No enemy could have fought against overwhelming odds more gallantly and persistently than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly trained long-service men. Many times, even at the long ranges at which the early part of the action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon the battle cruisers. One 8.2-inch shell from the _Scharnhorst_ wrecked the _Invincible’s_ wardroom and smashed all the furniture into chips except the piano, which still retained some wires and part of the keyboard. Another shell scattered the Fleet Paymaster’s money-box and strewed the decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless. Though the _Invincible_ was the leading ship, and at one time received the concentrated fire of both the _Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_, she did not suffer a single casualty. And, while she was being peppered almost harmlessly, her huge shells, which now and then burst inboard the doomed German vessels, were setting everything on fire between decks, until the dull red glow could be seen from miles away through the gaping holes in the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell. Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued, with intervals of rest for guns and men, till 4.16, when the _Scharnhorst_ sank. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the Germans stuck to their work, there was no thought of surrender; they fought so long as a gun could be brought to bear or a round of shell remained in their depleted magazines. Every man in the _Scharnhorst_ was killed or drowned; the action was not ended when she went down and her consort _Gneisenau_, steaming through the floating bodies of the poor relics of her company, was compelled to leave them to their fate. For nearly two hours longer the _Gneisenau_ kept up the fight. The battle cruisers and the smaller _Carnarvon_ closed in upon her, and at a range of some six to seven land miles smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes past six she rolled over and sank. Her guns spoke up to the last. As she lay upon her side her end was hastened by the Germans themselves, who, feeling that she was about to go, opened to the sea one of the broadside torpedo flats. She sank with her ensign still flying. If the whole German Navy could live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern Pacific Squadron, that Service might in time develop a true Naval Soul.