I directed my retreat towards the dockyards, with a view to getting
round to the south part of the town, as far as possible from the
quarter by which the Japanese were entering it. The idea of a general
massacre never entered my mind, and I only thought of getting back to
my inn, there to stay until things quieted down. My prevailing feeling
was one of satisfaction that I should not after all have to face a
long residence in a beleaguered town. I therefore paid little
attention at first to the fact that people were flying on every hand,
and I did not suppose that there could be any good reason for flight,
beyond the desirability of getting out of the way of the conquering
troops until the ardour of victory had cooled down. I was not long to
be left undeceived. A deadly work of vengeance and slaughter had
commenced Down the panic-crowded streets, louder and louder as I
advanced, came ringing the volleys of the rifle-fire, the shouts of
the infuriated soldiers, and the death-shrieks of their victims. I
knew that all armed resistance had been broken, and as these sounds of
terror increased, an idea of what might be imminent crossed my mind. I
recollected what so often follows the fall of a place carried by
storm; I remembered the atrocities committed on the Japanese
prisoners; and I remembered, too, the general character of all
Oriental soldiers. I paused to consider my situation. I had passed
round by the water-side until outside the dock basin, and then turned
into the streets, striking across in the direction of the inn, with
the route from which to the East Port I was well enough acquainted.
There was a rush and hurry of fugitives all around me, and now for the
first time I saw the Japanese soldiers in pursuit, pressing on the
fleeing throng, and using rifle and bayonet furiously on all and
sundry, stabbing and hacking fiendishly at those who fell. I was
knocked down in the rush and trampled upon, and it was some time
before I could rise. A Japanese soldier was near me as I staggered to
my feet, and took aim at me with his rifle. The barrel was within a
foot of me, and I struck it aside just in time to escape getting a
bullet through my body. I had no weapon but those of nature, but in
their use I was, like most of the Anglo-Saxon breed, something of an
artist, and before the Jap could recover his piece I gave him a good,
straight, British right-hander between the eyes, which sent him down
like a nine-pin. In all human probability it was the first sample of
the article that had ever come under his notice; he was clearly unused
to the method of attack, and lay quite flat as if to think it over,
whilst I retreated as fast as my legs could carry me. I resolved to
hold on for the inn, thinking that if I succeeded in reaching it, I
should be comparatively safe, as perhaps the outbreak of fury might
confine itself to the streets. I knew, too, that I had not much
farther to go. I made little progress, nevertheless, being frequently
turned out of the road by the necessity of avoiding the soldiers, who
were spreading fast across the town, shooting down all whom they
encountered. One began to stumble over corpses in nearly every street,
and the risk of encountering parties of the murderers increased, every
minute. Again and again I came into the midst of the work of butchery,
and every now and then ran the gauntlet of a flight of bullets fired
down the narrow avenues. At length I lost my way completely, and
wandered about through the pandemonium around, thinking that each
minute would be my last. At length, in emerging from a dark lane
leading up an ascent, I came upon a sheet of water. I immediately
recognized it as a large shallow fresh-water lake in the rear of the
dock basin, and it thus appeared that I had strayed back nearly to the
point where I had re-entered the town on descending from White
Boulders.
A frightful scene was before me. I have said that the land by which I
had come out on the lake inclined steeply upwards, and the water was
about fifteen feet below me when I arrived in sight of it. It was
surrounded by crowds of Japanese soldiers, who had driven large
numbers of the fugitives into the water, and were firing on them from
every side, and driving back with the bayonet those who attempted to
struggle out. The dead floated on the water, which was reddened with
blood. The soldiers, yelling and laughing with vengeful glee, seemed
to gloat over the agonies of their victims. It was fearful to see
those gory forms struggling in the agitated water, those who still
lived endeavouring to extricate themselves from the mass of corpses,
falling fast, but often rising again with their last energies,
streaming with water and blood, and uttering piteous cries and appeals
for mercy, which were mocked by the fiends around them. Many women
were amongst them; one I noticed carrying a little child, which,
struggling forward, she held up to the soldiers as if in appeal. As
she reached the bank, one of the wretches struck her through with his
bayonet, and with a second stroke as she fell transfixed the child,
which might have been two years old, and held its little body aloft.
