ke out aboard some of them, and so
closely were we engaged that we could occasionally hear the cries of the
wounded that arose as our shot swept their decks. The fight, which was
a very hot one, lasted some twenty minutes, by which time the Russians
had managed to get back round the point and under the cover of the
batteries. We followed them to the very mouth of the harbour, fighting
every inch of the way, but, at length, with heavy shells falling all
round us, in some cases dropping so close that our decks were drenched
with spray, it became imperative for us to be off, and we accordingly
ported our helms and made off, followed by salvos of shot, big and
small, until we were out of range.

Then we slowed down our engines and proceeded to take stock of our
injuries.

So far as the _Kasanumi_ was concerned, we had got off pretty lightly,
although there was a period of about three minutes when we were hotly
engaged by two Russian destroyers at the same time. Our decks were
rather severely scored by flying fragments of shells, we had three
shot-holes in our hull, we had one man killed and two wounded, one of
them being our chief engineer, who, although severely wounded by a
fragment of a shell which burst in the engine-room, gallantly stuck to
his post until the fight was over, when he was able to turn the engines
over to his second. The _Akatsuki_ had received the severest
punishment, one of her steam pipes being severed, and four of her
engine-room hands scalded to death. In all, we lost in this fight seven
killed and eight wounded; but none of the boats was very seriously
damaged.

Meanwhile, our 2nd Division, consisting of the _Akebono_ and _Sazanami_,
had vanished, without leaving a sign of their whereabouts. It was now
daylight, and the weather tolerably clear, yet, although Hiraoka and I
swept the whole surface of the sea with our glasses, we entirely failed
to pick them up. The _Asashio_ and _Akatsuki_ were within hail, both of
them engaged, like ourselves, in temporarily patching up the holes in
their thin steel sides, through which the water was pouring in whenever
we rolled extra heavily; and I hailed them both, inquiring whether
either of them had seen anything of the missing craft. An affirmative
reply came from my friend Ito, aboard the _Akatsuki_, who informed me
that shortly after the fight began, on the other side of the promontory,
he had momentarily caught sight of them both, steaming hot-foo