Our way led through the Japanese camp, so I had a very good opportunity to observe what the domestic life—if I may so term it—of the Japanese soldier was at the front; and I was surprised to see how thoroughly every possible contingency had been foreseen and provided for, and how many ingenious little devices had been thought out and included in his kit with the object of adding to his comfort.

In due time we arrived at headquarters; and late though the hour was, the General and his staff were all not only awake and on the move, but were holding a sort of council of war, for the purpose of making the final arrangements for the morrow. As it happened, my arrival was most opportune, for the staff were planning the details of an assault that could by no possibility be successful without the assistance of the navy, upon which they were all confidently reckoning, whereas it was my duty to inform them that, unless there came a very quick change of weather, it would be impossible for our ships to co-operate, and I had to explain at length why. This caused an immediate change of plan, the grand assault being provisionally postponed, since there was no prospect whatever at that moment of a change of weather occurring in time.

I delivered my message and produced my map, explaining the various markings upon it and describing the work upon which I had been engaged during the past few days; and I was exceedingly gratified to learn that it would greatly simplify and assist the general's plans.

It was also satisfactory to know that the Japanese had never had the slightest suspicion of what I was doing, which was tantamount to an assurance that the Russians were equally ignorant. It was amazing to see the facility with which Oku altered his plans. No sooner did he understand that the chances were all against the fleet being able to help him on the following day than he was ready with an alternative scheme; and in a quarter of an hour he had everything cut-and-dried, every officer present was given clear and concise instructions relative to his duties on the morrow, and we were all dismissed with a hint to get what rest we might, as the morrow was to be a busy day. General Oshima, who was in command of the 3rd Division, constituting the Japanese left, very kindly took me under his wing, and found me sleeping quarters in a tent, the occupants of which happened to be out on duty.

Being greatly fatigued after my swim, I slept soundly that night, but was awakened at dawn by the bugle calls, and turned out to see what the weather was like. To my disgust, and doubtless that of everybody else, it was worse than ever; the sky was overcast and louring, with great rags of dirty grey scud flying athwart the face of the heavens from the westward, while the top of Mount Sampson was completely enveloped in mist, which, notwithstanding the gale, clung to the rugged peak and ribs of the mountain very much as the "tablecloth" does to the summit of Table Mountain. There was no fog down where we were, but, what was even worse, we were smothered with blinding and suffocating clouds of dust, for it was a dry gale, and all hands were devoutly praying that the louring sky would dissolve into rain, if only for half an hour, just to lay the dust and so save us from the unpleasantness of being blinded and suffocated. As for the bay, it was just one continuous sheet of foam, while the breakers leapt and boiled for a space of a full mile from the beach. A single glance at it was sufficient to make it clear that it would be impossible for the fleet to co-operate so long as the gale lasted, even if the tossing masts and spray-enveloped hulls of our craft in the offing had not told a similar tale. General Oshima and I walked a couple of miles to the northward along the slopes of Mount Sampson, in order to get a good view of the bay, clear of the northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, just to make assurance doubly sure; but it was scarcely necessary to point out to him the wildly plunging hulls of our ships to make him understand the hopelessness of the case, and that once clearly established, we hurried back to Headquarters to make our report.

Oku, however, was not the man to be deterred by weather, or indeed anything else. Finding that the projected assault was impossible for the moment, he resolved to begin the bombardment with his own guns, doing the best he could with them, unaided, and accompanying the bombardment with what he termed "a demonstration in force," in order to bring out the Russians and compel them to man their defences while exposed to the fire of our guns. Thus, by a curious combination of circumstances, it appeared that at last I was to be afforded the opportunity of seeing what a land battle was like.

Naturally, I volunteered my services in any capacity where I could be made useful, and the general eagerly closed with my offer. He was particularly anxious to obtain the exact range of certain of the Russian positions without being obliged to fire any trial shots, and he asked me if I could do this for him, seeing that I had already done similar work quite recently; and I told him that I could, and would, with pleasure, if such a thing as a box sextant or an azimuth compass was to be found in camp. Somewhat to my surprise it turned out, upon inquiry, that no such things were to be had. I therefore had recourse to what is known among engineers as a "plane table," which I was obliged to extemporise; and with this apparatus, used in conjunction with a carefully measured line, three hundred yards in length, I was soon able to supply the information required. The whole device was, of course, of a very rough-and-ready description, but I was greatly gratified when the first shots were fired, to see the shells drop upon the exact spots aimed at.

The task which General Oku had undertaken, and which he must accomplish before an advance could be made by him upon Port Arthur, was an exceedingly difficult one. As has already been said, he effected a landing at a point near Yentoa Bay, distant some sixty miles north-east of Port Arthur as the crow flies. From thence he must needs make his way to Port Arthur overland, since there was no such thing for him as getting there by sea. About half-way on his journey occurred the isthmus of Kinchau, which is only about two miles wide, and which he must traverse on his way. A neck of land two miles wide is no great matter to fortify, a fact which the Russians speedily demonstrated. To march along such a narrow strip of land, with sixteen thousand resolute armed men saying you Nay, would be difficult enough, in all conscience, were that strip of land level; but unhappily for the Japanese it was not so, the Nanshan Heights running through it from north to south, like a raised backbone, leaving only a very narrow strip of low ground on either side of it. Nor was this the only difficulty which the Japanese had to contend with, for, some three miles north-east of the narrowest part of the isthmus, towered Mount Sampson, over two thousand feet in height, commanding the entire neighbourhood and affording an ideal position for the Russian batteries. Then, at the foot of Mount Sampson lay the walled city of Kinchau, which the Russians had seized and fortified; and, finally, there were the Nanshan Heights, upon the crest of which the Russians had constructed ten forts, armed with seventy guns, several of which were of 8-inch or 6-inch calibre, firing shells of from two hundred to one hundred pounds weight.

To attempt to pass these several positions while they were in the hands of the Russians would have been simply courting annihilation; the first task, therefore, was to capture them. This, so far as Mount Sampson was concerned, had been done when I arrived upon the scene; but there still remained Kinchau and the Nanshan Heights to be taken; and each of these threatened to be an even tougher piece of work than the storming of Mount Sampson; for the Russians, after their experience of the extraordinary intrepidity of the Japanese when storming the mountain, had adopted every conceivable means to make the heights impregnable.

First of all, there were the ten forts with their seventy guns lining the crest of the heights, in addition to which the Russians had two batteries of quick-fire field artillery and ten machine-guns. Next, in front of the forts, all along the eastern slope of the heights—which was the side from which attack was possible—there was row after row of shelter trenches, solidly roofed with timber covered with earth, to protect the occupants from artillery fire. Below these again the Russians had dug countless circular pitfalls, about ten feet deep, shaped like drinking cups, with very narrow bottoms, each pit having at its bottom a stout, upright, sharpened stake upon which any hapless person, falling in, must inevitably be impaled. They were, in fact, an adaptation of the stake pitfalls employed by many African and other natives to capture and kill big game. These pits were dug so close together that, of a party of stormers rushing up the slope, a large proportion must inevitably fall in, or be unwittingly pushed in by their comrades. Passages between these pits were purposely left here and there, but they were all mined, each mine being connected to one of the forts above by an electric cable, so that it could be exploded at any moment by merely pressing a button. And that moment would of course be when the passage-way was crowded with Japanese. And, lastly, at the foot of the hill there was a great maze of strongly constructed wire entanglements, during the slow passage of which the hapless stormers would be exposed to a withering rifle and shell fire. Thus the task which the Japanese had to perform was, first to pass through the wire entanglements at the foot of the hill; next, to achieve the passage of the staked pits and the mined ground between them—exposed all the time, be it remembered, to a terrific fire from the forts and trenches above; next, to take line after line of trenches; and, finally, to storm the forts on the crest of the heights—a task which, I frankly admit, seemed to me impossible.

I must confess that my first impressions of a land battle were disappointing. I had expected to see the Japanese march out and storm the heights under cover of the fire of their own guns. And, as a matter of fact, they did march out, but there was no storming of the heights; I had momentarily forgotten that what I was witnessing was merely a "demonstration." I presume it served its purpose, however, for the General and his staff seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the result; and in any case it had the effect intended of compelling the Russians to man their trenches under the fire of the Japanese guns, which, feeble though they were as compared with those of the enemy, must have inflicted severe punishment upon the packed masses of infantry who swarmed into the trenches to repel what they had every reason to suppose was a genuine attack. But the Japanese—closely watched by a Russian captive balloon, which was sent up directly our troops were seen to be in motion—having compelled the Russians to turn out and expend a considerable quantity of ammunition in comparatively innocuous long-range shooting, calmly marched back again about three o'clock in the afternoon, about which time the firing ceased. While it lasted, however, it was hot enough to bring on heavy rain, and the day ended with a tremendous downpour, which converted the hillsides into a network of miniature cascades, and must have been exceedingly unpleasant for any of the Russians whom expediency and watchfulness compelled to remain in the trenches.

