Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun Page 9

  Then we slowed down our engines and proceeded to take stock of our injuries.

  So far as the Kasanumi was concerned, we had got off pretty lightly, although there was a period of about three minutes when we were hotly engaged by two Russian destroyers at the same time. Our decks were rather severely scored by flying fragments of shells, we had three shot-holes in our hull, we had one man killed and two wounded, one of them being our chief engineer, who, although severely wounded by a fragment of a shell which burst in the engine-room, gallantly stuck to his post until the fight was over, when he was able to turn the engines over to his second. The Akatsuki had received the severest punishment, one of her steam pipes being severed, and four of her engine-room hands scalded to death. In all, we lost in this fight seven killed and eight wounded; but none of the boats was very seriously damaged.

  Meanwhile, our 2nd Division, consisting of the Akebono and Sazanami, had vanished, without leaving a sign of their whereabouts. It was now daylight, and the weather tolerably clear, yet, although Hiraoka and I swept the whole surface of the sea with our glasses, we entirely failed to pick them up. The Asashio and Akatsuki were within hail, both of them engaged, like ourselves, in temporarily patching up the holes in their thin steel sides, through which the water was pouring in whenever we rolled extra heavily; and I hailed them both, inquiring whether either of them had seen anything of the missing craft. An affirmative reply came from my friend Ito, aboard the Akatsuki, who informed me that shortly after the fight began, on the other side of the promontory, he had momentarily caught sight of them both, steaming hot-foot after a destroyer which was in full flight, heading toward Pigeon Bay.

  Scarcely had this reply been given when the sounds of light gun-fire faintly reached our ears from the direction mentioned, and a few minutes later two destroyers, flying the Russian flag, came foaming round the point, firing as they came, while close behind them appeared our two missing boats, also firing for all they were worth. The Russian boats were running in “line ahead,” and it seemed to me that the skipper of the leading boat was manoeuvring her in such a manner as to keep his consort as nearly as possible between himself and the pursuers; at all events the sternmost boat seemed to be getting the biggest share of the pursuers’ fire.

  At once I shouted an order for the men engaged upon our repairs to hasten their work and bring it to some sort of finish, at the same time signing the quartermaster to put his helm hard over, my intention of course being to go back and render such assistance as might be required, while the Asashio kept on and stood by Ito, who had his hands full with his severed steam pipe.

  But it was impossible for us now to steam at a greater speed than about three knots, for had we attempted to do so, we should have washed overboard the men who were making the repairs, as well as washed the repairs themselves away, in their uncompleted state; consequently, long before we could get near the scene of action, the fight was over. One of the destroyers—the leading one—managed to get safely into the harbour, while the other, which turned out to be the Stercguschtchi, riddled with shells, lost speed to such an extent that at length the Sazanami was able to run alongside and throw a boarding party upon her deck. They found that deck a veritable shambles, no less than thirty dead being counted upon it. Naturally, they took the craft without any resistance worth mentioning, for there were very few left to resist, while, of those who remained, the greater number jumped overboard rather than surrender. Of these, only two were picked up, while two others, too badly wounded to either fight or take to the water, surrendered.

  At once the Sazanami took her prize in tow; but the craft was so seriously damaged that, despite all efforts to save her, she rapidly filled and sank, the towing hawser parting as she foundered.

  Meanwhile the Akebono was in a somewhat parlous condition, for during the fight she had been struck on the waterline, and was now limping along as best she could, with two compartments filled; when, therefore, the Russian boat foundered, the Sazanami went to her consort’s assistance and took her in tow, for two Russian cruisers, identified as the Novik and Bayan, were now seen to be coming out of Port Arthur harbour, and it was high time for us all to be off. Happily for us, by the time that the Russian cruisers were fairly out of harbour, five of our own cruisers had hove up above the horizon, steaming rapidly shoreward to our support, whereupon the Russians turned tail and retreated.

  As our cruisers came up, their flagship signalled us to proceed to our rendezvous, after ascertaining that we could look after ourselves and needed no assistance; and shortly afterward we fell in with our main fleet, under Togo, bound for Pigeon Bay, whither the Admiral was proceeding for the purpose of testing his theory that the fortress could be successfully bombarded by high-angle fire projected over the high land between Pigeon Bay and the town. The signal was made for Commander Tsuchiya and me to proceed on board the Mikasa, where we jointly made our report, with which the Admiral was pleased to express his satisfaction. He, too, was anxious to know whether we required any assistance, and finding that we did not, ordered us to proceed to our rendezvous and get our repairs put in hand without a moment’s delay. We arrived safely at our destination early in the afternoon, and within the next hour our damaged craft were in the hands of strong repairing gangs, so prompt were the Japanese to act.

  The main fleet arrived at the rendezvous shortly before sunset, and anchored. I looked keenly at ship after ship, as they steamed in, but could detect no signs of injury to any of them; so after dinner I took our dinghy and rowed across to the Mikasa, with several of the officers of which I was by this time on quite intimate terms. The first man I happened to run into, however, upon passing in through the gangway was Captain Ijichi, commanding the ship; and he, as anxious to hear my yarn as I was to hear his, instantly pounced upon me and marched me off to his own cabin, where we were presently joined by Lieutenant Prince Kasho, for whom Ijichi had sent.