The woman rose and made a wild effort to regain the child, but
evidently exhausted and dying, fell back again into the water. Her
body--and in fact it was done with everybody that came within
reach--was hacked in pieces. Fresh batches of victims were being
driven in, until there threatened soon to be no room in the water for
any more. I could bear the spectacle no longer, but turned and fled
from the ghastly spot.
I now knew my whereabouts, and once more set out for the inn, along
the line from which I had strayed. Heaps of dead and spectacles of
murder were continually presenting themselves. In one place I saw some
ten or twelve soldiers with a number of unfortunates whom they had
tied back to back in a batch. With volley after volley they despatched
them, and proceeded to mutilate their bodies in the usual horrible
fashion. Nobody was spared, man, woman, or child, that I could see.
The Chinese appeared to offer no resistance. Many of them prostrated
themselves on the ground before the butchers with abject submission,
and were shot or stabbed in that posture.
I was now to have a close shave. I came suddenly and unawares upon a
party engaged in slaughtering some shrieking wretches--women and
children amongst them--and being perceived was shot at by one of the
soldiers. I rapidly retreated, but he detached himself in pursuit. I
entered a house; he followed, but I had the start of him, and for a
while evaded him. I got into what looked like a kitchen or scullery,
and amongst some other utensils I came upon a curiously shaped
hatchet, very heavy and sharp. I waited for about a quarter of an
hour, and then, judging that the Jap must have left when unable to
find me, I prepared to sally forth again, as it was rather more
dangerous to be in the houses than in the streets, the soldiers
entering and pillaging them one by one, and of course slaughtering
anybody they found within. No sooner, however, had I got to the front,
than I unexpectedly encountered the very man who had driven me in,
retiring laden with booty. He dropped his plunder at once upon seeing
me, and handled his bayonet to run me through. We were in a little low
room, with a door in a corner opening on the street. He made a furious
thrust at me; by a quick movement I evaded it. The steel grazed my
left side, and crashed through the wall behind me, to which I was
pinned by the clothes, and as he tried to withdraw his weapon, I had a
fair stroke at him in return. The axe was very sharp; rage and
despair seemed to have doubled my strength, and I split his skull
half-way down to the jaw. Brains and blood were scattered over me, as
he sank dead at my feet.
I felt no inclination to stay any longer, and was about to take my
departure, when it struck me that I might as well arm myself with my
defunct antagonist's rifle and cartridge-pouch. This led immediately
to a better idea. The Jap was a man of nearly my own stature; why not
put on his clothes? It was fast darkening, and aided in the deception
by the obscurity, my chance of escape would be greatly increased,
though I began to have an uneasy feeling that it would be a miracle if
I escaped destruction anyhow. I immediately acted on the inspiration.
The soldier, I have said, was nearly of my own height (5 ft. 6 in.),
but I was a good deal broader across the shoulders, and I made an
extensive split up the back of his tunic in struggling into it. That,
however, was no great matter, and I was soon equipped in all his outer
casement, except his cap, which had been bisected along with his head.
There was a little keen dagger in his belt, and with it I cut off my
moustache as close as I could, as the Japanese seldom have much hair
on their faces. Then, not forgetting his rifle, a beautiful
Lee-Metford, I sallied forth, carrying my discarded clothes over my
arm, a circumstance not at all likely to attract attention, as they
were all loading themselves with booty.
I was undecided enough how to proceed. I might pass out into the open
country north of the town, but if I did so I should probably either
die of starvation or get killed as a Japanese straggler. I began to
think my best course would be to return to the port, and take my
chance of getting away in some small vessel. First of all, however, I
resolved to complete my intention of seeing what was going on at the
inn, to which I was now quite close. I kept boldly on, and my disguise
answered admirably, not one of the soldiers seeming to suspect that I
was anything but a comrade. Now and then I would be greeted by wild
cries in their high, shrill voices, or one, waving his rifle, would
shout something as he passed. I returned the greetings in dumb show,
and hurried on. I do not know how it would have fared with me in broad
daylight; probably not nearly so well; but it was now nearly dark.
