CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE KORYU MARU.
Meanwhile the _Fukui Maru_ had also reached her destination, and as wepushed off in the boat from the side of our own sinking ship, we heard,through the din of firing and the explosions of bursting shells, theroar of her cable as her crew let go her anchor. I was sitting with myback turned toward her, intent upon getting our boat as close inshore aspossible, when the engineer, who was sitting beside me, touched my armand pointed.
I turned and looked, to see Hirose's ship brought up right inmid-channel--the berth assigned to her; and, bearing down upon her, aRussian destroyer, her funnels and guns spouting flame and smoke as shetore furiously through the water. Another instant, and the destroyerswerved, just clearing the stern of the _Fukui_; there was the flash ofa torpedo from her deck tube, a terrific explosion, and the _Fukui_seemed to be hove up out of the water on the top of a great cone ofleaping sea intermingled with smoke and flame. The ship had beentorpedoed, quite uselessly, indeed worse than uselessly, for theRussians had simply saved our people the trouble of sinking her.
The destroyer passed on, and we temporarily lost sight of her in thedarkness and wreathing smoke. We saw the _Fukui's_ boat lowered, andthe crew get into her; but she remained alongside so long that she onlygot away barely in time to avoid being dragged down with the ship.Meanwhile, shells were falling not only all round but also aboard the_Fukui_, and we presently saw that she was on fire, as well as sinking.Nearly or quite a dozen shells must have struck her before she finallyfoundered; but it was not until the next day that we learned the fullextent of the tragedy. It then appeared that the explosion of thetorpedo had either disconnected or shattered the wires connected withthe explosives in the _Fukui's_ bottom, and a petty officer named Suginohad gone below to explode the charges. It chanced that this man was ablood-brother of Hirose, and, not returning to the deck as he wasexpected to do, Hirose went in search of him, after ordering the boat toleave the ship. A few seconds later a shell was seen to strike Hiroseon the head, of course killing him instantly. Later on, we heard thathis floating body had been picked up in the harbour by the Russians,who, to do them justice, buried it with military honours.
A small air of wind at this time came breathing down the harbour,momentarily dispersing the thick veil of smoke that overhung the water,and we were thus enabled to see that our third ship, the _Yahiko Maru_,had also succeeded in reaching the berth assigned to her, and was atthat moment in the very act of sinking, close to the Pinnacle Rock, agreat monolith which rose high out of the water on the western side ofthe harbour's mouth. Thus far, therefore, everything had gone well withthe expedition; and now all that remained was for the fourth ship, the_Yoneyama Maru_, to close up the gap that still remained.
I looked round to see if I could see anything of her, and presently theshifting of the searchlight beam from the _Yahiko_ revealed her comingalong in fine style, and heading straight for her appointed berth.Hitherto, the Russian batteries had been too busy, attending to usothers, to take much notice of her, and she appeared to be all atauntoand quite uninjured. I felt curious to see what was going to happen toher, and gave my crew the order to "Easy all, and lay on your oars!"
As I did so, a Russian destroyer--I could not tell whether it was thecraft that had torpedoed the _Fukui_, or another--emerged from thedarkness, heading straight for the _Yahiko_, as though to run her down!Would they dare? I wondered. Surely not. But if they did not, therewas no reason why the _Yahiko_ should not; she was a stout-built,merchant steamer, and, old as she was, would shear through thedestroyer's thin plating as though it were brown paper. If I had beenin charge of the _Yahiko_, I would not have hesitated an instant, indeedI would have jumped at the chance, and in my excitement I leaped to myfeet and, making a funnel of my hands, yelled frantically:
"_Yahiko_ ahoy! Give her the stem, man; give her the stem!"
But at that precise moment the Russian guns opened again, this timedirecting their fire upon the _Yahiko_, and my hail was effectuallydrowned by the crash of the explosions.
