By the time that we were fairly out at sea, it was pitch dark, not a
star to be seen, and to add still further to the obscurity, a light mist
gathered, as it so often does in the Japan Sea, so that by eight o'clock
it was only with the utmost difficulty that we were able to discern a
small junk which we had in tow, and which had been employed by us to
facilitate the landing of the troops. The weather still continued
overcast, and the play of sheet lightning gradually grew more vivid and
frequent; but there was no wind, and not much sea; and as time went on I
began to think, with Yagi, that Takebe's apprehensions had been
groundless, and that we were in for nothing worse than, may be, a
thunderstorm, after all.
I spent a couple of hours in the saloon that night, watching the
infantry officers, of whom there were six, playing some wonderful game
of cards, of which I could make nothing, and then strolled up on the
bridge to see what the weather was like, and to have a yarn with Yagi,
before turning in for the night. It was still hazy and very overcast,
but there was not a breath of air save the draught created by the motion
of the ship, and there was a very beautiful display of sheet lightning,
almost continuous, which lighted up the clouds, the mist, and the sea in
the most marvellous manner.
The ship was then heading south-east, with all her lights burning
brightly, as in duty bound, and I was sitting astride a camp-stool, with
my shoulders resting against the port rail of the bridge, while Yagi,
also occupying a camp-stool, sat facing me. He was spinning some yarn--
a sort of Japanese fairy tale, it seemed to be--about a geisha, while I
was staring contemplatively into the darkness over the starboard bow,
watching the wonderful play of the lightning, when suddenly, as a flash
lighted up the gloom, I thought I caught a momentary glimpse of three or
four dark shapes, about a mile away, broad on the starboard bow. If I
had really seen those shapes, they could only be ships, _and they were
showing no lights_; I therefore ruthlessly cut into the skipper's yarn
by directing his attention to the point where the momentary vision had
revealed itself.
"What is that you say?" he exclaimed. "Ships without lights? Then it
must be our Admiral, still hunting for the Vladivostock squadron. Well,
we have not seen them, and we had better tell him so, and at the same
time inquire whether he has any fresh orders for us. Mr Uchida,"--to
the chief officer,--"our squadron is away out there, somewhere on the
starboard bow. Have the goodness to honourably make our night signal,
as I wish to speak the Admiral."
Uchida hurried away and, the signal lanterns being always kept ready for
immediate use, in less than a minute they were hoisted. Meanwhile there
had been no further lightning flashes to illuminate the darkness, and I
rose to my feet, for we were still steaming ahead at full speed, and I
had a feeling that we must be drawing pretty close to the strangers. As
I did so, our signal was answered by the imperative order: "Stop
immediately!" And at the same instant a brilliant and protracted
flicker of sheet lightning revealed four large ships, not more than
three cables' lengths distant. The leading ship was a big lump of a
four-funnelled cruiser, the funnels coloured white, with black tops, and
she carried three masts. The second craft was very similar in general
appearance to the first, also having four white, black-topped funnels,
and three masts. The third was a two-masted, three-funnelled ship;
while the fourth was of distinctly ancient appearance, being of the
period when sails were as much used as steam. She had two funnels, and
was barque-rigged, with royal yards across, but she was now under steam,
with all her canvas furled. We had no such ships in our fleet, while I
instantly identified the barque-rigged craft as the Russian cruiser
_Rurik_, of the Vladivostock squadron! That squadron, then, for which
Admiral Kamimura was especially hunting, was actually at sea, and we had
fallen in with it!
There was not the least doubt about it. In every wardroom and gunroom
of every Japanese warship there was an album containing a beautiful,
complete set of photographs of every ship in the Russian navy, each ship
being pictured from at least four different points of view; and it was a
part of every officer's duty to study these photographs until he had
acquired the ability to identify at sight any Russian warship he might
chance to encounter. Thus, in the leading ship of the squadron in
sight, a moment's reflection enabled me to recognise the _Rossia_, with,
astern of her, the _Gromoboi_, then the _Bogatyr_, and finally the
_Rurik_.
"Jove!" I exclaimed. "We've done it now, with a vengeance, Yagi.
Those four ships comprise the Russian Vladivostock squadron; and we are
right under their guns! Stop her, man, for heaven's sake. It is the
only thing you can do. If you don't, the beggars will sink us out of
hand."