Most of the soldiers had provided themselves, to light the work of
slaughter and pillage, with one of those coloured lanterns which are
to be found in such profusion in Chinese towns, and their demoniac
aspect was greatly heightened by the illuminations they carried as
they flitted to and fro. The butchery was proceeding without the
least sign of abatement; shots, shouts, shrieks, and groans resounded
on every side; the streets presented a fearful spectacle; the ground
was saturated with blood, and everywhere strewn with horribly
mutilated corpses; some of the narrower avenues were positively choked
with carnage. The dead were mostly the townspeople; their valiant
defenders seemed to have been able to make themselves scarce; where
they all got to is a mystery to me; perhaps owing to the fact that
they got rid of their uniforms early in the proceedings in order not
to be identified as combatants, a dodge that must have served them
very little, as the conquerors killed everyone they came across.
At length I reached Sen's house, only to find that the destroyer had
been there. The place was in darkness; I took down the lantern from
over the outer gate, with the name of the inn and its proprietor's
written on it in the Chinese character, lit it, and began an
inspection. The first thing I saw was the corpse of my landlord
himself, lying in the covered court. His head was almost severed, and
he had been disembowelled. Most of the lower storey rooms had doors
opening into this court; across the threshold of one lay the corpse of
a female servant, mutilated in an unspeakable manner. The household
establishment consisted in all of some ten or twelve persons, and
eight of them I found lying murdered in different parts of the
premises. There was no sign of living presence anywhere. The place had
been thoroughly ransacked, and everything worth having carried off. My
blood boiled as I surveyed the scene of desolation and massacre, where
lately I had witnessed happiness and cheerful industry, and I felt
that I could willingly have died myself on the spot to obtain
vengeance on the murderers.
In one of the upper rooms there was a bamboo ladder and trap leading
on the roof, which was flat, and it occurred to me to ascend and look
round. It was quite dark, and there was little to be seen beyond the
limits of the street. Distant illuminations marked the positions of
the forts on the surrounding heights. The seaward ones were still in
possession of the Chinese. They fell easily on the following day, and
had been practically abandoned. I noticed that the sounds of violence
in the town were rapidly decreasing. As I walked slowly round, the dim
light of my lantern fell on two figures skulking in the shadow. They
retreated as I advanced, until they could back no further, and then
one of them fell on his knees before me, bowing his forehead on the
roof with abject cries. I held the lantern towards him, and to my
astonishment recognized Chung. He evidently did not know me, and no
wonder, considering the manner in which I had rigged myself out. He
seemed half out of his wits with fear, and I had some difficulty in
forcing the fact of my identity upon his conviction. Then his delight
was as great as his previous terror. His companion was a stranger to
him--a man of exceedingly gentlemanly and prepossessing appearance,
and clearly a person of condition, being, in fact, as I afterwards
found, a mandarin. His own residence had been sacked and his family
murdered. He and a brother had escaped into the street, were pursued,
and his relative shot in running away. Though with his left arm broken
by a bullet, he had run into the inn. When the soldiers entered it he
and Chung got on to the roof, where none of the Japanese thought of
looking for victims. His broken arm was causing him considerable
suffering, and having acquired during my knock-about life some rude
knowledge of surgery, I put the fracture together, and made a sling
with my neck-tie.
I explained my situation to Chung as well as I was able; he translated
to his countryman, who knew no English, and we held a council as to
future proceedings. The work of slaughter had apparently been
suspended; either the soldiers were tired of it or had been recalled.
The Japanese forces exceeded 20,000, and of these I do not think that
more than one half, perhaps not one third, were engaged in this first
evening's work, which was only the opening scene of the massacre.
Masses of the troops had been placed to occupy the forts, and
otherwise secure the conquest. We thought it likely, as indeed was the
case, that they would all withdraw to the camps outside as the night
advanced, and we resolved to attempt to gain the water-side, and seek
a last chance of escape, under cover of darkness. We searched the
place for food, but all we could find was a little bread, and a few
prepared sweetmeat cakes.