I am of opinion that, a moment later, the commander of the _Yahiko_ sawhis chance, just too late to fully avail himself of it, at all eventsthe bows of the steamer suddenly swept round, and although the destroyerinstantly shifted her helm, she was too late to entirely avoid acollision; the rounding of the _Yahiko's_ bow struck her and roughlyshouldered her aside, both craft reeling under the impact; and at thatinstant the destroyer let fly every gun that would bear, the fire fromthem actually scorching the Japanese crew, who were at that momentpreparing to lower their boat. The _Yahiko_ passed on, and so did thedestroyer, the latter vanishing in the darkness to seaward, while the_Yahiko_, the centre of a very galaxy of bursting shells, staggered onin a sinking condition, and went down at the very moment when, withastounding skill and coolness, her skipper had brought her to the exactspot for which she was intended.
Then it was seen that, either through some miscalculation or, moreprobably, because the Russians had widened the channel, there stillremained an unfilled gap, wide enough for a single ship to pass through!It was a most vexatious thing, after all the trouble that we had takenand the ordeal which we had passed through; but it could not be helped;it was the fortune of war.
Stay, though! Why should it not be helped? All that was needed wasanother steamer--or perhaps two steamers--to fill the gap, and the thingwas done. And, hang it all! I was game to do the job myself to-morrownight, when the Russians would least expect me.
But, to do the job effectually, it was highly necessary to know theexact width of the gap, and the depth of water in it; and now was thetime to ascertain those particulars, while we were on the spot. I woulddo it!
Then came the very practical question: How? What means had we to takesoundings, or to measure the gap between the sunken _Fukui_ and the_Yoneyama_? I looked about me, and found that all we had with us wasthe boat's painter, a piece of rope some seven or eight fathoms long,which might serve as a sounding-line, if only we had a sinker of somesort, which, unhappily, we had not. Then one of the men in the boat,realising what I wanted, informed me that, while preparing the boat forlowering, he had chanced to glance into the locker in the stern-sheets,and had noticed a fishing-line there. Would that be of any use? Ofcourse it would; the very thing for sounding, at all events. We hadthat line out in double-quick time, cut away the hooks, and thenproceeded to knot it at exact intervals corresponding with the length ofthe boat's after-thwart. Precisely what that length might be, we couldascertain afterward.
But, how to measure the width of the gap? There seemed to me to be butone way to do it, and that was by taking the length of our boat herselfas a unit of measurement; not a very satisfactory method, I admitted,yet better than nothing. So thereupon we set to work.
Starting at the _Fukui's_ mainmast, we dropped the sinker of thefishing-line over the stern and paid out until it reached her deck.Then, giving way with the oars, we felt our way along her deck to hertaffrail, lifted the sinker, and dropped it again, clear of the wreck,until it touched bottom. Then, noting the depth as so many knots andfractions of a knot, I jotted the result in my notebook while, theoarsmen keeping the boat in position, another cast was made at the bowend of the boat. Proceeding in this manner, and taking the utmost careto obtain accurate results, we accomplished our task in about half anhour, under a heavy fire from the Russians on the heights, which,strange to say, injured none of us.
This done, we pulled out to sea, and were soon afterward sighted andjoined by the _Tsubame_ and _Aotaka_, Japanese torpedo-boats, which tookus aboard, and exultingly informed us that, a quarter of an hour or soearlier, they had engaged and driven ashore a Russian destroyer, whichafterward proved to be the _Silny_, the craft which had torpedoed the_Fukui_, and had narrowly escaped being run down and sunk by the_Yahiko_.
The torpedo-boats' crews made much of us and, I believe, would havegiven us everything they had, if we would have taken it; but I contentedmyself with a pannikin o
f _saki_, to counteract the cold of my drenchedclothing, and then asked them to run me off alongside my own ship, the_Kasanumi_, which was hove-to about a mile further out. My crewreceived me back with literally open arms and loud shouts of "BanzaiNippon!" when I allowed it to be known that we had succeeded in doingall that we had been ordered to do. Young Hiraoka was disposed toregard me as a hero, and to treat me as such, commencing a longcomplimentary speech of homage and congratulation; but I cut him shortby remarking that I was perishing of cold, and dived below to givemyself a good rough towelling and to change into dry kit.
