direction
of the eastern strait, thus inveigling Rojdestvensky into a pursuit in
that direction. The ships told off for this duty were to proceed to sea
at once, as the _Chin-yen_--the slowest craft of the quartette--was only
good for thirteen knots at best, and it was not desired that any ship
should be pushed to the limit of her powers until the engagement should
become general. The remainder of the protected cruiser division--
fourteen in number--were to proceed to sea with the main fleet on the
following morning, parting company when all were fairly at sea, and then
find the enemy's rear, closing in upon it and harassing it as much as
possible, acting according to circumstances, quite independently of the
main fleet, and each captain using his own initiative. As for us of the
armoured cruiser division, we were to have the honour of forming part of
the battle-line. This was sufficiently gratifying intelligence, but
that which followed was even more so: the former tactics of engaging the
enemy at extreme range, in order to preserve our precious battleships
from injury, were to be abandoned; this was the battle for which they
had been so carefully hoarded, and in it they must be made the fullest
use of, their utmost value must be exacted; in a word, they were to be
fought for all that they were worth, closing with the enemy to within
effective range, and firing slowly and deliberately, so that every shot
should tell.

There was also a general order issued, in the highest degree
illustrative of Japanese thoroughness. It was that every man throughout
the fleet was to wash himself from head to foot most carefully and
thoroughly, and to put on clean clothing, in order to reduce to a
minimum the risk of septic poisoning of wounds, also to don woollen
outer garments, so that their clothing might not be set on fire by
bursting shells.

Nor had the ships themselves been forgotten. In turn each had been
dry-docked, repaired, defects made good, down to the tightening of a
loose screw, machinery overhauled and parts replaced where thought
necessary, bottoms cleared of weed and coated afresh with anti-fouling
composition, and hulls repainted, until each ship looked as though she
had just been taken out of a glass case. And now there they all lay, in
Chin-hai harbour, with boilers chipped clean of deposit and filled with
fresh water, flues, tubes, and furnaces carefully-cleaned, new fire-bars
inserted where needed, fires