"They will probably do that in any case," growled Yagi, as he laid his
hand on the engine-room telegraph and rang down an order to stop the
engines. "But, as you honourably say, Captain, it is the only thing to
be done, although it means the interior of a Russian prison for all
hands of us."
As the _Kinshiu's_ engines stopped, the _Rossia_ turned her searchlights
upon us, brought her guns to bear, and lowered two boats, the crews of
which we could see were armed to the teeth. And at the same moment two
destroyers loomed up out of the darkness, one of which stationed herself
on our port bow, while the other placed herself upon our starboard
quarter, each of them with their tubes and guns manned. Evidently, the
Russians did not mean to leave us the smallest loophole for escape.
The six Japanese infantry officers, noting the stoppage of our engines,
came rushing up on deck to learn what was the matter; and upon hearing
that the strange ships which had stopped us were Russian warships,
hurried away below again, presumably, I thought, to give orders of some
sort to the troops under their command.
The _Rossia_, with the way she had on her, had by this time closed to
within about twenty-five fathoms of us; and at this juncture an officer
on her bridge hailed, ordering our skipper to send a boat.
"Good!" ejaculated Yagi. "We will do so. But we will not go aboard the
_Rossia_. Oh, no. We will slip away in the darkness and make for the
land. And you will honourably accompany us, will you not, Captain? A
Russian prison has no attractions for you, eh?"
"You are right, my friend, it has not," I answered; "for which reason I
must decline to accompany you. Because you will never get away, Yagi.
How can you, with those searchlights turned full upon us, and those
destroyers where they are?"
"Nevertheless, I shall try," answered the skipper; and he turned away to
bellow an order to the crew to clear away and lower the port lifeboat,
the port side being shielded from the glare of the searchlights. Then I
heard him order the chief officer to superintend the lowering of the
boat, and at the same time to smuggle an extra breaker of water and a
bag or two of biscuits into her.
Then he turned again to me. "If you will not come with us, what will
you honourably do, my friend?" he demanded.
"Oh," said I, "I shall join the infantry officers below, and see what
they are going to do." And without further parley, I ran down the
ladder and made my way below to the saloon, where I found the six
officers sitting at the table, looking very pale and grave.
"Well, gentlemen," I cried, "here we are, in a nice little Russian trap.
What do you propose to do?"
"We thought at first of performing hari-kari," said one of them. "But
Captain Nagai, with whom you were discussing the subject of hari-kari,
only the night before last, appears to have come round to your way of
thinking that it is better to live for the Emperor than to die for him.
He argues--as you did--that a dead man can do nothing for his Emperor,
whereas a living man may be able to do many things; in which statement
there is truth. Therefore we propose to surrender to the Russians, in
the honourable hope that we may be able to effect our escape, sooner or
later, and return to fight for Nippon. What do you honourably propose
to do, Captain?"
"Oh," said I, "to surrender seems the most sensible thing to do, and
doubtless I shall do it--eventually. Meanwhile, however, I think I will
toddle up on deck again, and see how Yagi and the ship's crew are
getting on. They are going to try to slip away in the ship's lifeboat,
you know?"
"Banzai!" cried one of the officers. "I hope they will honourably
succeed. But, having decided to surrender, I think the safest place is
down here. Doubtless we shall soon see you again."
"Y-e-s,--possibly," I replied. "But I shall not surrender until the
last moment; so, if you do not see me again, you may conclude that I
have found some means of effecting my escape, and have seized them."
Saying which, I shook hands with them all round, and returned to the
deck. During my brief visit to the saloon, Yagi and his men had got
their boat into the water, and were now pulling boldly for the _Rossia_;
but I noticed that directly they passed out of the area of radiance cast
by the searchlight, they shifted their helm sharply and, crossing the
cruiser's bows, were evidently endeavouring to slip past her in the
gloom of her own shadow.
Then, suddenly, an idea occurred to me. The _Kinshiu Maru_ had in tow a
small junk, or lighter, which we had used to facilitate the landing of
the soldiers at Iwon. Where was she now?