When I went on deck again, the dawn was just brightening the easternsky, and I then noticed that we seemed to have more than our propercomplement of men aboard. Inquiring the reason, I learned that the_Kasanumi_ had picked up the crew of the _Fukui Maru_, poor Hirose'sship; and they furnished me with the particulars of the gallant fellow'sheroic death. I also learned that while we had been engaged in theendeavour to block the harbour, our destroyers had been busily employedin sowing further harmless mines, in accordance with the Admiral's planto convince the Russians that Japanese mines were useless and need notbe feared.
As the daylight strengthened, it revealed our fleet, strung out alongthe horizon, the Admiral having followed the blocking ships anddestroyers upon the off-chance that the Russians might be tempted tocome out and attack them, in the event of our failing in our mission.
And at first it appeared as though that chance might be afforded us.For, as we steamed away to the eastward, we saw smoke rising from thefunnels of some of the ships in the harbour, and shortly afterward thecruisers _Bayan, Novik_, and _Askold_ came steaming out, with thebattleships following. But it was no go; the Russians opened along-range fire upon us, to which we gave no reply, slowly retiringinstead, in the hope of enticing the enemy's ships to follow us beyondthe cover of their batteries. The Russian Admiral, however, was toowary, refusing to be drawn, and, putting up his helm, he returned to theharbour. Nevertheless, the event was not altogether unprofitable to us,for as the Russian ships re-entered the harbour, the _Petropavlosk_ ranfoul of the _Sevastopol_ and damaged her so severely as to render herunfit for further service until she could be repaired.
Meanwhile, the destroyers being no longer required, I devoted myself tothe task of reducing to an intelligible state the soundings andmeasurements which I had that morning taken; and by the time that wewere back at our rendezvous I had a little sketch plan of the harbour'smouth ready for the Admiral, showing the exact width of the gap and thedepth of water in it, thus enabling him to determine the precise size ofthe craft required to fill it. I also volunteered to return and fill upthe gap that very night, if he could let me have a ship of the requireddimensions. But it appeared that he had no ship that could at that timebe spared; consequently the job had to wait.
But Togo was profuse in his thanks for my offer; and was pleased to beexceedingly complimentary in his remarks touching my "gallantry" in thematter of taking the soundings, as also upon our conduct generally intaking in the blocking ships under such a terrific fire and sinking themexactly in the required positions. He expressed great grief at the lossof poor Hirose, who was, without doubt, a remarkably promising officer,and would assuredly have further distinguished himself and gone far, hadhe lived.
Just before we arrived at our rendezvous that night, our high-pressurecylinder developed a bad crack, possibly through some unsuspected flawin the casting; and as there were no means of repairing it, excepttemporarily, where we were, and as in the meantime the boat was useless,I received orders to have the crack patched-up as far as possible, andthen to proceed to Sasebo, to have a new cylinder fitted. This mishapinvolved an absence of the _Kasanumi_ from our rendezvous for ten days;but, as events proved, it did not matter in the least; for the Admiral,doubtless for good and sufficient reasons, now permitted a period ofinaction to occur, during which nothing happened beyond the usualwatching of Port Arthur harbour. I availed myself of the opportunitythus afforded to have my little ship docked, scraped, and repainted;while my engineer took his engines entirely to pieces, subjected them toa thorough overhaul, and replaced a few brasses and other matters thatwere showing signs of wear. He also overhauled the boilers, and fittedquite a number of new tubes; so that when at length the boat left thedry dock she was in first-class condition, and ready for any servicethat could be reasonably asked of her.
I found awaiting me at the post office quite a nice little batch of mostcheering and encouraging letters from my friends, the Gordons, to whichI duly replied at considerable length, giving them--and especiallyRonald--full particulars of my adventures up to date; and the receipt oftheir letters made me feel that while a man had such staunch friends asthey had proved to be, the world was not such a bad place, after all.
