"The fight between the _Carmania_ and _Cap Trafalgar_," he continued, "has well been called 'The Battle of the Haystacks,' for never before (or since, for that matter) have two ships with such towering upper works stood off and tried to batter each other to pieces with gunfire. Indeed, I well recall G----'s saying that, up to the very end, he could not conceive that either ship could sink the other, and of how--even after the _Carmania_ had been struck three or four-score times and a raging fire forward had driven him from the bridge--he kept wondering in the back of his brain what sort of a fight the duel would resolve itself into when both had exhausted their shells. Luckily, he did not have to face that problem.
"Both ships, according to G----'s account, began blazing at each other as soon as they came in range, and, as each was eager to fight it out to a finish, the distance separating them was, for a while, reduced as rapidly as possible. At something like three thousand yards, however, some sort of a rapid-fire gun burst into action on the _Trafalgar_. 'It didn't appear to be doing me much harm,' said G---- in telling of it, 'but the incessant "pom-pom" of the accursed thing got so much on my nerves that I drew off far enough to dull the edge of its infernal yapping.'
"A thing which came near to putting the _Carmania_ out of the running before she had completed the polishing off of her opponent was the shell which I have spoken of as violating the sanctity of the Captain's cabin--the one that burned everything but the Norfolk jacket. This projectile--a four-inch--though (probably owing to the small resistance offered by the light upper works) it did not explode, generated enough heat in its passage to start a fire. Beginning on G----'s personal effects, this conflagration spread to the bridge, destroying the navigating instruments and ultimately making it impossible to remain there--the latter a serious blow in itself. What made this fire especially troublesome was the difficulty, because of the cutting of the main, of bringing water to bear upon it. As it was, it was necessary to head the _Carmania_ 'down the wind' to reduce the draught fanning the flames. Nothing else would have saved her. Except for one thing, this expedient would have enabled the now thoroughly worsted (though G---- didn't know it) _Trafalgar_ to withdraw from the action, and this was that the latter was herself on fire and had to take the same course willy-nilly. From that moment on the battle was as irretrievably joined as one of those old Spanish knife-duels in which the opponents were locked together in a room to fight to a finish. Often as not, so they say, the victor in one of these fights only survived the loser by minutes or hours, and so would it have been in this instance had they not finally been able to extinguish the fire on the _Carmania_.