boom of the guns reminding one, as much as anything, of a tremendous thunderstorm, while the flash of their guns, seen through the gloom of the louring afternoon, not altogether inadequately represented the accompanying lightning.
I looked round to see if I could discover either of the silenced Russian battleships. Yes, there they were, all three of them: the Oslabia about three miles away, broad on our starboard quarter; the Suvaroff about half a mile astern of her; and the Alexander Third about a mile astern of the Suvaroff, all astern of their own line, and all being vigorously attacked by our protected cruisers. The Oslabia was low in the water and had a heavy list to port; the Suvaroff, still apparently on fire, had lost both her funnels and her foremast; and the Alexander Third, from which clouds of smoke, were still rising, also had a heavy list and was steaming ahead very slowly, although she, like her sisters in misfortune, still replied with the utmost gallantry to our fire.
But, so far as the Oslabia was concerned, her race was evidently run, for even as I watched her it became apparent that she was fast settling in the water, while with every roll her list to port became stronger, until at last I found myself holding my breath in momentary expectation to see her roll right over. The catastrophe was not long delayed. There came a moment when, having rolled heavily to port, she failed to lift again, but heeled steadily more and more until, watching her through my powerful glasses, I saw a number of objects go sliding away off her decks into the water with a heavy splash; over she went until her masts and funnels lay along on the water, her two after-turret guns spoke out defiantly for the last time; and down she went in a great swirl of foam, while the Russian destroyers closed in upon the spot to save such of her crew as might contrive to remain afloat.
I now turned my attention to the Suvaroff, and was just in time to witness a very plucky attack upon her by a squadron of our destroyers, which, notwithstanding her disabled condition, she beat off in most gallant fashion.
Next, I turned to have a look at the Alexander Third. Her crew appeared to have extinguished the fire aboard her and got her back into something like her former trim. She was now heading to rejoin the Russian line—which was re-forming after a fashion, and presently I saw her drop into third place in the line, between the Orel and the Sissoi Veliki, which latter also seemed to have extinguished her fire. Meanwhile the mist had thickened into fog, which rapidly became so dense that we presently lost sight of the enemy altogether.
Shrewdly suspecting that the Russians would seize this opportunity to effect their escape, Togo now led his battle-line round in a sweep from North-East to South-West, and then to south for a distance of some eight miles, during which we sighted and shelled the enemy’s cruiser squadron and some of his auxiliary ships heading to the south-west. At this point Togo decided to turn northward again, but before doing so he detached the six armoured cruisers—of which the Yakumo was one—under Admiral Kamimura, with orders to pursue and destroy the ships of which we had just lost sight.
This was about four o’clock in the afternoon. By this time the wind had dwindled away to a mere nothing, and the sea had so far gone down that our torpedo craft could keep pace with the larger craft without being swept by seas from stem to stern; still, the weather continued to be very dismal and dreary, the sky still lowering and overcast, not a solitary gleam of sunshine, and the fog gathering so thickly that it was difficult to see anything beyond a two-mile radius. The heavy gun-firing had by this time died down to nothing; but a pretty lively cannonade of lighter weapons down in the south-western quarter told us that the engagement between our cruisers and those of the enemy was still proceeding briskly although nothing could be seen. Accordingly, the Idzumo led her five armoured sisters in that direction, at a speed of fifteen knots.
Suddenly, as we pushed along, guided on our course by the sounds of the firing, the thunder of heavy guns, easily distinguishable from the sharper report of the lighter weapons, burst forth ahead, to our amazement, for we fully believed that the whole of the enemy’s battleships had fled northward. Clearly, however, we were mistaken in so believing, and Kamimura at once recognised that capricious fortune was unexpectedly holding out to him the opportunity to wipe off some of the utterly undeserved opprobrium that had attached to him earlier in the war, because of his failure to bring the Vladivostock squadron to book, and which his later success had by no means effaced; accordingly, he signalled the squadron to increase speed to eighteen knots, which was supposed to be the maximum attainable by the Asama and ourselves, although the others were capable of an extra knot. This inferiority of speed on our part had always been rather a sore point with me, and I had had many a talk with Carmichael, the Yakumo’s Engineer Commander, about it, who had felt the reproach as keenly as I did, and had assured me that if ever the worse came to the worst, he would undertake to get the extra knot out of the ship, although it would be at the peril of what he elegantly termed “a general bust-up in the engine-room.” So now I called to him down the voice-tube, begging him to speed her up as far as he dared; and a few minutes later I noticed that we were gaining upon the Iwate, our next ahead, while the Asama, our second astern, was also stoking up. Thereupon I signalled the flagship that we had speed in hand, if required, and the order was at once given to increase speed by half a knot.
It was not very long afterward that we had ocular demonstration of the value that extra spurt of speed might prove to be; for while we were still plugging along in the direction of the firing, we suddenly sighted two craft coming slowly in our direction. They proved to be the Kasagi escorted by the Chitose, making for the Japanese coast, the former being holed below the waterline and making so much water that it was doubtful whether it would be possible to save her. She signalled that matters were going badly with the protected cruisers, eleven of them being then hotly engaged by twelve of the enemy, one of which was a second-class battleship, while three others were battleships of the third class! Admiral Dewa, who was on board, concluded his communication by urging us to hasten to the rescue.
The steadily increasing distinctness with which the sound of the firing reached us, proved that we were rapidly overhauling the contending squadrons, and some twenty minutes later we sighted the rearmost ships on both sides, blazing away at each other “hammer and tongs.” Our own cruisers were to the southward of the Russian line, therefore Kamimura led his force to the northward of the enemy, thus placing the latter between two fires, at the same time signalling us to concentrate our fire upon the four Russian battleships, which we did with a vengeance, and within five minutes we were all enveloped in a roaring tempest of flame, smoke, and bursting shells.
But the precision of our fire was infinitely superior to that of the Russians. They fired at least three times as rapidly as we did, but whereas every one of our shells reached its mark, the bulk of theirs flew wide. They were rapidly growing demoralised, and when the fight had been in progress some twenty minutes, their line suddenly broke up into little groups of twos and threes and made off to the northward at top speed, those of us whose speed permitted, following them and keeping up a brisk fire with our forward guns.
Suddenly, as we pursued, two ships were sighted ahead, evidently in difficulties, and a few minutes later we identified them as the Russian battleship Suvaroff and the repair ship Kamschatka. Immediately, Kamimura signalled, ordering their destruction. Then, while we were in the very act of training our guns upon them, another battleship was sighted in the distance. She, too, was evidently in a parlous state, so much so, indeed, that we scarcely had time to identify her as the Alexander Third when she capsized and sank!
Then we opened fire vigorously upon the other two ships, while our destroyers closed in upon the Suvaroff, now listing so heavily that she was almost on her beam-ends. But although she was in such a sorry plight her crew displayed the utmost gallantry, defending themselves from the torpedo craft with the only gun which they could bring to bear. It was a hopeless fight, however; our boats dashed in, time after time, discharging torpedoes at her, and at length two of the missiles got home, one under her stern, and the other in the wake of her engine-room, blowing a great hole in her side. This last finished her; the water poured into her in torrents, and a few minutes later she rolled right over and disappeared. The Kamschatka followed a few minutes later.
Meanwhile, the ships which we had been pursuing had disappeared in the fog, heading northward, in which direction we knew our battleships had preceded them. Therefore, since the hour had now arrived when, according to arrangements, our torpedo flotillas were to take up the game, Kamimura signalled us to reduce speed to ten knots and to shape a course for our appointed rendezvous near Matsushima