We got back to our rendezvous at the Elliot Islands on the afternoon of9th April, the little _Kasanumi_ looking as smart and spick-and-span asa new pin, her hull, funnels, mast, guns--everything, in fact, excepther deck--painted that peculiar tint of medium smoky-grey whichexperience had proved to render her almost invisible, even in daylight,and absolutely so at night; and the moment that our anchor was down Iproceeded aboard the flagship to report myself, and also to delivermails for the fleet and dispatches for the Admiral, which I had broughtwith me.
There did not seem to be very much doing at the rendezvous when Iarrived, beyond the rebunkering of such craft as needed it; but Inoticed a rather smart-looking steamer of about four thousand tons,fitted as a mine-layer, with lighters on both sides of her, out of whicha number of very business-like-looking mines were being hoisted.
But when I got aboard the _Mikasa_, and was shown into the Admiral'scabin, I found the little gentleman up to his eyes in business, asusual. He dropped his work, however, when I was announced, and, risingfrom his chair, greeted me in the most hearty and friendly manner; then,bidding me be seated, he asked me how I had spent my time at Sasebo. Heexpressed the utmost satisfaction with everything that I had done; andpresently, when the orderly brought in a bundle of letters and papersfrom the mail which I had brought, he opened the latter and, selectingfrom it a particular sheet--the Tokio _Asahi_, I believe it was--openedit, glanced eagerly at a particular column, and then, with a smile and apointing finger, handed the sheet to me. It had been opened at the pagecontaining naval intelligence; and glancing at it, I perceived, to myamazement and delight, that I had been gazetted to the rank of Captain,"as from 27th March, in recognition of conspicuous gallantry inconnection with the second attempt to close Port Arthur harbour." Thetwo other surviving skippers had also been similarly promoted.
I scarcely knew how to find words eloquent enough to thank Togo for hisgenerous recognition of my services, such as they were; but he would notlisten to a word of thanks, insisting that I had honestly earned thepromotion, and thoroughly deserved it.
"And now," he concluded, "I am going to give you a further opportunityto distinguish yourself. I have in hand some work, the successfulexecution of which demands a man who can be depended upon to keep hishead and his nerve under the most trying conditions, such as those whichexisted when you took those soundings and measurements, under, fire, theother day; indeed it was that piece of daring which caused me to selectyou for the work. You may perhaps have observed a steamer shippingmines--You did? Yes, I thought you would. Well, that steamer is the_Koryu Maru_, a very smart boat, steaming twenty-two knots, which I havehad fitted as a mine-layer. The Russians have passed to and fro overour mine-field off Port Arthur, and have had full opportunity to learnthat our mines are so harmless that they may be regarded as negligible,so, now, I propose to teach them a new lesson. The mines which the_Koryu_ is shipping are not harmless; on the contrary, they areexceedingly formidable affairs, containing charges ranging from onehundred to two hundred pounds of Shimose explosive, and they arearranged to automatically adjust themselves to varying depths of water.The ship which strikes one of them will be done for! Having told you somuch, you will readily underst
and that they are ticklish affairs tohandle, particularly when it comes to laying them; hence my choice ofyou, Captain Swinburne, to supervise and execute the task. I shall beglad if you will go aboard, at your earliest convenience, and makeyourself thoroughly acquainted with the mode of handling them, which isessentially different from that of handling the mines to which you havebeen accustomed."
I thanked the Admiral for this fresh manifestation of his trust in me,and took my leave, pausing only for a few minutes, on my way to thegangway, to exchange greetings with some of the officers of the ship,and reply to their congratulations upon my promotion, the news of whichhad already got abroad. Then I went down the side, got into my boat,and was pulled across to the _Koryu_, where I found the delicateoperation of shipping and stowing the mines in brisk progress. Iintroduced myself to the officer in charge, who at once proceeded toexplain to me the structure and mechanism of the class of mines beingdealt with; thus enabling me to understand the danger to be guardedagainst while handling them; after which he conducted me to my cabin,perched high on the boat deck; and I immediately took possession,sending my boat back to the _Kasanumi_ with a note for young Hiraoka,requesting him to take charge during my absence, and another to mysteward, instructing him to send me across such things as I immediatelyneeded. The change was greatly the better for me; for whereas myquarters aboard the _Kasanumi_ were cramped and of Spartan simplicity,the captain's cabin of the _Koryu_ was a spacious and almost luxuriousaffair, handsomely and comfortably furnished, with all the accommodationthat a reasonable man could wish for.