Crouching low under the cover of the bulwarks, to avoid being seen by
those aboard the _Rossia_, I slipped aft and, cautiously peering over
the taffrail, saw that she had drifted right in under the _Kinshiu's_
counter, where she was momentarily threatening to bilge herself against
the steamer's iron rudder, as the two craft ground against each other on
the swell. The forward half of her lay in the deep shadow of the
_Kinchiu's_ stern--a shadow rendered still deeper and more opaque by the
vivid brilliance of the searchlight beam that covered the stern-half of
her, and it immediately occurred to me that if I could but climb down
into her, unobserved, and cut her adrift, I might possibly contrive to
avoid entering a Russian prison after all.
No sooner thought of than done; the moment was propitious, the towing
hawser lay under my hand, and in another moment I was down upon her tiny
forecastle, hacking away at the grass rope with my pocket-knife. The
blade was keen, as a sailor's knife should always be, and with a few
vigorous slashes the hawser was severed and I was adrift. Then, taking
advantage of the heave of the two craft, I managed to move the junk
until she lay entirely in the shadow cast by the _Kinshiu's_ hull.
At this juncture I heard the gruff voices of Russians overhead, on the
transport's deck, and, thinking discretion the better part of valour
under the circumstances, dropped off the junk's short fore deck into her
shallow hold and there concealed myself, lest any inquisitive Russian
should peer over the bulwarks, catch sight of me, and order me up on
deck again. I don't know whether it occurred to any of the enemy to
look over the side, but I do not think so; at all events, if they did,
nobody took the trouble to come down and search the junk; and in a few
minutes the voices ceased; I took it that the visitors had gone below to
search the ship. If they had, what would happen to them, with over a
hundred armed Japanese soldiers down there?
I had not long to wait for an answer to this question. About two
minutes of silence succeeded to the sudden cessation of the Russians'
voices on deck, and then the muffled crack of a pistol-shot rang out
from the _Kinshiu's_ interior, instantly followed by a shout of "Banzai
Nippon!" and the crack of several rifles; there arose a sudden outburst
of yells and execrations in Russian, a stampede of many feet along the
deck, the sounds of a scuffling hand-to-hand fight, a volley of orders
from the Russian officer in command of the boarding party, a hoarse hail
from one of the warships, and then the rattle and splash of oars hastily
thrown out. Evidently, the Japanese soldiers had given the intruders a
warm reception.
The hurried departure of the boarding party was quickly followed by a
rolling volley of rifle-fire from the _Kinshiu_, apparently directed
upon the retreating boats, for I heard cries and groans which seemed to
proceed from them. Then, from the _Rossia_ came the sudden, snapping
bark of her quick-firers and machine-guns, and a storm of missiles
crashed through the transport's thin bulwarks or flew whining overhead,
intermingled with shrieks, groans, and excited shouts from the Japanese
soldiers, who had evidently resolved to die fighting, rather than
surrender. The sounds awakened the fighting instinct within me; I felt
that, let happen what would, I must be among those gallant fellows,
doing my share of the work; and I nipped out from under the junk's short
deck, intent upon climbing aboard the _Kinshiu_ again. And then I found
that during the short period of my seclusion, the junk had parted
company, and was now a good twenty feet distant from the transport.
True, I might jump overboard and swim the intervening space, and I was
actually poising myself for the dive when the question flashed into my
brain: How was I to get aboard, how climb the vessel's smooth iron side.
There were no ropes hanging overboard, save the severed towing hawser,
and I had cut through that so high up that even when the steamer's stern
dipped, the end did not reach within a couple of feet of the water. I
recognised that whether I would or not, I must now stay where I was, for
return to the steamer was impossible. And while I stood there on the
junk's short fore deck, watching the scene with fascinated eyes, that
awful, unequal duel went on between the Japanese rifles and the
_Rossia's_ machine-guns; the soldiers frenziedly yelling "Banzai
Nippon!" between each volley, while the Russian gunners plied their
pieces in grim silence. The _Kinshiu's_ deck, I knew, must be by this
time a veritable shambles, for the Russian cruiser lay close aboard, and
her machine-guns could sweep the transport's decks from stem to stern;
moreover, the rapid and ominous slackening of the rifle-fire testified
eloquently to the frightful carnage that was proceeding. The cries of
"Banzai Nippon!" were no longer thundered forth in a defiant roar, but
were raised by a few voices only, which were almost drowned by the
dreadful shrieks and moans of the wounded and dying.
