When Lieutenant Meade got back to the conning-tower to make his report,
the two fleets had passed each other in a parallel course. The enemy's
shells had swept the decks of the _Connecticut_ with the force of a
hurricane. The gunners from the port side had already been called on to
fill up the gaps in the turrets on the starboard side. By this time dead
bodies were removed only where they were in the way, and even the
wounded were left to lie where they had fallen.

When large pieces of wood from the burning boats began to be thrown on
deck by the bursting shells, a fresh danger was created, and the attempt
was made to toss them overboard with the aid of the cranes. But this
succeeded only on the port side. The starboard crane was smashed to bits
by a Japanese explosive shell just as it was raising a launch, the same
shot carrying off the third funnel just behind it. When Togo's last ship
had left the _Connecticut_ behind, only one funnel full of gaping holes
and half of the mainmast were left standing on the deck of the admiral's
flag-ship, which presented a wild chaos of bent and broken ironwork.
Through the ruins of the deck structures rose the flames and thick smoke
from the boilers.

The Japanese ships seemed to be invulnerable in their vital parts. It is
true that the _Satsuma_ had lost a funnel, and that both masts of the
_Kashima_ were broken off, but except for a few holes above the
armor-belt and one or two guns that had been put out of action and the
barrels of which pointed helplessly into the air, the enemy showed
little sign of damage. Those first eleven minutes, during which the
enemy had had things all to himself, had given him an advantage which no
amount of bravery or determined energy could counteract. In addition to
this, many of the American telescope-sights began to get out of order,
as they bent under the blows of the enemy's shells against the turrets.
Thus the aim of the Americans, which owing to the heavy seas and to the
smoke from the Japanese guns blown into their eyes by the wind was poor
enough as it was, became more uncertain still. As the enemy passed,
several torpedoes had been cleared by the Americans, but the shining
metal-fish could not keep their course against the oncoming waves, and
Admiral Perry was forced to notify his ships by wireless to desist from
further attempts to use them, in order that his own ships might not be
endangered by them.

The enemy, on the contrary, used h