Two days later our fleet weighed and proceeded to sea, leaving the_Koryu_ at anchor, with our fourth and fifth destroyer flotillas andfourteenth torpedo-boat flotilla--twelve craft in all--to protect her.My orders were to proceed to sea in time to reach Port Arthur roadsteadat midnight of the 12th, sow the harbour approach with mines accordingto a certain plan, and then retire, with the assurance that, ifattacked, there would be a force of ample strength lying in wait toprotect me.
One part of my duty--after laying the mines--was to endeavour to enticethe Russian fleet to come out in pursuit of me. Experience had taughtus that, for some reason with which we were unacquainted, the Russianships invariably followed a certain course when leaving the harbour,while, when returning, they as invariably followed another; myinstructions, therefore, were to sow my mines over the area by which theships returned to port, while leaving free that area traversed by themwhen coming out; the reason of course being, that as many ships aspossible should be enticed to come out, in the hope that many of themwould be destroyed upon their return.
The night of the 12th was a wretched one in some respects for ourpurpose. The weather was thick; a strong breeze was blowing from thesouthward, kicking up a nasty sea; it was bitterly cold; and a thindrizzle of fine snow made the thick atmosphere still thicker; so that itwas impossible to see farther than a ship's length in any direction. Iforesaw, therefore, that I had a very difficult task before me, not onlyin getting the little torpedo-boats across in the heavy sea, but indepositing the mines in the right place after we should arrive.
To spare the torpedo-boats as much as possible while making the passageagainst a heavy head sea, I decided to proceed at a speed of ten knots;and we accordingly got under way at five o'clock in the evening, leavingourselves an hour in hand to cover any delay which we might meet with.I had very carefully studied the tides and the current charts during theafternoon, taken careful note of the strength of the wind, and, takingthese matters into consideration, had worked out a course that, unlesssome of the conditions changed, should take me to the exact spot Iwished to reach, at eleven o'clock.
Punctual to the moment we started, "in line ahead," each vessel towing afog buoy behind her to serve as a guide to the next astern, and thesebuoys I had at the last moment caused to be coated with luminous paint,to make them visible in the intense darkness.
All went well with us; the destroyers rode the seas like gulls, while,at the moderate speed of ten knots, the torpedo-boats were not only ableto keep station perfectly but also avoided washing their crewsoverboard. At ten-thirty I made the prearranged signal, and my escorthove-to, leaving me to finish my journey and carry out my perilous taskalone.
I knew exactly where I was--or rather, where I ought to be--for I hadkept a careful reckoning of our progress from the moment of starting,and, unless something had gone wrong, we were then exactly two milessouth-east of the Pinnacle Rock lighthouse. But it was necessary tomake sure, otherwise I might lay my mines in the wrong place, and all mylabour would be useless; I accordingly shaped a course for thelighthouse and cautiously stood in, with a leadsman stationed at eachextremity of the overhanging navigating bridge. These took continuouscasts of the lead and reported the result to me through my "Number 1,"who stood outside my cabin and called to me through an open window,while I stood at the table, with the chart spread open before me,pricking off our position minute after minute, and comparing theleadsmen's results with those shown on the chart, the two agreeingaccurately.
At length we reached a point beyond which it would be dangerous to go,and I ordered the engines to be stopped and reversed, at the same timestepping out on to the bridge, to ascertain if anything could be seen.But it was as thick as a hedge, the lighthouse lantern was unlighted,and there was not even a gleam from the searchlight on the cliffs aboveto enable us to verify our position. True, the roar of breakers closeat hand told us we were not far from the shore; but that was all we hadto guide us; there was nothing for it, therefore, but to go ahead and dothe best we could.