With nightfall the gale increased in fury; but the rain had produced at least one good result; it had laid the dust most effectually while it had made but little mud, for the thirsty earth seemed to absorb the water almost as fast as it fell; also it cooled the air considerably, which was all to the advantage of the Japanese, who would have the strenuous work of climbing the hill, while it would tend to chill and benumb the Russians, who would be compelled to remain comparatively inactive in the sodden trenches. Whether it was this consideration, or the fact that the barometer was rapidly rising, or a combination of both, I cannot say, but about ten o'clock that night the word went round that a general attack upon the Russian works was to be made as soon as possible after midnight.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE STORMING OF NANSHAN HEIGHTS.

By midnight a change of weather had occurred; the wind, which at ten o'clock in the evening had been blowing harder than ever, suddenly subsided, the air grew close, almost to suffocation, and an immense black cloud settled down upon the summit of Mount Sampson, where it rested broodingly, the sure precursor of a thunderstorm, if I was any judge of weather lore.

The first troops to move consisted of a detachment of the 4th Engineers' Battalion, who were assigned the perilous duty of blowing down the gates of Kinchau, of which there were four, corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compass. I volunteered to accompany this party, for the task which devolved upon them was one that rather appealed to me; but Oku was most emphatic in his refusal, explaining that he would more than probably require my services at daylight, or shortly afterward, to communicate with the squadron in the offing. Accordingly, I had to stand aside, somewhat unwillingly, and see them march off without me; which was perhaps just as well, for the attempt resulted in failure, and every man who participated in it was killed.

Just as the Engineers marched out of camp on their way to Kinchau, the brooding cloud on the summit of Mount Sampson began to send forth flash after flash of vivid lightning, green, blue, and sun-bright, which lighted up not only the rugged slopes of the mountain itself, but also those other and more deadly slopes of the Nanshan Heights, while peal after peal of thunder crashed and rolled and reverberated among the ravines which scored the sides of the mountain. It was a weird enough scene of itself, but its weirdness was intensified by the Russian searchlights, which were turned on with the first crash of thunder, which the Russians appeared to mistake for the roar of Japanese guns. As a matter of fact they appeared to be a bit panicky that night, for not only did they turn on the searchlights at the first sound of thunder, but the occupants of the forts and trenches on the crest and side of Nanshan Heights at once opened a terrific fire from every piece, great or small, that could be brought to bear upon the foot of the slope, which was instantly swept by a very hurricane of shrapnel and rifle bullets, while the Japanese, safely under cover, looked on and smiled.

For two hours that storm raged with such fury that the volleying peals of thunder quite outroared the booming of the Russian artillery and rifle-fire, which gradually died down as the Muscovites began to realise that there was no attack; and about two o'clock in the morning the storm passed away, still rumbling and muttering, to the eastward. But during that two hours of elemental fury, a Chinese village in the neighbourhood was set on fire and practically destroyed, while several Japanese soldiers were struck by lightning, and either killed outright or more or less seriously injured.

With the passing of the storm a thick, white mist arose from the low ground, completely blotting out everything beyond a few yards distant; and under the cover of this mist the Japanese made their dispositions for the coming battle, entirely unseen by the enemy, and probably unheard also, for it was a revelation to me to see how quietly large bodies of men could be moved when the necessity for silence had been fully impressed upon them.

As the dawn gradually brightened the sky behind the ridge of Mount Sampson, the Russians again became uneasy, and their rifles once more began to speak from the trenches, a shot here, then another shot yonder, followed by quite a spluttering here and there all along their front; but their artillery remained silent, for the fog was still so dense that nothing could be seen at which to aim.

Protected by the cover of the fog, the Japanese soldiers went to breakfast, fortifying themselves with a good meal, in preparation for the arduous labours of the day that lay before them; and I did the same, for I knew not how long it might be before I should again have the opportunity to eat or drink; also, following the example of several of the officers and men, I filled my jacket pockets with biscuit, and provided myself with a good capacious flask of cold tea, having done which, I felt ready for anything.

We had barely finished breakfast when the sun showed over the ridge of Mount Sampson; and almost immediately the thick curtain of fog, which had thus far so effectually hidden the movements of the Japanese troops from the enemy, began to lift and thin. This was the signal for the final movement prior to the storming of the Nanshan Heights; and that movement was directed against the city of Kinchau, it being known by this time that the devoted band of engineers who had been dispatched at midnight to blow in the gates of the city must have failed in their mission, otherwise some of them at least would have been back to report.

To the 1st Division was assigned the task of taking the city; and they did it in brilliant style. Marching upon the southern gate, a party of four engineers was sent forward to blow in the massive barrier, which was protected by steel plates and bands, secured by heavy steel bolts, and loopholed for musketry. The devoted quartette succeeded in placing their blasting charges and igniting the fuses under a heavy fire, not only from the loopholed gate, but also from the walls, but in so doing they were so severely wounded that after they had lighted the fuses they were unable to effect their escape, and received further severe injuries when the explosion occurred and the gate was blown off its hinges. Then the waiting 1st Division, straining like eager hounds held in leash, rushed forward through the thick, acrid smoke, with levelled bayonets, yelling "Banzai Nippon!" as they ran; and as they charged impetuously in through the south gate, the enemy went streaming as impetuously out through the west gate, about half a mile away.

Kinchau was now in the hands of the Japanese; but this was not sufficient for them, they must needs pursue the flying Russians; and they did so with such furious impetuosity that they literally drove them into the sea—that is to say, into the waters of Kinchau Bay, where the luckless Russians, to the number of five hundred, were either shot down or drowned, almost to a man, only ten of them surviving and being taken prisoners. I had a distant view of the whole affair from a knoll on the northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, where I had taken up a position which commanded a view, not only of practically the whole of the ground over which the stormers would have to pass, but also of the bay and our fleet, to which I should probably be required to signal from time to time as the fight progressed.

Meanwhile, the mist had by this time lifted, revealing a flotilla of our torpedo-boats and destroyers feeling their way into the bay and keeping a bright lookout for possible mines. Well astern of them came the Akagi and Chokai; and still farther out were the old Hei-yen and the cruiser Tsukushi, cautiously creeping in, with leadsmen perpetually sounding on either beam. The bottom, about where they were required to be, was flat, and the tide was on the ebb, the great fear of the skippers of those two craft, therefore, was that they might touch the ground and hang there, left by the tide, exposed helplessly to the fire of the Russian guns. Thanks, however, to my labours of a few days earlier, they were all able to get close enough in to open upon the Russian works at extreme range, although, until the tide should rise, they could not bring a thoroughly effective fire upon the Russian batteries and so put them out of action.

But if we had ships, so, too, had the Russians, in the shape of the gunboat Bobr and five small steamers in Hand Bay, on the side of the isthmus opposite to Kinchau Bay, the Nanshan Heights being between them, so that each was hidden from the sight of the other. The Bobr was likely to prove a very awkward customer for us; for she mounted one 9-inch and one 6-inch gun, which, although they were a long way from being up-to-date, were still quite good enough to out-range the Japanese field-guns and severely pepper our left, which occupied the ground at the head of Hand Bay. The steamers which accompanied her were, our spies discovered, fitted up expressly for the purpose of quickly ferrying troops across from one side of Hand Bay to the other, according as they might be wanted, instead of being obliged to march round the head of the bay in the face of our troops. Thus the Russians were in a position to either harass our left flank and rear, or to rush reinforcements across the head of the bay—a distance of about a mile— as circumstances might require.

The Bohr began the day's proceedings by opening fire with her 9-inch gun upon the artillery of our 3rd Division, which had taken up a position upon the lower slopes of Mount Sampson, from which it could reach the Russian batteries established upon the crest of the Nanshan Heights. The gunboat's fire did very little mischief, but it seemed to be regarded by both sides as a signal to begin the fight, for at once our batteries got to work, their shells dropping with most beautiful precision upon the guns and trenches of the Russians. I was so stationed that I had a most excellent view of practically the entire scene of operations, and no sooner did our artillery open fire than the Russian batteries replied with a crash that seemed to make the very air quiver.

A land battle is a very different spectacle from a sea battle, in this respect: that, in the latter, a shell either hits or misses its mark, and if it misses there is a splash or two and that ends the matter, so far as that particular shell is concerned. But ashore, every shell, whether or not it finds its mark, hits something, though it be only the ground, and immediately there is a violent explosion, a flash of fire, a great cloud of smoke, and a violent scattering of dust, clods of earth, and stones—if nothing worse. Thus, I must confess that for a few seconds I was perfectly amazed to see the slopes of Mount Sampson, on the one hand, where our artillery was placed, and the Nanshan Heights, on the other, where were situated the Russian batteries, suddenly burst into great jets of flame, clouds of smoke, and flying debris, as the shells showered down upon them. The explosions of shrapnel were easily distinguished from those of common shell, for the former almost invariably burst in the air, the smoke from the explosions standing out against the background of sky or hill like tufts of cotton-wool that had suddenly sprung into existence from nowhere.

