Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

the feeling of rawness out of the air, so that I no longer suffered from the cold, and the mist melted away, affording me a clear view to the horizon. But the sea was bare; there was not even so much as a blur of steamer’s smoke staining the sky in any direction; and I began to wonder how long it might be before I should be picked up, or whether indeed I should be picked up at all. I knew, of course, that the non-arrival of the Kinshiu at Gensan would give rise to speculation, and that probably a search for her would be instituted along the course which she might be expected to steer, but I was already several miles from that course, and hourly drifting farther from it. The question of importance to me was whether the search would extend over a sufficiently wide area to take me in.

The remainder of that day passed uneventfully for me; I could do nothing beyond what I have already indicated; no craft of any description hove in sight; and toward sunset the pangs of hunger began to manifest themselves. I watched the sea until night closed down; and then, when it became so dark that further watching was useless, I crept in under the fore deck among the raffle and turned in upon such a bed as I had been able to prepare for myself during the day, in anticipation of the possibility that I might be obliged to pass the night aboard the junk.

As might be supposed, under the circumstances, the earlier part of the night at least was full of discomfort for me; but somewhere along in the small hours I dropped off to sleep, and eventually slept soundly, to be awakened by the noise of steam blowing off, close at hand. I started up, listened for a moment to assure myself that the sound was not an illusion, and, satisfied that it was real, scrambled up on the junk’s deck, to be greeted with the sight of several ships of war close at hand. A single glance sufficed to assure me that my troubles were at an end; for the ships in sight were those of Admiral Kamimura’s squadron, the Idzumi being hove-to at less than a cable’s length distant, in the very act of lowering a boat. There were several officers on her bridge, and she was close enough to enable me to see that they were all scrutinising the junk through their glasses; I therefore waved to them, and was waved to in reply. A few minutes later the boat, in charge of a lieutenant, dashed smartly alongside and the officer scrambled nimbly up the junk’s low side.

I think he had not recognised me until then, although we knew each other very well. He gazed at me dubiously for a moment, then his hand shot out to grasp mine as he exclaimed:

“Hillo! my dear Swinburne, what does this mean; what are you doing here? And are you all alone?”

I answered his question by informing him, in as few words as possible, of what had happened to the ill-fated Kinshiu Maru, and then we got down into the boat and pulled across to the Idzumi, where Kamimura and his officers were impatiently awaiting us. They gave me the warmest of welcomes, and would not even permit me to tell them my story, the lieutenant who had rescued me assuring them that he had already obtained all the particulars and could tell it as well as I could. I was accordingly at once turned over to the care of the ship’s surgeon, and made comfortable in the sick bay, the squadron immediately resuming its cruise.

Now that the tension of looking after myself was relaxed, a reaction set in, with high fever, and for the next four days I was really ill, with frequent intervals of delirium. But there were no complications of any kind, and by the end of the sixth day I was so far recovered as to be able to dress and sit up for an hour or two. Everybody aboard the Idzumi was exceedingly kind to me, as kind indeed as though they had been brothers; and this fraternal feeling of kindly interest was not confined to the Idzumi alone, Kamimura himself informing me, with a smile, that it had become quite a habit for the other ships to signal an inquiry as to my condition, every morning. As the officers of the ship came off watch, they came tiptoeing along to inquire after me; and if I happened to be awake, and the doctor permitted it, they would sit and chat with me for half an hour or so before retiring to their cabins, by which means I gradually acquired all the missing links in the story of the squadron’s abortive cruise.

From these conversations I gathered that after the squadron and the Kinshiu parted company off Gensan, while we in the transport headed for Iwon, the squadron proceeded toward Vladivostock, being much delayed by a dense fog, through which it steamed at half-speed, each ship towing a fog buoy as a guide to the ship immediately following, though, even with this assistance, keeping touch was only accomplished with extreme difficulty. Thus they proceeded until, by dead reckoning, they arrived at a point seventy miles south of Vladivostock, when, the weather being much too thick to permit of fighting the enemy, even should the two fleets blunder together, Admiral Kamimura decided to retrace his steps, arriving at Gensan two days later. Here the Japanese consul boarded the Idzumi and imparted to the Admiral the startling information that on the previous day four strange warships, accompanied by a couple of destroyers, had appeared off the port, the warships being later identified as those constituting the Vladivostock squadron. The destroyers had entered the harbour, boarded a small Japanese craft loaded with fish, ordered her crew to get into her boat and go ashore, and had then torpedoed her; the expended torpedo being probably at least as valuable as the ship which it sank! Later on, the Russian cruisers had entered the harbour, but had left again without doing any damage. In reply to an inquiry concerning the Kinshiu Maru, the consul replied that neither she nor her escort had yet returned. This information caused Admiral Kamimura some uneasiness, since there had been time for us to do all that we had been ordered to do, and to get back to Gensan; and the squadron was actually getting its anchors, preparatory to its departure to hunt for the transport, when Commander Takebe with his torpedo-boats arrived. Questioned as to the whereabouts of the Kinshiu, he expressed surprise at her non-arrival, briefly relating particulars of the discussion which had resulted in the transport leaving Iwon, unescorted, while he remained in harbour to see what the weather developments were going to be.

This was enough for Kamimura. Takebe’s story, in conjunction with that of the consul at Gensan, convinced the Admiral that something very serious had happened; and he at once gave orders for the torpedo flotilla to proceed along the coast to hunt for news of the transport, while he, with his squadron, started off in chase of the Russians.

It was on the morning following this second departure of the squadron from Gensan, that they sighted the junk from which I was rescued. It is possible that, in his eagerness to overtake the Russians, he might have pushed on without pausing to examine a small, apparently derelict junk, but for the fact that, fortunately for me, two or three of the Idzumi’s officers recognised her as the junk which the Kinshiu had taken with her to facilitate the landing operations at Iwon.

After they had taken me off the junk, the Japanese had pushed ahead direct for Vladivostock, in the hope of arriving there before the Russians. But in this hope they were disappointed. Upon their arrival, the Russian cruisers were seen to be already back in harbour; and all that was accomplished was to drive precipitately back into the harbour two Russian destroyers which had the impudence—or the courage—to come out and threaten them; and also to exchange a few shots with the Russian forts.

Chapter Ten. ITO’S YARN.

We arrived at our rendezvous among the Hall Islands on the afternoon of May 3rd, and found the place practically deserted, those who were left behind reporting that Admiral Togo and the fleet had left for Port Arthur, the previous day, for the purpose of making a third attempt to seal up the Russian fleet in the harbour. I was by this time making excellent progress toward recovery, but the Idzumi’s surgeon considered that I should do still better in the hospital ashore; I was therefore landed within half an hour of the ship’s coming to an anchor, and that evening found me comfortably established in the roomy convalescent ward, in charge of an excellent and assiduous medical and nursing staff. The latter was composed of young Japanese women, than whom, I think it would be impossible to find more gentle, attentive and tender sick-room attendants. I don’t know whether they were more than usually kind to me because I happened to be a foreigner who was helping to fight Japan’s battles in her hour of need, but it appeared to me that they were vying with each other as to who should do the most for me. Had I been a king, they could not have done more for me than they did.

On the following morning, having been assisted to rise and dress by the two nurses whose especial charge I was, and established by them near an open window overlooking the roadstead, I was making play with a particularly appetising breakfast when, glancing out of the window, I saw a big fleet of transports arriving—there were eighty-three in all, for I had the curiosity to count them; and while they were coming to an anchor another