There is no need for me to enter into a detailed and technicaldescription of the operation of laying mines; I will therefore merelystate that, despite the adverse conditions, we succeeded inaccomplishing our task and withdrawing without mishap. But we were nota moment too soon, for the light of dawn was filtering through the hazeas we dropped our last mine and moved cautiously away from the completedfield.
The next thing was to find our escort, which we had left two miles outat sea. We were groping our way slowly seaward through the fog, keepinga sharp lookout for the destroyers, when all in a moment the mistlifted, and we sighted them about half a mile distant. And at the sameinstant, some four miles away to the north-east, appeared a squadron offive destroyers, which we at once identified as our second destroyerflotilla. And yet--no that could scarcely be right, for our "second"consisted of only four boats, while yonder were five--with--yes--a sixthclose inshore. I turned to get my binoculars out of the case, in orderto investigate a little more closely, and even as I did so the fivedestroyers became suddenly enveloped in a wreathing cloud of powdersmoke, while the sharp, angry bark of quick-fire guns broke the morningsilence. The five destroyers were unquestionably engaged in a fightamong themselves. The firing continued quite briskly for about fiveminutes; then there pealed out a sharp, violent explosion, a great cloudof smoke shot into the air; the firing abruptly ceased; and the smokecleared away just in time to show that one of the destroyers--the craftwhich we had been unable to identify--was sinking, a shattered,shapeless wreck.
At this moment a cry from my "Number 1" distracted my attention from theinteresting little drama which I was eagerly watching, and, turningtoward the harbour's mouth, in response to his pointing finger, I saw abig, four-funnelled, two-masted cruiser, which I instantly recognised asthe _Bayan_, coming foaming out of harbour, evidently intent upondriving off our destroyers, which were now busily launching their boatsto save the crew of the destroyer, which had by this time foundered. Iwas in the very act of issuing an order for one of our Hotchkisses to befired, to warn the destroyers, when the _Bayan_ opened fire upon themwith her light guns, and they were obliged to retreat, double-quick.
Of course the _Bayan_ was no match for them in the matter of speed, soafter covering the retreat of the second destroyer, which was creepingalong close inshore, and pausing to pick up the survivors of the sunkendestroyer, the cruiser turned her attention--and her guns--upon
us. Butwe were out of range of her light guns, and for some unknown reason shedid not open fire upon us with her heavy weapons, we therefore quickenedup to about her own speed, or a trifle less, hoping we might be able toentice her out to where we knew our own cruiser squadron was waiting tocover our retreat. Unfortunately for the success of my scheme, AdmiralDewa, who commanded the squadron, no sooner heard the firing than he puton speed and rushed to our rescue, emerging from the mist and becomingvisible while still some three miles away. The instant that they wereclear of the fog bank, and could see what was happening, the squadronopened fire upon the _Bayan_ with their heavy guns, when that ship wasin turn compelled to up helm and beat a hurried retreat, to my intensedisgust; for I felt confident that if our cruisers had only lain doggoin the fog bank, I could have cajoled the Russian ship into following meso far out to sea that her retreat could have been cut off, and weshould have nabbed her. As it was, the _Diana_ and _Novik_ came rushingout to her rescue; whereupon Dewa, who by this time recognised themistake he had made, turned and retired, apparently in a panic, forgreat clouds of smoke were presently seen to be pouring from the funnelsof all his ships. But before ten minutes were over it became perfectlyevident that the Admiral was "playing foxy," for despite the clouds ofsmoke, his ships were barely holding their own, if indeed they weredoing as much as that. Naturally, we in the _Koryu_ at once took ourcue from the Admiral, and stoked up for all we were worth, using as muchsmall coal as we could scrape together, in order to increase the volumeof smoke pouring from our funnel, while we allowed the _Novik_ to gainupon us a trifle from time to time, and then, by an apparently desperateeffort, drew away from her again. And this time it really looked asthough our ruse was going to prove successful, for the three Russiancruisers continued to chase us with the utmost pertinacity anddetermination.