Very shortly after the artillery duel began, I saw the Japanese infantry moving out to storm the Nanshan Heights, and I smiled to myself at the acuteness of their leaders, for the men began their advance in such open formation that a shrapnel shell seldom succeeded in accounting for more than one man, and often enough it failed to do even that. Of course they were seen from the trenches, and a terrific rifle-fire was opened upon them, but for the same reason it was very ineffective—at the outset at least, for a rifleman had to be a crack shot to bowl over his man at a distance of close upon a mile. And if one wished to get his man, he had to aim at him, and correctly judge the distance too. This, of course, was at the beginning of the attack; later on, matters became a good deal more favourable for the defenders and correspondingly adverse to the attacking force.

I was interestedly watching the development of the attack upon the heights, when a galloper dashed up to me with a message from the General requesting me to signal our ships in the offing to concentrate their fire upon the Nanshan ridge; and so smart were our men, and so keen a lookout were they maintaining aboard our ships, that within three minutes of the receipt by me of the order, their 10-inch, 5-inch, and 6-inch shells were dropping all along the ridge, busily searching it for the Russian batteries, the positions of which, unfortunately, could not be seen from the western side.

For the next half-hour I was kept incessantly employed in signalling our fleet, directing their fire; but the shoal water of Kinchau Bay was all against us, and although our ships drew in so close that they touched the ground several times, they were still too far off to actually silence the Russian batteries, although they contrived to give them a very severe punishing and, to some extent, distract their attention from the stormers. Unfortunately, they could only muster six heavy guns between them, and these, at the extreme range at which they were obliged to fire, were not nearly enough, though they certainly helped.

When at length I was once more free to turn my attention to what was happening on the eastern side of the heights, I saw that our foremost line of skirmishers had reached a spot about a mile distant from the first Russian defences, consisting of a perfect maze of wire entanglements, and were signalling back to the main body. Almost immediately a detachment of Cossacks appeared, advancing at a gallop toward the signallers, from the direction of Linshiatun, a village on the shore of Sunk Bay, and as the horsemen appeared every Japanese soldier vanished, as if by magic, having flung himself down upon the ground and taken cover. On swept the Cossacks, yelling, lashing their horses with their whips, and brandishing their long lances. Suddenly, down went a horse and rider, the next instant a Cossack flung up his arms and collapsed inert upon his horse's neck, then another reeled and fell, then two or three went down almost at the same instant, then half a dozen. And the curious thing about it was that there was nothing, no sudden spurt of flame, no smoke wreath, no crack of a rifle, to account for these casualties. That is to say, I could neither see nor hear anything; but the fact was that those Cossacks were going down before the calm, deliberate rifle-fire of the concealed Japanese infantry-men. Then a flash from one of the field-guns of our 3rd Division caught my eye, and before the sharp bark of it reached my ear, a white tuft of cotton-wool-like smoke suddenly appeared in the air above the galloping Cossacks, and more of them went down. Another flash, and another, and another, more tufts of cotton-wool leaping into view, tremendous disorder and confusion among the Cossacks, men and horses falling right and left, and then the survivors suddenly wheeled outward and galloped back at headlong speed, leaving behind them a mangled heap of men and horses, the greater number dead, but here and there a prostrate, kicking horse might be seen, or a wounded Cossack crawling slowly and painfully away from the scene of carnage.

The flight of the Cossacks was the signal for the resumption of the advance by the Japanese, whose skirmishers reappeared, still in very open formation, a man here and a man there showing for a few seconds as, in a crouching attitude, he rose to his feet, scurried forward a few yards, and then again took cover, while the fire of the Russian guns swept the ground over which he was passing. As yet, however, there appeared to be very few casualties among our men; here and there I noticed a prostrate form lying motionless, while others crept up and scuttled past him; he had been found by a shrapnel shell, and his share of the work was done; but even shrapnel cannot do much harm if the formation is kept sufficiently open. And as man after man pushed forward, others crept out, following, until the whole of the ground between our lines and the base of the heights was dotted with Japanese infantry-men creeping ever closer up to the first line of the Russian defence, the terrible maze of barbed wire entanglements.

Meanwhile, the whole of the Japanese field artillery, as well as that of our ships, was concentrating its fire upon the crest of the heights, covering the advance of the stormers; and now my attention was once more diverted from that advance by the necessity for me to signal directions to the fleet. And now it was that the full value of my previous labours began to be manifested; for I had but to signal the ships to direct their fire upon such and such a point—wherever, in fact, a Russian battery was proving especially troublesome—and all that the gun-layers had to do was to refer to the maps with which I had supplied them, and they were at once informed of the exact range of that point, with the result that a hail of shells instantly began to fall upon that particular battery with the most deadly precision. Thus, after a little while, every battery on the heights became in turn the focus of a terrific crossfire from the ships and the field batteries, the effect of which soon became manifest in the silencing of several of the Russian guns, either by dismounting, or, as we afterwards discovered, by the complete destruction of the men working them.

With the guns of our fleet playing such havoc among the ten forts which crowned the heights, it now became possible for our field artillery to turn its attention upon the trenches, tier after tier of which lined the eastern slope of the heights, up which our stormers would have to pass. Those trenches were quite formidable works, roofed over with timber and earth to protect the occupants from artillery fire, and loopholed for rifle-fire; yet, thanks again to my labours of the previous day in determining the exact range of them, our guns were able to search them from end to end, blowing the parapets to dust and matchwood, and hurling the wreckage among the gunners who were working the Russian quick-firers and machine-guns, many of whom were thus killed or wounded. The carnage must have been—indeed was, as we later saw for ourselves—frightful, yet the Russians maintained a most gallant defence, and clung to their trenches with unflinching determination. A lucky shell from one of our field-guns fell upon and exploded one of the many Russian mines which were scattered pretty thickly over the hillside, and the explosion blew a big gap in one of the lines of wire entanglements, a circumstance which without doubt resulted subsequently in the saving of many lives.

Hour after hour the artillery duel proceeded, our gunners doing their utmost to cover the slow advance of the stormers, while the Russian artillery systematically swept with a crossfire every inch of the ground which our men would have to traverse. The crash of the artillery was continuous and most distracting, and the effect was intensified by the incessant scream of the shells and the sharp thud as they burst, interspersed with the everlasting hammering of the machine-guns and quick-firers; Nanshan was ablaze with the fire of the Russian guns and the bursting of our shells, and the entire hill was enwrapped in fantastically whirling wreaths of smoke which were every moment rent violently asunder by the explosion of bursting shells.

Thus far I had occupied my position undisturbed, but about mid-morning certain Russian sharpshooters chanced to detect me and my assistant in the act of signalling to our ships, and they at once favoured me with their undivided attentions, to such purpose that I was compelled to beat a hasty retreat. The change of position which I was compelled to make was, however, advantageous rather than otherwise, for I found a perfectly safe spot behind two tall boulders standing close together, which, while effectually shielding me from the Russian bullets, still enabled me to see all that was happening.

Yet, that "all" might be summed up in a very few words—just incessant flashes of fire, great volumes of smoke, and, interspersed with the smoke, patches of flying debris. Very little else. No great masses of troops advancing in serried lines, column after column, with colours proudly flying, and burnished bayonets glistening in the sun; none of the old-fashioned pomp and circumstance of war when the opposing armies marched toward each other with bands playing, discharged their muskets when they were near enough to see the whites of their opponents' eyes, and then charged with fixed bayonets, fighting it out hand to hand. That sort of battle went out of fashion with the introduction of the breech-loading rifle and the machine-gun; and now, with between fifty and sixty thousand men in action, there were periods when not a solitary human being could be seen. And when any did appear, which was only at intervals, they were but few in number—just a man here and a man there dotted about sparsely over a large area of ground, visible for perhaps half a dozen seconds, and then lost again, hidden behind cover of some sort.

It was getting well on toward noon when a message reached me from the General to the effect that two batteries of Russian quick-fire field-guns had been discovered on the summit of Nan-kwang-ling—a hill some eight hundred feet high, about a mile to the westward of the Nanshan Heights—and requesting me to signal our ships in the bay to give their whole attention to those two batteries. Unfortunately for us, the tide in the bay was now on the ebb, and the Hei-yen and Tsukushi were obliged to haul off to avoid grounding; but the Akagi and Chokai responded nobly to the call, creeping in until they actually felt the ground, and enveloping Nan-kwang-ling knoll in flame and smoke.