An awful stillness, broken at times by ominous sounds, came over the
town. Lights flitted at times through its dark labyrinths, by whom
borne it was impossible to perceive. The presence of death, in its
most fearful shapes, seemed palpable to the senses, and we, crouching
in the gloom on the roof, to which as the safest place we had
returned, had before our mental vision the mutilated bodies in the
rooms close below us, with the ghastly probability, almost the
certainty, that another hour or two would join us in their horrid
fate. To myself, the reckless, wasted past presented itself, in that
situation of appalling terrors, in all its enormity. There was I,
after throwing away the high advantages of fortune and prosperity, a
ruined and degraded man, about to meet an appropriate ending to such
a career by a bloody death at the hands of some brutal soldier, in an
unknown land, at the ends of the earth, where scarcely a human being
knew a word of my native tongue. If these pages should be read by any
young man embarking without a thought of the future, in the flush of
high spirits and inexperience, upon courses similar to mine, I hope he
will take warning, and stop in time.
It was, I should judge, about ten o'clock when at last we descended to
the street. There had been no firing for about two hours. The lantern
was re-lit, and Chung, who knew the way best, took it and went ahead.
I still wore the soldier's dress; if met and challenged, I proposed to
make it appear, as best I could, that I was making the Chinamen
conduct me to one of the camps, or if I failed in this to sell my life
dearly with the rifle.
Our path lay right across the town, and the dead lay thickly in nearly
every street in the quarters we traversed, where, of every age, sex,
and condition, they had been promiscuously butchered by the hundred.
Here and there the miserable survivors--survivors only for the
present--were searching, with low wailings and lamentations, for those
they had lost, with the aid of their coloured lanterns, which gave a
look of indescribable ghastliness to the mutilated forms they bent
over to examine. To my last day I shall remember, with unfading
horror, the aspect of those remnants of mortality, in all the
hideousness stamped upon them by the unnamable atrocities practised
during that diabolical orgy of murder and mutilation, rape, lust, and
rapine. This is war! Away, in the splendid pavilion of the vanquished,
the conquering marshal, surrounded by his generals and officers, was
installed in triumph, secure of his country's applause and his
emperor's favour; but here, amid these desolated homes, these
mutilated heaps of death, was the night side, the shadow, of their
glory. And this was but the first day of _four_! It must be admitted
that the Chinese drew it upon themselves, that everywhere else the
Japanese behaved with admirable clemency and moderation; but after
making every allowance, their conduct in this instance, and
particularly that of the high commanding chiefs in never seeking to
put a stop to the devilish excesses perpetrated before their eyes on
unoffending non-combatants, is richly deserving of everlasting infamy.
Many of the poor wretches thus cowering about ran away upon
perceiving, as they thought, an armed Japanese soldier, but in one
instance I had reason to be thankful that I was not alone. A
middle-aged man and two younger ones were carrying away, in one of the
streets we traversed, the half-naked body of a woman, which had been
split open from the abdomen to the chest. The elder man glared upon
me, in the dim light, with the expression of a tiger, and drawing a
long curved knife from his breast, and pointing at me, shouted
something to his companions, who perhaps were his sons. Chung at once
interposed, and talked with them rapidly for a few moments, and
naturally his explanation sufficed and we proceeded. I asked Chung
what the man had said:--"There is one of the Japanese devils; let us
rip him up."
But it would only be needlessly harrowing to dwell on the sights of
horror we encountered at every turn. We pressed on, rapidly yet
cautiously, our feet dabbling in blood wherever we trod. As we
proceeded down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds
as of voices shouting and singing. The avenue we were in took a turn
about fifteen yards in advance of us, and as we hesitated and finally
stopped, there appeared round it a body of men in whom we at once
recognized the Japanese soldiers. There was a low but wide doorway on
our right, and into it we at once slipped with no trifling celerity.