Then, suddenly, there occurred a frightful explosion, the _Kinshiu Maru_
was hove up on a mountain of foaming water which belched forth fire and
smoke, the air became suddenly full of flying splinters and wreckage, a
heavy fragment of which smote me full upon the forehead and knocked me
back into the junk's hold, and as my senses left me I was dimly
conscious of a wailing cry, pealing out across the water, of "Sayonara!"
(Farewell for ever). It was the last good-bye to Emperor, country, and
all who were nearest and dearest to them of that heroic little band of
Japanese infantry-men who preferred to die fighting gloriously, rather
than win inglorious safety by surrender. The Russians had made an end
of the affair by torpedoing the transport, and she must have sunk within
a very few minutes.
When I recovered my senses it was broad daylight. For a few moments I
knew not where I was, or what had happened to me, but I was conscious of
the most splitting headache from which I had ever suffered in my life.
The next thing that dawned upon me was that I was lying in the bottom of
a small craft of some sort, which was rolling and plunging most
atrociously on a short, choppy sea, that I was chilled to the very
marrow, and that water was washing about and over me with every motion
of the boat. I was wet to the skin and, although shivering with cold,
my blood scorched my veins as though it were liquid fire.
I sat up, staring vaguely about me, and then became aware of a curious
stiff feeling in the skin of my face. Putting my hands to my head, to
still the throbbing smart of it, I found that my hair was all clogged
with some sticky kind of liquid which, upon looking at my hands, I found
to be blood, evidently my own. This at once explained the curious stiff
feeling of my face; it was probably caused by dry caked blood. But, to
make sure, I sprang open the case of my watch--the polished surface
serving well enough for a mirror--and gravely studied my reflected
image. I must have presented a ghastly sight, for my whole face was a
mask of blood, out of which my eyes glared feverishly. Then, as I
continued to stare at the interior of my watch-case, wondering what it
all meant, my memory of the events of the preceding night--I knew it
must be the preceding night, because my watch was still going--all came
back to me, and I understood where I was.
Scrambling giddily to my feet, I looked about me and saw a bucket
rolling to and fro on the junk's bottom-boards. The sight suggested an
idea to me and, taking the bucket and the end of a small line which I
bent on to the handle, I somehow managed to hoist myself up on to the
small foredeck and, lying prone--for I dared not as yet trust myself to
stand--I lowered the bucket, and drew it up again, full of clean,
sparkling salt-water. Into this I plunged my head, keeping it immersed
as long as my breath would allow, meanwhile removing the blood from my
face and hair as well as I could. The contact of the cold salt-water
made my lacerated forehead and scalp smart most atrociously, yet it
relieved my headache and greatly refreshed me. Then, stripping off my
wet shirt, I tore a long strip from it and, thoroughly saturating it in
the clean salt-water, bound up my wound as best I could, after which I
felt distinctly better.
Then, sitting on the little deck, I looked about me to see if I could
discover any traces of last night's horror; but there was a moderate
breeze blowing, and I instantly recognised that the junk must have
drifted several miles from the spot where the disaster had occurred.
There was nothing to be seen, no, not so much as a solitary scrap of
wreckage, within the radius of a mile, beyond which everything was
blotted out by a curtain of haze.
By this time I had pretty completely recovered my senses, and was able
to fully realise my situation. I was wet, cold, feverish, and horribly
thirsty, and was the sole occupant of a small, leaky junk of about
twenty-five tons, without masts or sails, these having been removed in
order the better to fit her for the duty of carrying troops. She had a
pair of sweeps aboard, it is true; but they were so ponderous that each
demanded the strength of four men to work it; they were therefore quite
useless to me, even had I known precisely where I was, which I did not.
All I knew was that I was some fifty miles, or thereabout, to the
southward and eastward of Iwon; but I might as well have been five
hundred miles from the place, for all the means I had of returning to
it, or even of making a shot at Gensan. The fact was that I was adrift
in a hulk; and the utmost that I could do was to keep her afloat, if
possible, and patiently wait for something to come along and take me off
her.