I had scarcely finished signalling to the ships when a stir on the plain immediately below me indicated that the General considered the artillery "preparation" complete, and that the actual storming of the Russian position was now to be attempted. A battalion of our 1st Division, situated in the Japanese centre, suddenly deployed into the open, and commenced its advance by making a series of short rushes through some fields of green barley, on the opposite side of the road from Kinchau to Linshiatun, dashing forward a few yards, and then, as the machine-guns and rifles in the Russian trenches were turned upon them, sinking from view into the barley, through which they crept on hands and knees until the whistle of the leader or the call of a bugle gave the signal for another dash. The heroism of those devoted Japanese infantry was something to send a thrill through the heart of a man; no sooner did they show than the whole of the ground which they occupied and that in front of them was swept by a devastating crossfire from the whole line of the Russian trenches, which beat down the young barley as a heavy shower of rain might level it. To me, unaccustomed to this style of fighting, it looked as though nothing might venture upon that shot-swept zone and live; yet time after time the intrepid Japanese rose to their feet and, crouching low, made yet another short rush forward, though with sadly diminished numbers. The uproar was deafening; the crash of the heavy guns upon the crest of the heights and from Fort Hoshangtao, near Linshiatun, which now joined in the fray, mingled with the hammer-like thudding of the machine-guns and the continuous rolling crackle of rifle-fire from the trenches, was frightful. And then, as though this were not enough, the Russian gunboat Bohr turned her 9-inch guns upon the advancing Japanese and, quickly getting the range, began to drop shells right among them. The slaughter, one understood, must be awful; yet, prepared as I was in a measure for what followed, I stood aghast when finally, out of that whole battalion, a mere handful of men, numbering perhaps some fifty or sixty, emerged from the growing barley and made a staggering rush toward the first line of wire entanglements, which they at once proceeded to attack with nippers, fully exposed all the while to the concentrated fire of the whole body of defenders. It was a forlorn hope of the most desperate description, and one after another the gallant fellows collapsed and died, pierced by innumerable bullets. The first assault had resulted in failure, and those who took part in it were wiped out!

And now it was that the Russians deemed the moment suitable for a counter-demonstration. The Bohr, doubtless in obedience to some signal from the shore, steamed up toward the head of Hand Bay as far as the shoaling water would permit, the five steamers loaded with troops closely following her and making as though it was their intention to land the troops upon a small promontory jutting out into the head of the bay. This was a distinct menace to the Japanese left, and although it might be merely a demonstration, it was imperative to meet it, or it might develop into a serious and most embarrassing attack; therefore, badly as it could be spared from the task of shelling the heights and the Russian trenches, a battery of our field-guns placed on the south-western slope of Mount Sampson was turned upon the gunboat and her accompanying flotilla of steamers, the latter being compelled to hastily retire, while several of our shells struck the Bohr, and temporarily silenced her fire. Judging from appearances generally, the gunboat appeared to have been rather severely punished; and about a quarter of an hour later she slowly retired to her former position, farther down the bay, and re-opened her fire, although with considerably less vigour than before.

The fire from Fort Hoshangtao, occupying the promontory which separates Sunk Bay from Hand Bay, was a most galling factor in the fight, for its guns had a range which enabled them to drop their heavy shells right upon our left and centre, while it was out of range of our own guns. Therefore our men had to stand motionless, hour after hour, and endure the pitiless shelling of the Russian gunners, with the bitter knowledge that to silence the fort was quite out of our power.

The utter annihilation of the first battalion of stormers warned General Oku that to advance comparatively small parties was but to sacrifice them uselessly, while it also indicated that the task of artillery "preparation" had been by no means as complete as he had judged it to be; he therefore sedulously continued the work of preparation all through the afternoon until five o'clock, when a message from the artillery commander warned him that the crisis was at hand. The message was to the effect that he had fired away practically his entire supply of ammunition, only his reserve rounds remaining. What was he to do?

Situated as I was at a distance of more than two miles from headquarters, upon an outlying spur of the Nanshan Heights, and quite alone, save for the companionship of a solitary assistant signaller, with only occasional curt orders from the General in reference to the signals which he wished me to transmit to our ships in the offing, I was naturally ignorant as to the critical pass at which we had arrived, and could only draw my conclusions from what I actually saw happening. What occurred at staff headquarters during this momentous day, and especially at this momentous hour, I did not learn until several hours later, but, so far as is possible, I propose to relate events in their chronological order, that the proper continuity of my narrative may be maintained; I will therefore briefly state here that when the General received the artillery commander's message that his ammunition was practically exhausted, he summoned a few of his principal officers, and held a brief council of war. What was to be done, under the circumstances? It was now five o'clock in the afternoon, and the bringing up of further supplies of ammunition would involve a delay of at least two hours, and probably more, while to suspend all action meanwhile would practically be to defer the assault until the next day. Certain of the officers present strongly advocated this postponement, giving it as their opinion that to attempt to storm the heights unsupported by adequate gun-fire was merely to make a useless sacrifice of whole brigades of sorely needed men; one or two officers, indeed, ventured to express their conviction that the heights were impregnable.

The discussion lasted about a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time General Oku, who had been listening but saying nothing, abruptly broke up the council by announcing his determination to risk everything upon a single cast of the die; the gunners were to expend their reserve rounds of ammunition upon a slow, carefully considered, deadly bombardment of the heights, while the entire infantry force was to move forward simultaneously to the assault. The officers who had ventured to advise delay shook their heads doubtfully, but at once proceeded to their stations, fully prepared to loyally support the General to their last breath.

When the news of the General's decision was communicated to the troops, it was only with the utmost difficulty that they could be restrained from cheering, and so putting the Russians on the qui vive, although they had been warned beforehand to maintain strict silence.

The first step in the proceedings was for the officers commanding the various regiments to call for volunteers prepared to undertake the task of preceding the main body of the stormers in order to cut a way through the lines of wire entanglements, and to sever the electric cables connecting the innumerable ground mines with the forts. Volunteers were invited to step six paces to the front, and in the majority of cases the entire regiment appealed to advanced six paces with the precision and promptitude of a parade evolution. Under such circumstances there was, of course, but one thing to be done, and that was for each captain to choose a certain number of men—those he considered best adapted for the work—and detail them for the duty.

These men, a veritable Forlorn Hope, discarding knapsacks, greatcoats, everything in the shape of impedimenta, even their weapons, and armed only with a stout pair of wire-cutting nippers, dashed out of the ranks like unleashed greyhounds at the word of command, and with a great shout of "Banzai Nippon!" went running and leaping through the fields of young barley, each eager to outdistance all the others. And as they went, the crash of their own and the enemy's artillery, the fire of which had been languishing, burst forth afresh, mingled with the hammering of machine-guns and the rolling volleys of rifle-fire. In a moment the whole of the ground over which the pioneers would have to pass was being swept by a crossfire of lead in which it seemed impossible that anything could live. Man after man was seen to go down, yet still his comrades pressed on, in ever-diminishing numbers, until at length a mere handful staggered up to the first line of wire entanglements, and there fell, riddled with bullets, their task unaccomplished.

But not for a moment did their fate discourage those who were detailed to follow them. Like racers they dashed forward, in widely extended order, now leaping high in the air and anon crouching almost double in a vain effort to dodge that terrible inexorable hail of bullets, and again man after man went crashing to the ground while other panting, gasping, breathless men staggered and stumbled past the prostrate figures, intent upon one purpose only, to reach that line of wire and sever a few of the entanglements before yielding up their lives. And a few of them actually contrived to accomplish their purpose before they died, although the damage which they were able to do was quite incommensurate with the frightful sacrifice of life which it cost.

In accordance with Oku's plan, the main body of the stormers followed closely upon the heels of the volunteer wire-cutters. The 1st Division led the way, dashing forward and losing heavily, until they arrived within a few yards of the foremost line of Russian trenches, and here they were brought to a standstill by the wire entanglements, while the Russian rifle and machine-gun-fire played upon them pitilessly, mowing them down in heaps. In desperation some of them seized the firmly rooted posts to which the wires were attached and strove to root them up by main force, while others placed the muzzles of their rifles against the wires and, pulling the trigger, severed them in that way. Some attempted to climb over the wire, others to creep through; but where one succeeded, twenty became entangled and were shot dead before they could clear themselves. Those, however, who contrived to get through at once gave their attention to the mines, the positions of which were clearly indicated by the settlement of the ground caused by the rain of the preceding night, and thus it became possible to sever several of the electric cables which connected them with the forts.

But those awful entanglements still held up the main body of the stormers, keeping them fully exposed to a murderous fire from the trenches as they desperately strove to break through, and things were beginning to look very bad indeed for our side when I chanced to notice that the Russian lines on their left were weak, the bulk of the men having been rushed toward the centre, where the attack was being most fiercely pressed. In an instant I recognised that here was our opportunity, our only opportunity perhaps, to retrieve the fortune of the day. Turning to my companion, I said:

"I dare not leave my post here, for at any moment I may receive a message to be signalled to our ships. But I can—I will—manage single-handed for the next quarter of an hour or so if you are game to sprint across the open to carry a message from me to General Ogawa. You will find him somewhere yonder, in command of the 4th Division; and if you run hard you can cover the distance in five minutes. Are you game to try it?"

"I am honourably game, illustrious captain," replied the man, standing at the salute.

"Good!" I said. "Then make your way as quickly as possible to General Ogawa, and when you have found him, say you come from me, Captain Swinburne. Explain to him where I am posted, and tell him that from here I can see that the Russian left has been so greatly weakened that a surprise attack on his part would certainly turn it, and thus very materially help the frontal attack. Tell him it will be necessary for him to lead his troops along the shore of the bay in that direction,"— pointing; "say that it may even be necessary for his troops to enter the water and wade for some distance, since the tide is rising; but that if he will do that, I am certain he can retrieve the day. You understand? Then, go!"

