about
nine o'clock
Once clear of the harbour , we parted company from the protected cruiser division , which headed away South-South-East , to get in the rear of the enemy , while we of the battle-line steered a trifle to the south of east for the battleground which Togo had selected . On the port side of the line steamed a flotilla of Japan 's fastest destroyers , told off by Togo to act as dispatch boats , in the event of the flagship 's wireless apparatus being put out of action , or her masts shot away . Once clear of the land , we soon ran into an atmosphere of haze and a rising sea which set the long line of ships rolling ponderously ; and as the vessels rolled and plunged , flinging heavy showers of spray over their weather bows , each captain stood in his chart-room , with a chart of the strait spread open on the table before him , anxiously awaiting the next news of the enemy . These charts had been , for convenience ' sake , carefully divided up into a series of numbered squares ; and about nine o'clock the expected message arrived . It ran -- `` The enemy is in two hundred and three , '' that being the number of the square on the chart occupied by the Russian fleet at that moment . No sooner was the message decoded and its purport made known than mutual congratulations were exchanged ; for even as the fall of 203 Metre Hill into the hands of our soldiers had been the prelude to the surrender of Port Arthur , so now the fact of the Russian fleet being in square 203 on the chart was accepted as an omen of another victory . The fine weather of the early morning had by this time completely deserted us ; the sky had become overcast , Tsushima 's conical summit was hidden by a great bank of heavy , louring cloud , the grey , dreary-looking sea was running in confused , turbulent , foam-flecked surges through which the big ships wallowed heavily , flinging great combers of yeasty froth from either bow , while the little torpedo craft , smothered in spray , were tossed about like corks .