Note 26 — Chapter VI

Of all the wounded members of the staff, who were below, under the armoured deck, it was only possible to “collect” two—Filipinoffsky and Leontieff. The former was in the lower fighting position, which was hermetically separated from the mess deck, and received a current of fresh air through the armoured tube of the conning tower. (All the same he had to sit by candle light, as the lamps had gone out.) The latter was at the exit hatch. The mess deck was in darkness (the electric light had gone out) and was full of suffocating smoke. Hurrying along to find the staff, we called them by name; but received no answers. The silence of the dead reigned in that smoky darkness, and it is probable that all who were in the closed compartments under the armoured deck, where the ventilators took smoke instead of air, gradually becoming suffocated, lost consciousness and died. The engines had ceased to work. The electric light had given out for want of steam; and no one came up from below. Of the 900 men composing the complement of the Suvoroff, it would not be far wrong to say that, at this time there remained alive only those few who were gathered together in the lower battery and on the windward embrasure.