It was intensely dark and offered a good concealment. We could not
afford to extinguish our lantern, and I placed it behind an angle of
the inner wall where it was impossible that its glimmer could be seen
from the street. Crouching in the deep shadow, we anxiously awaited
the passing of the soldiers, whose voices we heard momentarily
approaching, shouting at their full pitch a discordant song,
accompanied by a loud ringing sound which at first I mistook for that
of some instrument. They were soon abreast of us, some twenty or
thirty in number. I scarcely breathed as the ferocious band went
trooping past. Their appearance was ghastly and terrible beyond
conception. They were literally reeking from the shambles of inhuman
butchery; their clothes and weapons were smeared and clotted with
blood; some held human heads aloft on their bayonets; the lanterns
which most of them carried, and swung to and fro as they marched,
threw on their repulsive figures and savage Oriental faces, their
white teeth, oblique eyes, and sallow countenances, a weird, wavering
light, appropriate to their infernal aspect; they looked more like
demons than like men. The foremost, who appeared to be dismounted
dragoons, were clashing their sabres together in a kind of
accompaniment to the yelling chant in which they all joined. On they
went, trampling the dead with whom their bestial ferocity had strewn
the devoted town, the sound of their high shrill voices and the ring
of the clashing steel being audible for some time after they had
passed out of sight. At length it died away and all was still again,
so silent that I seemed to hear the quick and heavy throbbing of my
heart.
After waiting two or three minutes I told Chung to take the lantern so
that we might set out again. He did so, but as he was about to step
from the doorway he tripped over some object concealed by the darkness
and fell: it was a dead body. I examined it by the lantern-light.
There were several deep bayonet wounds and a terrific sabre-slash
across the face which had completely destroyed the left eye. The
abdomen was abominably mutilated. A knife was clenched in the right
hand of the victim, showing that he had not died without an effort to
defend himself. I swung the lantern about the recess, and perceived
further back three or four steps, ascending to a door slightly open.
These steps were covered with blood which seemed to flow from behind
the door. I pushed it open, and entered the place to which it gave
access. It seemed to be a kind of public office--a wide, low, bare
apartment, divided on one side by a massive wooden counter, surmounted
by a partition pierced at intervals with pigeon-holes, as if for
communication between persons on opposite sides of the division. It
may have been a bank or money-changer's office. It is not, however, on
account of the place itself, but of its contents, that I describe it.
The floor was covered with the corpses of men, women, and children,
mingled indiscriminately together, fugitives who had there taken
refuge and been relentlessly butchered. The bodies had been
decapitated, and the bloody heads stuck up on a long row of spikes
which surmounted the wooden partition over the counter. Both Chung and
the mandarin uttered a cry of terror as we caught sight of those
distorted countenances, grinning upon us with the livid stare of
violent death through the dim medium of the coloured lamplight. My
blood seemed to freeze as my eyes encountered that ghastly gaze of the
dead, to which the upright position of the heads gave a sort of
semblance or mockery of life. An infant a few months old was pinned to
the counter below by a sharp piece of iron run through its little
body. The floor was two or three inches deep in thickening blood and
the entrails of the mutilated bodies. The arms and legs as well as
heads had been hacked off some of them and flung about the place.
Altogether a more hideous and revolting spectacle than this chamber of
horrors can never have been presented to mortal gaze. Such a scene,
and the sickening smell of blood, drove us out again almost
immediately. At that moment another party of the Japanese passed our
hiding-place. An infantry soldier in advance carried a large uncovered
flambeau, which threw a broad, red, steady glare over all surrounding
objects. I at once saw that these were all officers, excepting two or
three; smart, well-got-up, gentlemanly-looking little men in the
extreme; returning, perhaps, from calling off the last of their bloody
war-dogs, or making sure that all resistance had ceased. They were
laughing and chatting gaily, as if the massacre were rather a pleasant
affair than otherwise. When they had gone by, we issued into the
street, but had proceeded only a few paces when we saw a man carrying
a lantern appear round the abrupt bend before mentioned. He looked
like another Japanese hurrying after his companions who had just
passed. We returned with all haste to the doorway; and as we judged
that he had probably seen us, we re-entered the inner slaughter-house
and closed the door. We were right in thinking we had been seen, and