With a salute, the man swung round upon his heels and sprang away down the hill, running like a startled hare, and in less than five minutes I saw him rush into the lines of the 4th Division. Then, feeling pretty confident that Ogawa would recognise the opportunity and seize it, I snatched up the signal flags that my assistant had dropped and proceeded to call up the fleet. After calling for about a minute, I dropped the flags and placed my glasses to my eyes. It was all right, they were keeping a bright lookout afloat, and the Tsukushi was waiting to receive my message. I therefore at once proceeded to signal them to be ready to support the anticipated movement with their gun-fire; and by the time that I had done, the men of the 19th Brigade were proceeding at something a bit faster than the "double" toward the shore, while every gun in the squadron opened in their support. As I had anticipated, the troops were obliged to actually enter the waters of the bay, which in some places rose breast-high; but they pushed through, losing rather heavily, and hurled themselves upon the Russian flank and rear, while the others, getting an inkling of what was happening from the sounds of heavy firing on the other side of the hill, pressed home the frontal attack, thus keeping the Russian main body busily engaged.

With yells of "Banzai! Banzai Nippon!" the men of the 19th Brigade fought their way forward, foot by foot, using rifle and bayonet with such furious energy that suddenly the Russians broke and fled before them, and with howls of exultation the victorious Japanese scrambled forward and upward until their figures became visible to their comrades below, still fighting desperately in the effort to break through the Russian lines. Thirty engineers of the victorious 4th Division were now detailed to cut a path through the wire entanglements that still protected the Russian trenches; and they did it, lying flat upon the ground without attempting to raise their heads. Twenty-two out of the thirty were killed in the accomplishment of the task, but a way was made, and through it poured Ogawa's gallant brigade, the 8th Regiment taking the lead, and the next moment they were in the Russian trenches, fighting desperately, hand to hand, the Japanese determined to drive out the Russians, and the Russians equally determined to hold their ground at all costs.

And now the stormers of the 1st and 3rd Divisions, seeing the success of their comrades, were stung into the making of a further effort, and, hurling themselves bodily upon the entanglements, actually broke them down by sheer physical force, although hundreds were horribly mangled in the process, and despite the awful fire from rifles and machine-guns that mowed through them, up they swept irresistibly until, with deafening yells of "Banzai!" they joined their victorious comrades on the crest and planted the banner of Japan upon the topmost height of Nanshan. For a few brief, breathless minutes the members of the staff, watching from below, beheld the glint and ruddy flash of bayonets in the light of the setting sun as the Russians made a last desperate effort to hold their ground; but the Japanese infantry, intoxicated with their success in the face of stupendous difficulties, would take no denial: they had conquered wire entanglements, braved machine-gun-fire, and now mere flesh and blood was as powerless to stop them as a thread is to stop a battleship. The Russians simply had to fly or die; and they chose the former alternative, retreating in disorder upon Nankwang-ling, while the Japanese, whose turn it was now to take revenge for the losses so pitilessly inflicted upon them all through the hours of that terrible day, rained shot and shell without mercy upon the flying foe.

The weather had been improving ever since morning, and now, as the firing gradually died down, the sun sank into the waters of the Gulf of Liaotung in a blaze of purple and golden splendour. As the palpitant edge of his glowing upper rim vanished beneath the long level line of the western horizon, the firing on both sides suddenly ceased altogether, and a great, solemn hush fell upon the scene, that was positively awe-inspiring after the continuous, deafening roar all day of the cannonade, and the crash of bursting shells. And then, as the ear accustomed itself to that sudden silence, it became aware of a low but terrible sound breaking it, the moaning of hundreds of mangled, suffering, and dying men, the ghastly fruits of that ferocious struggle for the possession of a few barren acres of rough, hilly country.

Suddenly the fast-gathering dusk of evening became illuminated; the station buildings in the little village of To-fang-shan were ablaze, doubtless purposely set on fire by the Russians to hinder possible pursuit—and were soon a mass of flame, the flickering light from which luridly illuminated the scored and gashed sides of the neighbouring hills. Finally, with a terrific roar, a Russian magazine exploded, sending up a great column of flame and smoke; and as the reverberations of the explosion rumbled and echoed again and again until they finally died away among the gorges and ravines of the surrounding elevations, silence again sank upon the scene, the victorious Japanese being so utterly exhausted by their Herculean labours that pursuit of the flying Russians became impossible, the conquerors flinging themselves down on the positions which they had gained, and instantly sinking into a kind of lethargy, their fatigue being so great that they were unable to remain awake long enough to partake of the food that was quickly prepared for them.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

I AM THANKED IN PRESENCE OF THE ARMY.

The Japanese loss, incurred in the struggle for possession of the Nanshan Heights, amounted to over four thousand, killed and wounded. What the Russian loss in killed and wounded totalled up to I do not think we ever knew, excepting that, by the evidence of the captured trenches alone, it must have been tremendously heavy. Their material losses, however, amounted to sixty-eight guns, many of which were of 8-inch or 6-inch calibre, ten machine-guns, three searchlights, a dynamo, and a considerable quantity of ammunition and food; while the victory gave to the Japanese the complete command of the isthmus, by enabling General Nakamura to seize Linshiatun, and Fort Hoshangtao, in its immediate neighbourhood, thus opening the way to the occupation of Nan-kwang-ling and Dalny, and the advance of Oku's army upon Port Arthur.

As soon as it became evident that fighting was over for the day—by which time it had become too dark for me to signal to our squadron in the offing—I made my way down the hillside to the spot where the headquarters staff was established and, seeking General Oku's tent, entered and reported myself. The General received me very kindly and courteously, but I could see in a moment that he was tremendously busy, the tent being full of officers to whom he was rapidly issuing orders. Having therefore reported myself and received orders to remain in camp for the night, I withdrew and sought the hospitality of my hosts of the previous night, who accorded me a very warm and cordial welcome. But there was none of that joyousness, that exaltation of spirits that I had expected to see as a result of the brilliant victory which we had gained; our numbers were less than they had been on the previous night, the absentees were lying out under the stars, either dead or wounded, somewhere yonder upon those shot-scored, blood-drenched slopes of Nanshan, and the joy of victory was quenched in sorrow for the fallen. We snatched a hasty, almost silent meal, and then those of us who had not to go forth on duty rolled ourselves in our cloaks and sought the relief of sleep.

For my own part, I slept like a log, and only awoke when the bugles sounded the reveille. Our little party turned out, tubbed, took breakfast, and then, at the sound of the "assembly," sallied forth to see what was to be the next item on the programme.

Strong ambulance parties had been busily engaged all through the night, collecting the wounded and bringing them in to the hospital tents, but that work was now practically finished, and the preparations for the disposal of the dead had not yet been begun. The still weary troops were falling in, under arms, and in the distance I recognised General Oku, surrounded by the members of his staff, already on the ground. The commanding officers were at their posts, the non-commissioned officers were busily engaged in seeing that the troops were all in order for inspection, and a few minutes later the roll call was being gone through. This done, the troops were put through a few simple evolutions which terminated in their being drawn up in close formation constituting three sides of a hollow square, with the men all facing inward. General Oku then summoned an aide-de-camp to his side, gave him a brief order, and the aide, saluting, turned away and glanced rapidly about him, finally making his way toward where I now stood alone, at no great distance.

He halted within about six paces of me, saluted, and said:

"The Commander-in-Chief desires your immediate presence, most honourable Captain. He stands yonder."

"Right!" I said. "I will join him at once. Have you any idea what he wants me for?"

"I think I can guess," replied my companion, as he fell into step beside me, "but I am sure that the General will prefer to make that known to you himself."

I said no more, and a couple of minutes later we halted before the general staff, and Oku took and returned my salute. Then he shook hands with me with much cordiality, and requested me to take up a position alongside him, on his right hand. This done, he proceeded to make a little speech to the closely packed troops. Shorn of the rather strange—to Western ears—flowery phraseology peculiar to the Japanese, his speech ran somewhat as follows:

"Soldiers of the Second Japanese Army, I gladly seize the first available opportunity that presents itself to tender you, on behalf of our august Emperor and the people of Japan, my most heartfelt thanks for the glorious victory which, by your indomitable courage and self-sacrifice, you so nobly achieved yesterday. The difficulties which you were called upon to surmount were so stupendous and the valour of the enemy so great, that there was a moment when I almost became persuaded that the position which you were attacking was impregnable, and that all the courage and devotion which you had displayed had gone for nothing. Yet I could not quite bring myself to believe that soldiers of Japan would ever permit themselves to be beaten, under any circumstances, however adverse; I therefore called upon you again for one last, supreme effort, and the valour and devotion with which you responded to my call is attested by the victorious presence of our glorious flag upon the heights to-day."

Here the General was interrupted by a soul-stirring shout of "Banzai!" from the exultant troops. The echoes of the shout had not died away among the surrounding hills before the serried masses of infantry were once more silent and motionless as statues, and Oku resumed:

"I am proud, your officers are proud, and I am sure that you yourselves are proud, of your glorious achievement. Yet we soldiers must not arrogate to ourselves the entire credit of so magnificent a victory. Without the assistance of the navy, that victory—I say it frankly— would have been impossible. The sailors therefore are entitled to an equal share of the glory which we yesterday reaped on the slopes of those terrible heights; and I rejoice that chance has afforded me so early an opportunity as this to tender my personal thanks, the thanks of my officers, and the thanks of every soldier in the ranks, to the navy, here represented by the noble and gallant Captain Swinburne."

