The moment Von Spee found himself under the effective fire of the battle-cruisers, he took the only course open to him. To delay the finish by sheer flight would do no good. It was his duty to inflict some reciprocal injury on his opponent. He was under the fire of at least eight if not twelve 12-inch guns, and he only had six 8-inch guns bearing on Admiral Sturdee. To do anything at all effective he had to turn broadside on. He therefore turned seven-eighths of a right angle to port, that is, to the left--his course now being almost at right angles to Admiral Sturdee’s--and six minutes afterwards, when both his ships were on a steady course, he opened fire. Three minutes after he began his turn, and therefore three minutes before he opened fire, Admiral Sturdee turned his ships to port also, but his turn was not quite so big as the enemy’s, and for about twelve minutes the range was steadily closing. The effect of these changes of course was to bring the battle-cruisers to within 11,000 or 12,000 yards of _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_. The Germans took full advantage of this opportunity, and before they had been firing five minutes they had salvo after salvo straddling the battle-cruisers. As we have seen, both in the stories of the _Koenigsberg_ and of the _Emden_, there has been no feature of any gunnery action more regularly reproduced than the rapidity with which the Germans find the range at the beginning of an action, or the regularity with which the projectiles of every broadside fall together. It was strikingly exemplified in the present instance, so much so indeed that Admiral Sturdee thought it wise to make a further turn to port, thus increasing the range, and as he says in this despatch, by the time his total turn was completed, he brought the range out again to about 13,500 yards. At this distance the 12-inch guns would have a marked advantage over the 8.2’s. But for all that the German fire continued surprisingly accurate, and many hits were made on our ships. The British Admiral held to his new course and the German ships theirs. This involved the lengthening of the range. But Von Spee doubtless preferred this to the confusion of a changing rate. He held on then till he could reach the British ships no longer. The consequence was that in twenty minutes the range had increased by a further 2,500 yards, which was far beyond the capacity of 8.2’s, and a range at which the shooting of even the 12-inch guns might be irregular. Accordingly at about 2 o’clock the British squadron began a gradual turn towards the enemy, which in about seven minutes’ time brought them on a course at right angles to their previous course, and therefore a little less than right angles to the course which the Germans were steering.