Too late for Port Arthur, might they not reenforce
Vladivostok and save it from a like fate? The signal to "steam
ahead" was displayed on the flagship.
Slowly and painfully, its propellers clogged by seaweed, its keels
overgrown with barnacles, the grand armada crossed the Indian Ocean
and headed northward for the China Sea. On May 27, steering for
the Korean channel, it fell into a snare which a blind man ought
to have been able to foresee. Togo's fleet had the freedom of the
seas. Where could it be, if not in that very channel? Yet on the
Russians went:
"Unmindful of the whirlwind's sway
That hushed in grim repose
Expects his evening prey."
The struggle was short and decisive--finished, it is said, in less
than one hour. While Togo's battleships, fresh and in good condition,
poured shot and shell into the wayworn strangers, his torpedo-boats,
greatly increased in number, glided almost unobservedly among the
enemy and launched their thunderbolts with fatal effect. Battleships
and cruisers went down with all on board. The Russian flagship was
disabled, and the admiral, severely wounded, was transferred
[Page 192]
to the hold of a destroyer. Without signals from their commander
the vessels of the whole fleet fought or fled or perished separately;
of 18,000 men, 1,000 escaped and 3,000 were made prisoners. What
of the other 14,000?
"Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.
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