in about a minute we heard steps outside the door, which was presently
thrust violently open and the soldier entered, a low, sinister figure,
holding a drawn sword in what seemed to me a curiously white hand. He
peered into the obscurity, perceived me, and doubtless taking me, in
the uncertain light, for a Japanese, from the clothes I wore, lowered
his weapon and addressed me in a harsh authoritative tone. The sound
of the language was singularly like that of Italian. He pointed to the
Chinamen, probably asking what they were. I took advantage of his
unguarded pause to plunge my bayonet in his body, with a thrust so
rapid that he had not time to make the least movement to avoid it. He
fell at once where he stood, but attempted to rise again, when I gave
him another prick which settled his business. He fell back heavily
against the counter with a groan. One of the heads above was shaken
off its spike by the concussion and struck him on the shoulder as he
lay. His eyes, opening and shutting convulsively, seemed to gaze upon
the ghastly object. He groaned again, and in a few moments was dead. I
bent over him with the lantern, and soon perceived from the richness
of his uniform and accoutrements, as well as from the look of caste
about the head and face, that I had killed an officer of high rank. He
wore white gloves, which accounted for the odd look of his hands when
he appeared on the threshold. I felt sorry when I realized that he was
a man of consequence and authority, for had I perceived it at first I
would certainly have endeavoured to obtain his protection for myself
and my companions; but Chung had slunk behind me with the lantern, the
officer's own was a very dim one, so that in the obscurity I could
only make out that he was a Japanese soldier, and expecting to be
attacked judged it prudent to get my blow in first. Having given him
what his countrymen called the "happy despatch," he could be of no
further use to us. Before again leaving the place, I took possession
of his sword, which was a very beautiful and valuable weapon, the hilt
ornamented by a quantity of massive and richly-chased gold, and a
great number of tiny diamonds and rubies,--infinitesimal gems, set in
pretty, quaint devices, with a larger stone here and there. This
trophy I brought away with me from Port Arthur, but when in Liverpool
at the beginning of the year of grace 1896, the pressure of financial
exigency compelled me to entrust it to the temporary care of the
universal uncle of mankind, who said it was worth £600 or £700. I
could by no means persuade him to believe my account of how it came
into my possession. He laughed and said I was making fun of him. His
obstinate incredulity was amusing. "You're a sailor, sir, I see," he
said, "and we know what sailors' yarns are in this town. I've heard a
few of them."
Again stealing outside, we resumed our perilous way through this city
of dreadful night. We lost no time in turning out of the street where
had occurred the incidents just described, and which seemed in the
track of stragglers moving towards the adjacent Golden Hill fort. We
left it by a very narrow lane abutting at right angles. The other end
of this was blocked by a heap of corpses which we had to climb over.
As I was doing so a hideous groan struck my ear, and the body under my
foot seemed to heave. I started back, and simultaneously the apparent
corpse rose up, a tall, blood-besmeared figure, which stared horribly
upon me for a moment and then, with another loud and horrid groan,
fell prone on his back, his arms widely extended. I lost no time in
scrambling past him after my companions, who had run away, and small
blame to them, for it was like the rising of a corpse suddenly endowed
with volition. Both were by this time in what has been forcibly and
picturesquely described as a "blue funk"; they trembled ceaselessly;
their teeth chattered, and their eyes roved here and there with a
wild, hunted look; every now and then they stopped convulsively,
imagining that they saw or heard something to indicate the proximity
of the ferocious murderers. As for myself, if my outward man were less
open to reproach, my inward condition was nothing much to boast of,
and truly the horrors which continually presented themselves, joined
to the oppressive midnight shadow and stillness which hung over the
place of doom, would have damaged the nerve of a football referee.
We reached the basin through a series of open brick-works, used as
timber stores, on its north side. Everything was darkness and
desertion. The moon was rising far beyond the West Port away in our
front, but it was in the last quarter and afforded little light. There
were very few stars visible. The night had turned piercingly cold, but
so great was my mental anxiety and excitement that I seemed unaffected
in body by the severity of the weather. With the lantern we began to
search about for a boat, at first without success. In a square-shaped
inlet or creek a little above the dockyard we presently came upon
another horrifying spectacle. A junk lay stranded in the shallows. It
was literally full of dead bodies, and many lay on the adjacent shore.