  Here I was made to start the proceedings by spinning, at considerably greater length, the yarn which I had related to the Admiral earlier in the day, and which I was now able to supplement with the additional information that our 2nd Division had chased the Russian destroyer, of which they had started in pursuit, into Pigeon Bay, where they had sunk her. The honours of the day were of course with them, for they had accounted for two Russian destroyers, whereas we of the 1st Division had only given five of the enemy a very severe mauling; nevertheless, my little audience were good enough to stamp our performance with their marked approval.

  Then the skipper of the Mikasa related his story. The long-range bombardment of Port Arthur was not a very exciting affair, it seemed, but it was successful in so far that it proved the correctness of the Admiral’s theory that it could be done by firing over the high ground and dropping shells upon an unseen mark on the other side.

  The attempt was of a twofold character, one part of which was to test the above theory, while the other was to destroy the Russian signal station upon the island of Sanshan, off Dalny, from which spot the enemy were able to observe and report to Port Arthur the movements of our fleet. This task was successfully accomplished by a detachment of our cruisers.

  As regards the long-range, high-angle bombardment of the fortress, it was accomplished in the following fashion. Our battleships proceeded round to the westward of the promontory of Liau-ti-shan to a spot where the high land hid them from the sight of the Port Arthur batteries, and, elevating the muzzles of their 12-inch guns to the required extent, they discharged five rounds each from their four guns—one hundred and twenty shots in all, one shot at a time, while our first cruiser squadron, stationed off the port, to the south-east, carefully noted the spot where each shell dropped, and reported the result by wireless to the battleships, thus enabling them to adjust their aim and rectify any inaccuracies. The result was that one of our shells hit the Golden Hill fort, exploding a magazine and doubtless doing a considerable amount of damage to the structure, while the Mantow Hill fort, on the west side of the harbour, w
as hit several times and considerably damaged. Several shells fell in the New Town of Port Arthur, setting fire to a number of houses there and causing a tremendous panic and great loss of life. The fifth shell fired by our battleships struck the Russian battleship Retvisan, while another fell aboard the Sevastopol, exploding on her armoured deck. Yet another of our shells struck a train which happened to be just entering Port Arthur station, destroying the locomotive and, as we subsequently learned, killing the engine-driver and severely wounding the fireman. Finally, the Retvisan adopted our own tactics and retaliated by firing her heavy guns over the intervening high ground, while some of the forts did the same, a party of signallers being stationed on the crest of the hill to direct their aim. As a result of this, shells at length began to drop near our ships; whereupon the Admiral, in obedience to his instructions not to risk his battleships, hauled off; the fleet, as it went, observing three dense columns of smoke rising from the city.

  Seeing that our ships were retiring, the Russian Admiral led out to sea such of his ships as were fit for service, with the evident intention of luring our ships into the zone of fire of the forts; but he might as well have saved his coal, for Togo was much too wary a bird to be caught with that kind of chaff.

  On the following day we learned by wireless, from one of our cruiser scouts, that the Russian fleet was being cautiously taken out to sea through our mine-field off the harbour’s mouth, the innocuous character of which they had already ascertained,—as intended by our Admiral,—and, later on, the further information reached us that the fleet was at sea and carrying out evolutions while cautiously working its way southward. Later still, we were informed that the Russians, learning from their scouts that none of our ships were in the vicinity, had proceeded as far as the Miao-tao Islands, off the Shan-tung peninsula, which they subjected to a careful examination, under the impression, as we subsequently learned, that those islands were being used by our destroyers as a hiding-place from which to make our raids. All hands of us immediately made our preparations to weigh at a moment’s notice, fully expecting that the Admiral would seize what seemed such a splendid opportunity to intercept the enemy and give him battle in the open sea. But no orders were issued; and we were given to understand that there were certain good and sufficient secret reasons why the opportunity must be permitted to pass. A great deal of surprise, not to say dissatisfaction, was caused by this strange decision; but discipline was so strong, and the idea of implicit, unquestioning obedience had been so thoroughly instilled into the Japanese mind, that not a word of grumbling passed any of our lips.

  On the night of 21st March the tactics of the 9th of the same month were repeated, including the laying of harmless mines off the mouth of the harbour, and the high-angle bombardment of the fortress by the Fuji and Yashima from Pigeon Bay; but the affair was uneventful; it may therefore be dismissed with the bare mention of it. The Russian ships again came out of harbour and ranged themselves in battle formation in the roadstead, but no wiles of ours could tempt them to leave the protection of the forts, so we drew off and returned to our rendezvous among the Elliot Islands.

  During the night of 22nd March, four merchant steamers, purchased by the Japanese Government, arrived at our rendezvous from Sasebo, in response to a request from Togo; and the Admiral, with characteristic energy, at once proceeded to prepare them for the task of making a second attempt to bottle up the fleet in Port Arthur harbour.

