"And I suppose he understands the whole business pretty well by this
time, eh?" the Admiral continued.
"Every bit as well as I do, sir," I answered, seeming to scent other
work for myself at no great distance.
"That is good," commented Togo. "Do you think he would be capable of
completing the work without further assistance from you?"
"Undoubtedly he would, sir," I replied. "Indeed, I think it right to
say that, after the first day, Commander Tsuchiya required no help or
suggestion of any kind from me at all. He seemed to perfectly
understand the principle of the boom's construction, almost from the
very beginning; and after the first day's work upon it he took the
entire supervision into his own hands, leaving me nothing whatever to do
but merely to look on and satisfy myself by personal observation that
the work was being properly done."
"Which it was, I presume?" remarked the Admiral.
"Which it certainly was, sir," I replied.
"Good!" said Togo. "That being the case, you are free for another
service. How would you like the chance to get a little fighting ashore,
by way of a change?"
"Jove!" I exclaimed, "that would be splendid, sir. Are you going to
land a naval brigade anywhere?"
"Well--no," answered the Admiral, "hardly that, I think; at least, that
is not my present intention, although circumstances may possibly render
it desirable, eventually. The matter stands thus,"--turning to the
table where a map of the Liaotung peninsula lay unfolded upon it.
"This,"--pointing to a certain spot on the map--"is where General Oku
landed, the other day, with his army. And this,"--pointing to another
spot--"is where he is now. His object of course is to march south and
lay siege to Port Arthur. But at this point, some two and a half miles
south of Kinchau, which, as I suppose you know, is a Chinese walled
city, the isthmus is only about two miles wide; and in and about the
city the Russians have established themselves in force, prepared,
apparently, to dispute Oku's passage of the isthmus to the last man.
"This mountain, so prominently marked on the map, is Mount Sampson. It
is more than two thousand feet in height and, as you will readily
understand, dominates the entire district. Upon this mountain the
Russians very strongly established themselves, scarping the heights and
constructing formidable breastworks behind which to shelter themselves.
Of course it was necessary for our troops to take this mountain, since,
until that could be done, to pass the isthmus would be impossible. I am
glad to learn that the mountain is now in our hands.
"But here, just to the south of Kinchau, is another range of hills,
known as the Nanshan Heights. They form a sort of backbone to the
isthmus, and occupy almost its entire width, their crests completely
commanding the narrow strip of low ground on either side. On these
heights, too, the Russians have very strongly established themselves; so
that although Mount Sampson is in our hands, the isthmus remains
impassable. The unfortunate fact, so far as we are concerned, is that
General Oku has no heavy artillery with him, otherwise he would be able
to shell the Nanshan Heights from Mount Sampson, and drive the Russians
out. But he has only field and mountain guns, of a range insufficient
for that purpose; therefore he has requisitioned help from me, and I
propose to send some craft round to Kinchau Bay, to shell the Russian
positions from the sea."
"Kinchau Bay, sir?" I interrupted. "Pardon me, but the water in
Kinchau Bay is so shallow, according to the chart, that I am afraid any
of our craft capable of carrying guns heavy enough to be of service
would have very great difficulty in approaching the land near enough to
be of any real use. Why not Hand Bay, sir, on the eastern side of the
isthmus?"
"For the very good reason, my dear fellow, that not only is Hand Bay
mined, but it would also be impossible for us to clear it, the bay being
completely commanded by works which our craft could not face for five
minutes. No, it must be Kinchau Bay; there is nothing else for it,"
answered the Admiral.
"That being the case," he continued, "it is my intention to dispatch
thither the _Akagi, Chokai, Hei-yen_, and _Tsukushi_ to afford the
assistance required by General Oku; and those ships will be accompanied
by a torpedo flotilla, the duty of which will be to take soundings, lay
down a line of buoys inside which the ships must not pass, and search
for and clear the bay of mines, as well as to render such further
assistance as may be possible to the land forces.
"I anticipate that the work required of the torpedo flotilla will be of
an exceptionally arduous and hazardous character; and for that reason,
Captain Swinburne, I am going to place it under your command, with the
_Kasanumi_ as your flagship. I have been keeping my eye upon you, sir,
and I will take this opportunity to express my very high appreciation of
your conduct. You have manifested all the dash, the fertility of
resource, and the cool courage under exceedingly trying conditions which
we have grown to look for as a matter of course from Englishmen; and to
that you add an element of caution which I fear we Japanese have not as
fully developed as we ought to have done; I therefore regard you as the
fittest man I could possibly select for the service upon which I now
propose to employ you. That also is the reason why I have so fully
explained to you the situation at Kinchau, for it is very necessary that
you should clearly understand all that may be required of you.
"We have, of course, any number of Japanese officers whose courage would
be quite equal to the task I am assigning to you, but they unfortunately
lack that element of caution which you possess, in proof of which it
will be my painful duty to presently announce a series of terrible
disasters, news of which has just reached me, and three of which, at
least, I am afraid I must attribute to a lack of caution."
"Indeed, sir," I said; "I am exceeding sorry to hear that. Is it
permissible to ask particulars?"