Realising this, I proceeded to overhaul the junk, with a view to
ascertaining what were her resources. I remembered that a cask of fresh
water had been put aboard her for the use of the troops while landing
and embarking; and I soon found this, still more than half-full, snugly
stowed away under her foredeck, with a lot of raffle consisting of odds
and ends of line of varying sizes, a fragment of fishing-net, a few
short lengths of planking, and other utterly useless stuff. I drank
dipper after dipper of water, until my raging thirst was quenched, and
then stripped off my clothes, wrung them out, and spread them to dry in
the wind while I rubbed my body dry with my hands, employing a
considerable amount of exertion, in order to restore warmth to my
cramped limbs. In this effort I was at length successful; and my next
business was to search the other end of the junk, in the vague hope that
I might find something in the way of food; but there was none; therefore
I had to go hungry. I had a bucket, however, and with this I bailed the
hooker practically dry, as much to pass the time and keep myself warm,
as for any other reason. Then, having done everything that I could
think of, all that remained for me was to wait as patiently as might be
for something to come along and rescue me.
My position was by no means an enviable one. I had no food; but, for
the moment, that did not greatly matter, since the smart of my wound had
made me feverish, and I had no appetite. On the other hand, I suffered
from an incessant thirst, which even the copious draughts of water in
which I frequently indulged did little to allay. The weather was
overcast, and there was a thin mist lying upon the surface of the grey
sea which circumscribed my view to a radius of less than a mile, and the
air was keenly raw. I recognised that it was necessary to keep myself
constantly active, to counteract the effect of the chilly atmosphere,
and this I did, bustling about, overhauling the raffle in the junk, and
executing a good deal of utterly useless work, which I varied from time
to time by taking long spells of watching, in the hope of sighting some
craft to which I might signal for assistance. Also I repeatedly bathed
my head in sea water, which did a little toward reducing the feeling of
feverishness from which I was suffering.
Toward the afternoon the conditions became more favourable. The clouds
broke, the sun came out and took the feeling of rawness out of the air,
so that I no longer suffered from the cold, and the mist melted away,
affording me a clear view to the horizon. But the sea was bare; there
was not even so much as a blur of steamer's smoke staining the sky in
any direction; and I began to wonder how long it might be before I
should be picked up, or whether indeed I should be picked up at all. I
knew, of course, that the non-arrival of the _Kinshiu_ at Gensan would
give rise to speculation, and that probably a search for her would be
instituted along the course which she might be expected to steer, but I
was already several miles from that course, and hourly drifting farther
from it. The question of importance to me was whether the search would
extend over a sufficiently wide area to take me in.
The remainder of that day passed uneventfully for me; I could do nothing
beyond what I have already indicated; no craft of any description hove
in sight; and toward sunset the pangs of hunger began to manifest
themselves. I watched the sea until night closed down; and then, when
it became so dark that further watching was useless, I crept in under
the fore deck among the raffle and turned in upon such a bed as I had
been able to prepare for myself during the day, in anticipation of the
possibility that I might be obliged to pass the night aboard the junk.
As might be supposed, under the circumstances, the earlier part of the
night at least was full of discomfort for me; but somewhere along in the
small hours I dropped off to sleep, and eventually slept soundly, to be
awakened by the noise of steam blowing off, close at hand. I started
up, listened for a moment to assure myself that the sound was not an
illusion, and, satisfied that it was real, scrambled up on the junk's
deck, to be greeted with the sight of several ships of war close at
hand. A single glance sufficed to assure me that my troubles were at an
end; for the ships in sight were those of Admiral Kamimura's squadron,
the _Idzumi_ being hove-to at less than a cable's length distant, in the
very act of lowering a boat. There were several officers on her bridge,
and she was close enough to enable me to see that they were all
scrutinising the junk through their glasses; I therefore waved to them,
and was waved to in reply. A few minutes later the boat, in charge of a
lieutenant, dashed smartly alongside and the officer scrambled nimbly up
the junk's low side.
I think he had not recognised me until then, although we knew each other
very well. He gazed at me dubiously for a moment, then his hand shot
out to grasp mine as he exclaimed:
"Hillo! my dear Swinburne, what does this mean; what are you doing here?
And are you all alone?"