  They were the Fukui Maru, Chiyo Maru, Yoneyama Maru, and Yahiko Maru—all old craft, practically worn-out, and of very little value. These ships, like those used in the first attempt, were loaded with stones and scrap iron consolidated into a mass by pouring liquid cement over it, thus converting it into a sort of reinforced concrete, underneath which was buried the explosion charges destined to blow out the bottoms of the ships and sink them upon their arrival at their destined stations.

  Hirose, now promoted to the rank of Commander for the gallantry which he displayed upon the occasion of the first attempt, was given the command of the largest ship, the Fukui Maru, while, to my intense surprise and gratification, I was given the command of the Chiyo Maru, a craft of 1746 tons. The expedition was in charge of Commander Arima, who went with Hirose. The ships were armed with a few old Hotchkiss quick-firers, for use against torpedo craft, should any attack us.

  Our preparations were completed late in the afternoon of 26th March; and we immediately weighed and proceeded to sea, escorted by a flotilla of destroyers and torpedo-boats, among which was the Kasanumi, temporarily under the command of my subordinate, young Hiraoka, who had already proved himself to be a very capable, discreet, and courageous lad.

  The weather on this occasion was everything that could be desired, perfectly clear, with no wind and a sea so calm that the veriest cock-boat could have safely ventured upon it. The only drawback was that there was a moon, well advanced in her first quarter, floating high in a sky dappled with light, fleecy cloud through which enough light percolated to render even small craft distinctly visible on the horizon. But, after all, this would not greatly matter, indeed it would be an advantage to us, always provided, of course, that we were not prematurely sighted by some keen-visioned, swift-steaming Russian scout; for the moon would set about midnight, while two o’clock in the morning was the time set for our attempt.

  The run to the offing of Port Arthur was like a pleasure trip; our fleet of old crocks pounded along steadily, with a soft, soothing sound of purling water rising from under their bows, dominated from time to time by the clank of our crazy engines, which our mechanics had doctored up as thoroughly as time permitted, in order to ensure that they should outlast the run across. There was nothing for us to do but follow our leader, so I spent an hour of the time in making sure that our solitary boat should reach the water with certainty and on a level keel when the time should come to launch her, taking the turns out of the davit tackles, well greasing the falls, oiling the block sheaves, and rigging up a device of my own contriving whereby the necessity to unhook the blocks could be avoided when the boat touched the water.

  At eleven o’clock Commander Arima signalled the destroyer flotilla, and five of the fastest of them at once went full speed ahead, spreading out in a fan-shaped formation ahead of us and on either bow to reconnoitre the roadstead. At ten minutes to midnight the moon, a great golden half-disc, swimming in a violet sky flecked with great islands of soft, fleecy cloud, touched the high land of Liau-ti-shan; and as she sank behind it, the order was given to stop our engines and lay-to for a short while, as we had made a good passage and were somewhat ahead of our scheduled time; also to await the return and report of the destroyers. We were now about twelve miles off Port Arthur, and far enough beyond the range of the searchlights to ensure our presence being undetected.

  With the setting of the moon, the clouds seemed to bunch together and acquire a greater density, and it fell very dark, such starlight as filtered through the canopy of cloud only barely sufficing to enable us to detect our next ship ahead and astern. The land about Port Arthur loomed up in the darkness like a shapeless black shadow, stretched along the horizon to the west and north, pierced only by the long beam of the searchlight on Golden Hill, sweeping slowly to and fro at intervals. Watching this, for want of something better to do, we presently noticed that, for some reason not explicable to us, the beam never travelled farther south than a certain point, where it invariably paused for a few seconds, and then slowly swept round toward the north again.

  Wondering whether Arima also had noticed this, I rang our engines ahead for a revolution or two, and hailed the Fukui to inquire. It appeared that he had not; and I was in the middle of a suggestion, the observance of which would, I believed, enable us to get close in, undetected, when our destroyers came rushing back with the information that everything was clear ahead, and that the prospects of success looked exceedingly promising. Whereupon Arima, hailing me, directed me to take the lead in the Chiyo, steering such a course as seemed desirable,
and the rest would follow. Accordingly, we in the Chiyo went ahead, the Fukui falling in next astern, and the other two retaining their original positions.

  We started at a speed of six knots only, to give our stokers a chance to get their boilers into the best possible trim and to raise a good head of steam for the final rush, and as soon as our safety valves began to blow off, we increased the number of our revolutions until, when we arrived within four miles of the harbour’s mouth, we were racing in, as though for a wager. At this point the destroyers stopped their engines and lay-to. They had done the first part of their work, and must now wait until we had done ours.

  Meanwhile, I had quite made up my mind as to the proper thing to do, and accordingly shaped a course by which, instead of running straight in, and so crossing the track of the searchlight beam, we edged away to the southward and westward, traversing the arc of a circle, and so just keeping outside the range of the beam. But of course this sort of thing could not go on indefinitely; to enter the harbour we must, sooner or later, get within the range of the light; and when we arrived within two miles of the harbour’s mouth further concealment became impossible. But we had done not at all badly, for a ten minutes’ rush would now see us where we wanted to be, if in the meantime we were not hit and blown out of the water.