"Oh yes," answered the Admiral, with a heavy sigh. "I should not have
mentioned the matter to you at all, but for the fact that it must very
soon have come to your ears in any case. Within three days, sir, we
have lost six war vessels, while a seventh, the _Kasuga_, has been
temporarily put out of action. And of the six lost ships, Captain, two
are battleships, the _Hatsuse_ and the _Yashima_!"
"The _Hatsuse_ and the _Yashima_! Good heavens! sir. Is it possible?"
I exclaimed.
"It is more than possible," answered Togo, with another heavy sigh, "it
is a disastrous fact. And in addition to those two ships, we have also
lost the _Yoshino_, fortunately not one of our best fast cruisers. Oh!
it is terrible, terrible! And all three disasters have occurred to-day,
within a very short space of time. The news reached me by wireless in
the interval between my sending for you and your arrival.
"It appears that while the _Yoshino, Takasago, Chitose, Kasagi_, and
_Kasuga_ were to the westward of Port Arthur this morning, just after
dawn, they ran into a patch of dense fog, while steaming through which,
the lookout aboard the _Yoshino_ sighted a floating mine a short
distance ahead. Thereupon the officer in charge seems to have
temporarily lost his presence of mind, for instead of sheering out of
the line, as it seems to me he might have done, and so avoided the mine,
he instantly stopped and reversed his engines, without warning the
_Kasuga_, which was his next astern. The inevitable result of course
was that the _Kasuga_ struck the _Yoshino_ heavily, making such a
terrible rent in her side that, in spite of collision mats, she speedily
filled, capsized, and sank, drowning over two hundred of her crew. The
_Kasuga_, badly damaged, is on her way hither, and may be expected to
arrive some time to-night.
"That disaster, however, serious as it is, is nothing compared with the
loss of the _Hatsuse_ and _Yashima_, which occurred shortly after
midday. Little did we dream, as they steamed away from here, this
morning, that we should never see them again! It happened about ten
miles south of Port Arthur, the two ships striking mines within a few
minutes of each other. The _Hatsuse_ appears to have struck two mines,
the second of which completed her destruction, for she foundered in less
than two minutes after the second explosion occurred. I understand that
considerably more than half her crew have gone down with her.
"There were hopes at first that the _Yashima_ might be saved, as
collision mats were got over her damaged bows and the steam pumps were
started, while she headed for here under her own steam, with the rest of
the squadron in company; but the latest news is to the effect that she
cannot possibly be kept afloat, and that her crew are being taken off.
Well, it is the fortune of war, I suppose, and it is useless to murmur;
we cannot hope to always have things go well with us, reverses _will_
happen occasionally; and I am afraid that we have been growing just a
little too careless and over-confident of late. We must take the lesson
to heart and see that it does not again happen. But it is a paralysing
blow for us.
"And now, to return to the matter which more immediately concerns you,
Captain. I have given you the earliest possible warning of what I am
going to ask you to do, in order that you may have an opportunity to
think over the situation and make your plans. I want you to be ready to
start at practically a moment's notice; but I shall not dispatch the
squadron until I have further news from Oku, which may arrive at any
minute."
As it happened, however, although a communication arrived from Oku the
next day, it was a full week before we got our orders; for a careful
reconnaissance revealed that very important preparations would be
necessary before it would be possible to take Kinchau, or storm the
Nanshan Heights.
Just about sunset the _Shikishima_, with her attendant cruisers, hove in
sight, and before they were hull-up it was possible for us to
distinguish that the _Yashima_ was not among them. She had gone down
off Dalny--in shallow water, fortunately--but not until every man had
been safely taken out of her.
The other losses to which the Admiral had referred were torpedo-boat
Number 48, and the dispatch boat _Mikayo_, both of which had come to
grief, the one on 12th May, and the other two days later, through
striking mines in Kerr Bay, some thirty miles to the north-east of Port
Arthur. Torpedo-boats Numbers 46 and 48, it appeared, were engaged in
sweeping for mines when the accident happened. They had already found
and destroyed three mines, and had discovered a fourth, which they fired
several rounds at without result. Then Number 48 imprudently approached
the mine with the intention of securing it, when it exploded, blowing
her in two, and killing or wounding fourteen of her crew of
twenty-three.
It was two days later when the _Mikayo_, believing the bay to be clear,
entered it to make sure. She was passing in through the channel
supposed to have been cleared by our torpedo-boats, when she, too,
struck a mine; there was a terrific explosion, and she went to the
bottom, with eight casualties in her crew of two hundred. She was a
useful little ship, having a speed of over sixteen knots when she was
destroyed, although she had been known to achieve as much as twenty.
She mounted two forty-sevens and ten 3-pounders, and was therefore not a
very formidable fighting craft.
The story told by the Russians concerning her destruction was to the
effect that she fell a victim to a mine, placed overnight, in the
channel previously cleared by our boats, by a young Russian naval
officer, who stole out from Port Arthur in a small steam launch, under
the cover of night. Whether the story is true or not, I cannot tell,
yet there is nothing very improbable about it, for it is indisputable
that many of the Russians displayed as fine a courage as even the
Japanese themselves.