Here there were further shouts of "Banzai!" even more enthusiastic, if that were possible, than those which preceded them. The General raised his hand for silence, and presently proceeded:

"We are, however, indebted to Captain Swinburne, not only as representing the navy, but also in a purely personal form. All through the trying hours of yesterday he stood on the slopes of those heights, alone save for the companionship of a solitary signaller, exposed, during some part of the time, to the pitiless fire of the enemy, and in constant danger of being captured; and during the whole of that time he devoted himself unsparingly to the task of directing the fire of our ships to the spots where from time to time it was most urgently needed; crowning this great service by sending a communication to the commander of the 4th Division which enabled that officer to effect the diversion which resulted in our hard-won victory. I have, therefore, now in the presence of you all, the honour to tender to Captain Swinburne, on behalf of our august Emperor, thus publicly, heartfelt thanks for the inestimably valuable services which he yesterday rendered to the cause of Japan."

So saying, General Oku turned to me and gave me a hearty handshake, an example which was immediately followed by the officers of the staff, while the troops put their caps upon their bayonets and waved them enthusiastically, yelling "Banzai!" until I am sure they must have felt as hoarse as crows.

This little ceremony over, I received the General's permission to rejoin my ship as soon as he had penned a dispatch to Admiral Misamichi, who was in command of the squadron, and which he requested me to deliver. This dispatch I received about half an hour later, from Oku's own hands, whereupon I bade him and the members of his staff farewell, wished them the best of luck in their further encounters with the enemy, and then hurried away to the little cove on the north side of the bay, which I had used on two or three previous occasions, and where I had a shrewd suspicion that I should find my boat awaiting me. I was not mistaken, and shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch I was aboard the Tsukushi, handing over General Oku's dispatch to the Admiral. The latter at once read it, and seemed much gratified at its contents, which, however, he did not communicate to me. But I shrewdly surmised that it was a letter of thanks for the services rendered by the squadron and an intimation that our presence was no longer needed. And, so far as the latter part of my assumption was concerned, I was doubtless right, for after a little chat, during which I briefly related my experiences of the previous day—learning in return that the Chokai had lost her commander and two men killed, with two lieutenants and five men wounded—I received instructions to return to my ship, as the squadron would presently proceed to rejoin Admiral Togo at his base. And an hour later we were all steaming out of the bay.

Two days after our arrival at the base, the destroyer Kagero arrived with mails for the fleet, and, to my great surprise, she brought for me a letter from my Uncle Bob, as well as one from my chum, young Gordon, and another from Sir Robert.

Naturally, I first opened the letter from Uncle Bob, for not only was it the first letter which I had received from any of the family since my "disgrace," but also the envelope was deeply edged with black, and my first fear was that it might contain the announcement of the death of dear Aunt Betsy. But upon extracting the contents of the envelope I was at once reassured, for I saw that it really consisted of two letters, one from Uncle Bob, and the other from my aunt. There had been a death in the family, however, that of Cousin Bob, the author of the trouble which had resulted in my dismissal from the British Navy. It appeared that while engaged in battle practice there had been a bad accident on board the Terrible, one of her quick-firers having burst, killing two men and wounding five others, one of the latter so seriously that he had subsequently died. That one was Bob; and when informed by the ship's surgeon that he had but a few hours to live, he had sent for the chaplain and to him had made a full confession of his crime, declaring that he had been spurred to it by blind, unreasoning jealousy of me. The chaplain, horrified at what he heard, took down the confession in writing, and poor Bob had signed it after the chaplain had added, at the dying lad's request, an expression of deep contrition for his misdeed and a prayer to me for forgiveness of the wrong which he had done me. The two letters were sad reading, for they had been penned by heart-broken people who had not only lost their only son, but had learned, at the very moment of their loss, that all their pride in him had been misplaced, and that he had been guilty of a deliberate, despicable, cruel crime. Their shame and sorrow were patent in every sentence of the letters, indeed they made no effort to conceal them, and they finished up by saying that, Bob being gone from them, and gone so tragically, they hoped I would forgive them for any hard thoughts they may have had of me, and would be a son to them in place of the one they had lost. They further begged that, my innocence now being established, I would lose no time in hastening home to them, to comfort them in their bitter bereavement, and to take steps to procure my reinstatement in the British Navy, which, they had been informed, might probably be accomplished without much difficulty under the circumstances.

The letter from Sir Robert Gordon was also chiefly in reference to Bob's death, the particulars of which, and of his confession, he had learned from his son Ronald. He also was of opinion that, in view of Bob's confession, it ought not to be very difficult to secure the cancellation of my expulsion, whenever I might choose to return to England. But he said no word suggesting that I should return at once; on the contrary, he offered his own and Lady Gordon's very hearty congratulations upon the frequency with which my name had been mentioned in the papers as having been specially referred to by Togo in his dispatches, and they both expressed the hope that before the end of the war I should have many further opportunities to distinguish myself.

The letters from my aunt and uncle moved me profoundly; their grief for the loss of their only son, and, even more, their shattered faith in him, was pathetic in the extreme, while it was easy to see how yearningly their hearts turned to me for comfort and consolation in their bitter bereavement. They were smarting with shame at the thought that it was their son, the lad of whom they had been so proud and upon whose future they had built such high hopes, who was the author of my undeserved disgrace and ruin, so far as my career in the British Navy was concerned; and they wanted me at home in order that they might have the comfort of doing what they could to make up to me for their son's treachery. And in the plenitude of my affection I was, for the moment, more than half inclined to yield to their entreaties, resign my commission in the Japanese navy, and go home to them forthwith. But in the course of an hour or two calm reflection came to my aid; I would certainly return to England and endeavour to secure reinstatement in the navy of my own country, but not until after the war was over, if I lived so long. I had put my hand to the plough, and I would not turn back, although, of course, I knew that there were plenty of Japanese officers quite as good and useful as myself, and quite ready to step into my place, should I choose to vacate it. I came to the conclusion, however, that, let the authorities at home be ever so ready to remedy what had proved to be a miscarriage of justice, I should in nowise help my case with them by forsaking the cause which I had espoused, at the moment when the decisive events of the war were beginning, as we all then believed, to loom faintly upon the horizon. No, I told myself, if I wished for reinstatement—and I wished for nothing else half so ardently—I must remain until the issues of the war were decided, when I could go back home with a good grace, taking with me a fairly creditable record with which to back up my application. Meanwhile, I sat down and wrote a letter to my aunt and uncle, excusing myself for not at once acceding to their request to forthwith return to England, explaining the reasons which had urged me to that decision, and pouring out in a long, passionate declaration all the pent-up affection of my heart for them, and my sympathy with them in their bitter sorrow. I also wrote to Sir Robert Gordon, telling him that my aunt and uncle had expressed the desire that I should return to them forthwith, and reiterating the reasons which impelled me to decline.

On the following day my signal was made from the flagship; and upon proceeding on board I was informed by the Admiral that General Oku's report as to the assistance rendered by the ships during the battle of Nanshan, and especially of the important services which I personally had rendered on that particular day and those which immediately preceded it, had been particularly gratifying to him, and that it had afforded him the utmost satisfaction and pleasure to forward that report to Baron Yamamoto, the Minister of the Navy, with a covering letter from himself which he hoped would be of service to me. Meanwhile, I was instructed to proceed forthwith to Port Arthur with my ship, to assist in the blockading of the port.

We filled our bunkers and replenished our stock of ammunition during the afternoon, and steamed out of Tashantau harbour, with all lights out, as soon as darkness fell, steaming dead slow all night, and keeping a sharp lookout for enemy ships, as a rumour had reached the Admiral that the Russians were planning another raid upon the Japanese coast by the Vladivostock fleet, which might be expected to put to sea at any moment. But we saw nothing, and arrived off Port Arthur at daybreak on the following morning without adventure of any kind. Here we fell in with the cruisers of the blockading fleet, to the admiral in command of which I forthwith reported myself, and delivered over the mail bags for the blockading ships, with which I had been entrusted. My instructions were to remain with the blockaders during the daytime, while at night the Kasanumi was to take part in the mine-laying operations in the roadstead of the beleaguered fortress, which were nightly conducted with untiring pertinacity. Shortly after my arrival, the destroyer flotilla which had been engaged in these operations during the night came steaming out, and among the approaching craft I recognised with pleasure the Akatsuki, still commanded by my former lieutenant and staunch friend, the enthusiastic Ito. That he had by no means forgotten me was quickly made manifest, for no sooner was he near enough to identify the Kasanumi than his semaphore started work, signalling that he wished to communicate, and upon my signalman responding, his first question was whether I was still in command. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he forthwith invited me to go on board his ship to take breakfast with him, and when I moved an amendment to the effect that the process should be reversed and that, instead, he should come and breakfast with me, upon the ground that, coming fresh from the rendezvous, my larder was probably better stocked than his, he at once joyously accepted the invitation, and a quarter of an hour later I had the very great pleasure of welcoming him on my own quarter-deck. The dear chap was just as enthusiastic, just as keen, just as full of life as ever, and seemed unfeignedly glad to see me. Of course we had a tremendous lot to say to each other, and I was most eager to learn what he had been doing since we parted company; but when he learned that I was fresh from Kinchau, and had actually assisted at the battle of the Nanshan Heights, he positively refused to say a single word about himself until I had given him a full, true, and particular account of all the happenings of that terrible yet glorious day. His enthusiasm and delight, as I endeavoured to describe the final irresistible rush of the Japanese up those heart-breaking, shot-swept slopes, were supreme; he seemed to literally swell with pride; and when I spoke of the thrilling Japanese cheer as his fellow-countrymen finally carried the last line of the Russian defences and routed the defenders, he leaped to his feet and repeated the shout of "Banzai!" again and again, while his eyes shone like stars, and tears of joy and pride rolled down his cheeks.

