'Thus they can easily beat us without losing a single big ship, and all damage to ships or guns could be quickly made good in port, after replacing the disabled guns and supplementing the crew. At sunset the big ships would cease fighting, to rest, while two, three, or four destroyer divisions would attack or menace us all night, so that the crews would get no sleep, and we should be forced to waste ammunition till morning. The speed of our fleet would in all probability diminish, as the battered funnels (one of the principal destructions on August 10) increase the expenditure of coal and prevent proper pressure being maintained. If steaming thirteen knots, the voyage to Vladivostock takes four days: it will take longer at less speed--_i.e._, at eight knots the passage would take six days. On the morning of the second day the enemy's battleships, having repaired and rested, would again, whenever it suited them, fall on our tired fleet, and so on repeat their tactics till the island of Tsu-shima, where a fresh division of four armoured cruisers and destroyers would be waiting for us; and there, close to their shores, their fortresses and ports, the enemy would try and bring on a decisive action. We could not ram, as this operation requires superior speed. Indeed, it would be a miracle if we got to Vladivostock, and, having lost the remainder of our Pacific Ocean Fleet, we would be giving the enemy a fresh victory, and, what is more important, depriving the Baltic Fleet of the possibility of destroying them, since it is weaker than the enemy, both in numbers of ships and of guns, in its many types of vessels, in speed, and in the fact that it will have to force its way through to a base--Vladivostock--without which no fleet can operate.' CHAPTER XXXVI A COUNCIL MEETING