sooner had we set about extinguishing the fire which was now raging near them than they began to explode. Several of the men fell killed and wounded, and great confusion at once ensued. “It’s nothing--it will cease in a moment,” said Kursel. But explosions became more and more frequent. The new hoses were destroyed, one after the other, and then, suddenly, quite close, there was a loud crash, accompanied with the ring of tearing iron. This was not a 6-inch shell, but the “portmanteaus” again. The men became seized with panic, and, listening to nothing and nobody, rushed below.