It was some time before I could turn his mind away from the events of that strenuous day; and when at length I succeeded in doing so, and could get him to talk about himself, it appeared that, stirring though the events seemed to be which were nightly happening before Port Arthur, they were all flat, stale, and unprofitable, compared with such an event as the storming of the Nanshan Heights. And so, as a matter of fact, they were, as I soon discovered for myself; for the duty of our destroyer flotilla consisted simply in steaming inshore every night industriously laying mines in the roadstead and at the harbour's mouth, which the Russians as industriously strove to remove next day. True, the sameness of this work was occasionally relieved by a more or less exciting episode, as when, for instance, the Russians would suddenly turn their searchlights upon us and all their batteries would open fire. Then we simply had to scuttle for our lives, for, of course, the shore batteries mounted very much heavier and longer range guns than any that a destroyer could carry; and there was no sense in attempting, as a general rule, to oppose our 12-pounders and 6-pounders to their 6-inch and 11-inch guns.

Yet we by no means allowed the Russians to invariably have it all their own way. There were times when, under cover of the darkness, one or two of us would creep right into the harbour entrance and, getting so close under the cliff that it became impossible for the Russians to depress their heavy guns sufficiently to reach us, would boldly engage the forts with our quick-firers, and even with rifle-fire, picking off any gunners that were foolhardy enough to expose themselves, and not unfrequently dismounting or otherwise putting out of action a few of their lighter guns. It was the good fortune of the Kasanumi, on one occasion, very shortly after our return, to strike one of the Russian 11-inch Canets, mounted in the fort between Golden Hill and the inner harbour, fair and square upon the muzzle and blow it clean off, with a shell from our 12-pounder; but such successes as these were of course very rare. These engagements between our destroyers and the Russian forts were immensely exciting, and afforded a most agreeable and welcome change from the monotony of mine-laying, for when we undertook such an adventure we never knew whether or not we should emerge from it scatheless. The operation of getting in close under the cliffs, undetected, was of course hazardous enough to make the attempt irresistibly fascinating; but it was the getting away again after the alarm had been given and all the enemy's searchlights had been turned upon us, when the excitement reached its height; for, of course, the moment that we were far enough away from the shelter of the beetling cliffs to enable the Russians to train their big guns upon us, they would open fire upon us for all that they were worth, and then it became a case of dodging the shells. It was then that our ingenuity was taxed to the very utmost, twisting and turning hither and thither as we ran at full speed into the offing, always endeavouring to make a turn in the most unexpected direction possible at the precise moment when we anticipated that the guns were being brought to bear upon us. And that, on the whole, we were fairly successful was pretty conclusively evidenced by the small amount of damage which we sustained. Indeed, our most serious mishap about this time in those waters arose from a totally different cause. One of our officers, a certain Commander Oda, had invented a particularly deadly kind of mine, which the Japanese Government adopted, and which they named after the inventor. A few days after my return to the waters of Port Arthur, Oda himself was engaged upon the task of laying some of his mines in the outer roadstead, when one of them somehow exploded, killing the captain of the ship and eighteen men, and wounding Oda himself and seven others. Strangely enough, however, the ship herself was only very slightly damaged. Less fortunate were the Russians; for, only a day or two later, two of their gunboats, while engaged in the attempt to remove some of our mines, came in contact with them, and both craft immediately went to the bottom, taking most of their men with them.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE FLOATING MINE.

It is a true saying, that "the pitcher which goes too often to the well gets broken at last;" and thus it came about with me, or rather with the Kasanumi.

As the days passed, we became aware of greatly increased activity on the part of the garrison of Port Arthur. Cruising in the offing during the daytime, well beyond the range of the Russian's biggest guns, yet near enough at hand to make sure that our blockade of the port was effective, the sound of violent explosions came floating off to us all day long, telling us in unmistakable language that strenuous efforts were being made to clear the channel of the sunken steamers wherewith we had blocked it, at such heavy cost to ourselves. There could be but one reason for such tremendous activity: it was doubtless that the enemy had it in contemplation to send his fleet to sea, probably with the object of finding a more secure shelter in the port of Vladivostock, a surmise which was confirmed by our spies in Port Arthur.

If still further confirmation of this intention were needed, it was to be found in the increased efforts which the Russians put forth to hamper our mine-laying operations in the roadstead; for about this time it became the practice of the enemy to send out a ship, sometimes two, or even three, to lie at anchor in the roads all night. The ship, or ships, always anchored well under the cover of the heaviest guns of the fortress, yet so far out that her, or their, own heavy guns completely commanded the waters of the roadstead, thus tremendously increasing the difficulty of sowing those waters with mines.

Naturally, the presence of these ships in the roadstead offered an almost irresistible temptation to our destroyers to essay the task of sinking them, or at least putting them out of action; and this desire on our part was smiled upon by Togo, to put the case mildly, for information was now continually reaching us to the effect that the formidable Baltic fleet was being rapidly prepared for sea, and that its departure on its long voyage to the Far East was imminent; while Togo was naturally anxious that the Port Arthur fleet—and the Vladivostock fleet also, if possible—should be effectually disposed of before the arrival of so powerful a reinforcement in Japanese waters. Therefore, great as was the risk attending the attack of a powerfully armed ship at anchor under the cover of several formidable forts, and careful as our Admiral was, both of his ships and of his men, no attempt was made to discourage us of the torpedo flotilla when our desire to attack was made known; on the contrary, the desire was smiled upon, as I have said, and nothing more than a word of caution was given against the incurring of unnecessary risks.

Perhaps I ought to explain precisely what I mean by saying that the desire of the commander of the torpedo flotilla to attack these ships was "smiled upon" by the Admiral. He had not only "smiled upon" but had given imperative orders that the torpedo fleet was to be employed upon every possible occasion for the harassing and discomfiture of the enemy; but hitherto the tactics employed had been for the destroyers and torpedo-boats to attack in numbers, a division or even two or three divisions being sent in at a time. It was due to my initiative that these tactics were now to be altered, and that attacks were now to be permitted by as few as two boats only. Up to now it had been our regular practice for a large number of craft to creep in toward the roadstead at a low speed until discovered by the enemy's searchlights, and then dash in upon the foe at our utmost speed, through a hail of shells, discharge our torpedoes as we circled round our quarry, and then dash out again, trusting to our speed to carry us back into the zone of safety. Of course this plan had its advantages, inasmuch as that the more there were of us, the greater—in theory—the chance that some of us would score a hit. But against this there was the fact that during the final rush of the torpedo craft upon the enemy, the necessity to maintain our highest speed throughout the entire period of the attack involved forced draught, and consequently flaming funnels, which latter of course immediately attracted the attention of the enemy and nullified all our efforts to take him by surprise.

Now, I had by this time gained a considerable amount of experience of torpedo warfare, and I had not failed to observe that in the majority of cases where our attacks had failed, the failure had been due to the above cause, combined with the fact that ten or a dozen craft ran a much greater risk of being picked up by the enemy's searchlights than would one or two. It had therefore seemed to me that, taking everything into consideration, the prospects of successful attack by two craft—one to support and assist the other in case of need—were as good as those of a dozen craft, while the risk would be very much less, provided that the attack were made coolly and circumspectly in accordance with a plan which I had worked out. This plan was, in brief, to run for the harbour at normal speed until we were practically within effective range, and then, instead of dashing in at full speed, to stop our engines—the throb of which was loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance on a quiet night—and head directly for our quarry, discharging our torpedoes when the momentum or "way" of the boat had carried her as far as she would go, trusting to the subsequent confusion to enable us to escape unscathed. I had fully explained this view of mine to the Admiral, and had obtained his sanction to put my plan to the test. Accordingly, on a certain night toward the middle of June, after the Russians had been let severely alone for some forty-eight hours, the Kasanumi, accompanied by the Akaisuki, my friend Ito's ship, left the rest of the blockaders, with the object of putting my theory into practice.