I answered his question by informing him, in as few words as possible,
of what had happened to the ill-fated _Kinshiu Maru_, and then we got
down into the boat and pulled across to the _Idzumi_, where Kamimura and
his officers were impatiently awaiting us. They gave me the warmest of
welcomes, and would not even permit me to tell them my story, the
lieutenant who had rescued me assuring them that he had already obtained
all the particulars and could tell it as well as I could. I was
accordingly at once turned over to the care of the ship's surgeon, and
made comfortable in the sick bay, the squadron immediately resuming its
cruise.
Now that the tension of looking after myself was relaxed, a reaction set
in, with high fever, and for the next four days I was really ill, with
frequent intervals of delirium. But there were no complications of any
kind, and by the end of the sixth day I was so far recovered as to be
able to dress and sit up for an hour or two. Everybody aboard the
_Idzumi_ was exceedingly kind to me, as kind indeed as though they had
been brothers; and this fraternal feeling of kindly interest was not
confined to the _Idzumi_ alone, Kamimura himself informing me, with a
smile, that it had become quite a habit for the other ships to signal an
inquiry as to my condition, every morning. As the officers of the ship
came off watch, they came tiptoeing along to inquire after me; and if I
happened to be awake, and the doctor permitted it, they would sit and
chat with me for half an hour or so before retiring to their cabins, by
which means I gradually acquired all the missing links in the story of
the squadron's abortive cruise.
From these conversations I gathered that after the squadron and the
_Kinshiu_ parted company off Gensan, while we in the transport headed
for Iwon, the squadron proceeded toward Vladivostock, being much delayed
by a dense fog, through which it steamed at half-speed, each ship towing
a fog buoy as a guide to the ship immediately following, though, even
with this assistance, keeping touch was only accomplished with extreme
difficulty. Thus they proceeded until, by dead reckoning, they arrived
at a point seventy miles south of Vladivostock, when, the weather being
much too thick to permit of fighting the enemy, even should the two
fleets blunder together, Admiral Kamimura decided to retrace his steps,
arriving at Gensan two days later. Here the Japanese consul boarded the
_Idzumi_ and imparted to the Admiral the startling information that on
the previous day four strange warships, accompanied by a couple of
destroyers, had appeared off the port, the warships being later
identified as those constituting the Vladivostock squadron. The
destroyers had entered the harbour, boarded a small Japanese craft
loaded with fish, ordered her crew to get into her boat and go ashore,
and had then torpedoed her; the expended torpedo being probably at least
as valuable as the ship which it sank! Later on, the Russian cruisers
had entered the harbour, but had left again without doing any damage.
In reply to an inquiry concerning the _Kinshiu Maru_, the consul replied
that neither she nor her escort had yet returned. This information
caused Admiral Kamimura some uneasiness, since there had been time for
us to do all that we had been ordered to do, and to get back to Gensan;
and the squadron was actually getting its anchors, preparatory to its
departure to hunt for the transport, when Commander Takebe with his
torpedo-boats arrived. Questioned as to the whereabouts of the
_Kinshiu_, he expressed surprise at her non-arrival, briefly relating
particulars of the discussion which had resulted in the transport
leaving Iwon, unescorted, while he remained in harbour to see what the
weather developments were going to be.
This was enough for Kamimura. Takebe's story, in conjunction with that
of the consul at Gensan, convinced the Admiral that something very
serious had happened; and he at once gave orders for the torpedo
flotilla to proceed along the coast to hunt for news of the transport,
while he, with his squadron, started off in chase of the Russians.
It was on the morning following this second departure of the squadron
from Gensan, that they sighted the junk from which I was rescued. It is
possible that, in his eagerness to overtake the Russians, he might have
pushed on without pausing to examine a small, apparently derelict junk,
but for the fact that, fortunately for me, two or three of the
_Idzumi's_ officers recognised her as the junk which the _Kinshiu_ had
taken with her to facilitate the landing operations at Iwon.
After they had taken me off the junk, the Japanese had pushed ahead
direct for Vladivostock, in the hope of arriving there before the
Russians. But in this hope they were disappointed. Upon their arrival,
the Russian cruisers were seen to be already back in harbour; and all
that was accomplished was to drive precipitately back into the harbour
two Russian destroyers which had the impudence--or the courage--to come
out and threaten them; and also to exchange a few shots with the Russian
forts.