The unfortunates had evidently been pursued down to where the junk
lay, and slaughtered before they could get it off. It struck me that
what we were looking for, a boat, might in all probability be found on
board the fatal vessel. It lay heeled over broadside to the beach, and
I waded out to it through the shallow water. I gained the upper deck
with some difficulty and stood amidst the mass of carnage. Rifle-balls
had done the work of death. Many of the bodies were in army uniforms.
I could find only two boats. One, a mere cockle-shell, had been
perforated by bullets and rendered useless. Another lay inboard on the
quarter-deck, but it was so filled and covered with corpses that at
first I did not notice it. It seemed in fair condition, but the task
of ridding it of its horrible freight was so repugnant that I
returned on shore to resume the search for one elsewhere. It was in
vain, however; all we could find in the vicinity was an old sampan,
which besides being very leaky, was more than three men could manage,
only one of them, moreover, having any knowledge of sailoring. There
was nothing for it but to return to the death-ship. We all went on
board this time, and applied ourselves to the work. The pile of dead
were dragged away, and with considerable labour, and aided by the
careened condition of the junk, we managed to launch the boat, which
had been secured inside the bulwark. It was in a horrid state with
blood, but we were not in a situation to be particular. We found a
quantity of provisions and fresh water--or rather water which had once
been fresh--in the cook-house of the junk.
It must have been after midnight when we shoved off and got afloat.
Neither of my companions were experts with an oar, and could render me
very little aid; moreover, Chinese oars, like Chinese belongings
altogether, are very unlike anything else in the world and need some
practice to use. We were, however, close to the entrance of the port,
which being defended by torpedoes and mines, we ran little risk of
encountering Japanese vessels, although the submarine dangers
threatened us as well, if we strayed from the deep-water channel in
the dark. We got on in safety, though very slowly, and another two
hours had been consumed before we were through.
What to do next I had no fixed idea. One thing, however, was assured,
that it was certain death to stay in Port Arthur, and that our only
chance, slender as it seemed at best, consisted in getting as far away
as possible. I resolved, after some consideration, to hold on south
round the extremity of the Peninsula.
In the seaward forts above us we could discern no signs of activity,
and only a light here and there, far out on the misty expanse of
waters, showed the position of the Japanese war-vessels, which had an
easy job of it as far as Port Arthur was concerned. The weather,
though so bitterly cold, was far from stormy, yet the difficulty of
rowing was increased naturally when we got out into the heavier waters
of the sea. So unpromising in fact did our situation look, that I
began to reflect whether it would not be better to stay about the
mouth of the harbour, and allow ourselves to be taken by some Japanese
ship, than wander off I knew not where, probably in the end to perish
of starvation. Luck decided the point. We had painfully made a couple
of miles from the estuary of the harbour, when we came upon a large
junk stranded on a sand-bank. There were no lights showing on board
her; in the obscurity we could see nobody; yet she did not look like a
wreck, and at first we did not know what to make of it. After a
consultation, it was decided to fire a shot from the rifle and see
what it would lead to. No sooner had the report rung out, than there
was a bustle and stir on the vessel's decks, which appeared suddenly
to swarm with men, and became illuminated by lanterns. I told Chung to
hail. He did so, and a voice replied in Chinese. We drew close
abreast, and my companions held a parley with those on board. Our
situation explained we were permitted to ascend. The junk was full of
men. She had got into her present predicament in escaping, and they
were waiting for the morning flood tide to float her off. Two or three
junks, we were told, had struck torpedoes in leaving the harbour and
been blown in pieces, and many others had fallen into the clutches of
the enemy. Those on board, besides her usual crew, were chiefly
soldiers. With the profound deference paid to rank by the Orientals,
the chief cabin was at once given up to the mandarin, who insisted on
my sharing it with him. He and Chung gave a most glowing account of me
to those on board, to whom, in my remarkable accoutrement, I was an
object of legitimate curiosity.
Exhausted by exertion and anxiety, I was fast asleep within
half-an-hour after stepping up the junk's side. I slept far into the
day, and when I emerged found that she had been successfully floated
off the bank, and got out to sea without so far attracting the notice
of the Japanese ships.