It was a splendid night for our purpose; there was a breathless calm, the water was smooth as oil, and although there was certainly a moon, she was in her last quarter, and did not rise until close upon one o'clock in the morning. Moreover, the sky was overcast by a great sheet of dappled cloud through which only a solitary star here and there peeped faintly; it was consequently dark enough to afford us a reasonable chance of getting within striking distance of our quarry undetected.

When the Russians sent their ships out of harbour to lie all night in the roadstead, as they did pretty frequently now, it was their custom to get them out early in the afternoon, after their destroyers had carefully swept the anchorage in search of mines; and it was my hope that—we having left them alone for the preceding two days—they would by this time be getting suspicious of such unwonted inactivity on our part, and consequently would send out one, or perhaps even two ships, to guard against a possible coup on our part.

Our mine-laying craft very rarely got to work before one or two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when human vigilance is popularly supposed to be least active; I therefore planned to arrive in the roadstead about midnight, hoping that I should then catch the enemy off his guard, snatching a rest in preparation for the moment when our activities usually began.

Now, the thing which we had most to fear was a long-distance searchlight established in a station on Golden Hill, at a height of some two hundred feet above the sea-level. This searchlight was generally turned on at dusk, and was kept unceasingly playing upon the anchorage and its adjacent waters all through the night. It commanded the entire roadstead, from a point three miles east of the harbour's mouth, right round to the south and west as far as the Pinnacle Rock; and the difficulty was how to avoid being picked up by it before we had delivered our attack. But by this time I knew the seaward surroundings of Port Arthur almost by heart. I knew, for instance—and this was most important—that the searchlight station was placed so far back from the edge of the crumbling cliff that the water immediately at the foot of the latter, and for a distance of perhaps a hundred yards to seaward, could not be reached by the beam of the light, and was therefore enveloped in darkness, rendered all the deeper and more opaque by the dazzling brilliance of the light; and I also knew that along the outer edge of this patch of darkness there was a sufficient depth of water to float a destroyer, even at dead low water. My plan, therefore, was to make a wide sweep to seaward upon leaving the blockading squadron, gradually turning east and north, and thus eventually to get into Takhe Bay, some five miles east of Port Arthur anchorage, and from thence creep along the shore to the westward, keeping as close in as the depth of water would permit. There was only one difficulty about this, which was that at a certain point not far from where the searchlight station stood, there was a gap in the line of cliff where the ground sloped steeply down to the water's edge for a short distance, and here of course the beam of the light had uninterrupted play right up to the beach; but I believed I could overcome this difficulty by simply watching my opportunity and slipping past the gap when the searchlight was not playing upon it.

All went well with us until about seven bells in the first watch (half-past eleven o'clock) when a great bank of fog, for which those seas are notorious, came driving in from the south-west, and in a moment we were enveloped in a cloud so thick that, standing upon the bridge, I could scarcely distinguish our aftermost funnel, and could not see our taffrail at all. We were then about three miles from the shore, with the indentation of Takhe Bay straight ahead of us, and near enough the anchorage for a man on our signal yard to make out—before the fog enveloped us, of course—that there were two ships at anchor in the roadstead, one, a five-funnelled craft which I knew could only be the Askold, while the other, showing four funnels, I gathered from his description must be the armoured cruiser Bayan. The searchlight had of course been in action ever since we had made the land, and as its beam swept slowly over the ships it had revealed enough of their details to enable us to easily identify them.

It was most exasperating that the fog should have swept down upon us just when it did. Had it come an hour, or even half an hour, later, I would have welcomed it, for we should then have had time to get up within striking distance of the ships and, under cover of the fog, could have approached them closely enough to have made sure of both, while now! Well, it was useless to cry over what could not be helped; the only thing to do was to make the best of things as they were, and to hope that the fog might yet prove a friend in disguise, after all.

Fortunately, as the fog came sweeping up to us, I had the presence of mind to hail the man on the yard—who was at that moment describing the ships he saw riding at anchor in the roads—asking him to tell me exactly how they bore from us. His reply was:

"They are square abeam, honourable Captain."

I immediately put my head in through the window of the wheelhouse and demanded of the helmsman how we were at that moment heading. He answered that we were then steering north forty degrees west, by compass.

"Then," said I, "alter the course at once to west forty degrees south. That," I added, addressing young Hiraoka, who was standing beside me, "ought to take us to them, or near enough to enable us to sight them. Kindly go aft, Mr Hiraoka, and hail the Akatsuki, telling her of our shift of helm."

The youngster ran aft to do my bidding, the fog at that moment being so thick that it was impossible to see one's hand before one's face, even the beam of the distant searchlight being so effectually obscured that it might have been extinguished for all that we knew to the contrary. I had rung down for our engines to stop, so that we might not run away from the Akatsuki, after shifting our helm, without informing her of the alteration in our course, and everything was now so still that I had no difficulty in distinguishing young Hiraoka's hail, and the reply from the other destroyer, breaking through the soft swish and lap of water under our bows. It was the Akatsuki's lieutenant who was answering our hail, and he had just acknowledged the intimation of our altered course, and was ordering his own helmsman to make a like change, when, without the slightest warning, I experienced a terrific shock which felt exactly as though the ship had been smitten a savage blow from below by a giant hammer. So violent was it that I was flung high in the air and over the rail of the bridge on to the steel turtle-back deck beneath, upon which I landed head-first with such violence that I immediately lost consciousness. But before that happened I was sensible of two things; one of them being a blinding flash of flame, coincident with the shock, in which our bows, for a length of some ten or twelve feet, seemed to crumple up and fly to pieces, while the other was that, as I was tossed high in the air, I sustained a violent blow on the chest from some heavy object which seemed to sear my flesh like white-hot iron. Then down I came upon my head, and knew no more.

My first sensation, upon coming to myself, was that of a violent aching all over my body, as though every bone in it had been broken. But the aching of my head was even worse than that of my body, while as for my chest, it smarted and throbbed as though the blade of a burning knife rested upon it. I next became aware that I was in bed; and finally, opening my eyes, I saw that I was the occupant of one of many beds in a large, airy room which somehow seemed familiar to me, and which I presently identified as the ward which I had once before occupied in the hospital at our base among the Elliot Islands.

It was broad daylight, and the sun was shining brilliantly into the room through the widely opened windows, which admitted a gentle, refreshing breeze, pleasantly charged with ozone. Two dainty little women nurses were doing something at a table at the far end of the room, which happened to come within the range of my vision, and presently I heard the gentle splash of water in that direction, which immediately brought home to me the consciousness that my mouth and throat were parched. I opened my mouth to call to the nurses that I was thirsty, but it was only the very faintest of whispers that escaped my smarting lips. It was enough, however, to immediately produce a gentle rustle on the other side of my bed, and the next moment a pretty face was bending over me and a pair of soft, dark, almond-shaped eyes were gazing sympathetically into mine.

"Ah!" exclaimed the owner of those eyes, "at last the illustrious Captain is himself again. Are you suffering very acutely, noble sir?"

"Suffering?" I whispered. "Rather! I ache as if I had been beaten to a jelly, and I am as thirsty as a—as a limekiln. Can you by any chance get me something to drink? A bucketful will do to start with."

"A bucketful!" she murmured, looking anxiously down at me as she laid her long, slender, pointed fingers upon the pulse of my left hand where it rested outside the coverlet. "But no," she continued, evidently speaking to herself, "his pulse is almost normal, and there is no trace of fever. A bucketful! Oh, these English!"

She shook her head, as though giving up some problem that she found too difficult for solution, and shuffled off, with the curious gait peculiar to Japanese women, without saying another word to me. She approached the other two nurses, at the far end of the ward, and said something which caused them both to turn and stare in my direction. Then the senior of the party, accompanied by the girl whom I had so tremendously astonished, came up to my bedside, looked at me, felt my pulse, and shuffled away again, presently returning with one of those cups with a spout, from which one can drink while in a recumbent position. She placed the point of the spout between my lips, and the next moment I was aware that I was imbibing some delicious broth. But the cup! It was only about the size of an ordinary breakfast cup, and its contents were gone before I could well taste them. I asked for more, and got a second cupful; and then, as I was asking for still more, the Medical Staff of the hospital entered the ward, and the whole crowd turned with one accord and grouped itself around my bed.

The Chief, a keen, clever-looking little fellow, whose age it was impossible to guess at since he was clean shaven, turned to the nurse who was feeding me, and sharply demanded what it was that she was administering. She explained, adding in all seriousness the information that I had demanded a bucketful, whereupon he turned and regarded me with upraised eyebrows, and laid his fingers upon my wrist.

"So you are suffering from extreme thirst, Captain, eh?" he demanded.

I nodded emphatically.

"Ah!" he said, "yes; that was only to be expected. Well—" He turned to the head nurse and gave her certain instructions in so low a tone of voice that I could not catch what he said. Then, drawing a notebook from his pocket, he very carefully and with much consideration wrote what I imagined to be a prescription, tore out the leaf, and handed it to the nurse, with instructions to have it made up. Then, turning again to me, he inquired how I felt. I described my symptoms as well as I could, wondering all the while how it was that I was only able to speak in the merest whisper.