Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

awaiting further developments, the submarine, which was still going ahead, suddenly inclined her bows and, before we could do anything, dived with her hatch open! The brave fellows who manned her, evidently taking a leaf out of their opponents’ book, had chosen death rather than surrender, and had deliberately plunged to the bottom rather than yield their vessel to us! For, of course, the craft was never seen again, nor did any of her crew come to the surface, although we hove-to for an hour or more, and got our boat out in readiness to pick up any one who might escape from that steel coffin.

I was quite prepared to hear a loud cheer of exultation burst from the lips of my crew when they realised what had happened. But no. There is nothing that the Japanese admire more than courage; and such a deliberate act of devoted self-sacrifice for the honour of one’s country and flag as they had just beheld, called forth merely a low-spoken murmur of intense, almost envious praise.

We arrived at our destination without further adventure, and dropped anchor in the roadstead just as the sun rose above the horizon, flooding the rocky shores of the Elliots with gold, and were heartily greeted by the few craft which we found lying at anchor there.

Looking back upon our adventure with the Russian submarine, I could not help regarding it as almost providential that we had encountered her; for I think there can be very little doubt that when we fell in with her she must have been on her way to the Elliot archipelago, where, had she arrived safely, she might have found more than one spot in which she could have lain perdu, to emerge at a favourable moment and destroy at least one, if not more, of our most precious battleships.

Giving orders for the immediate discharge of the materials for the boom, at a spot which I selected immediately after we had come to an anchor, I turned in and slept soundly until past midday, resting again all the afternoon; so that when evening came I had quite recovered from the fatigue of the previous night, and was pronounced by the doctor in charge of the hospital ashore to be progressing toward complete recovery quite as rapidly as could be reasonably expected, while my wound was healing in fine style. About four o’clock that afternoon, word was brought to me that the whole of the materials intended for the construction of the boom had been landed; and I went ashore to inspect them. They consisted for the most part of enormous balks of timber and massive cables; but there were also immense quantities of chain to serve as lashings, stout staples, iron bars, innumerable bundles of long, massive, pointed spikes, and thousands of empty casks, stoutly hooped, without bung-holes, and coated with pitch to ensure permanent watertight-ness. Commander Tsuchiya, whom I had placed in charge of the discharging operations, had done his work well, stacking the various items each by itself, and keeping a careful account of the quantities of each. He handed me a copy of his list, and after I had inspected the whole of the material, I returned to my ship and sat down to plan out the details of the construction of the boom, which, with the list of the quantities before me, was a comparatively easy task.

Dawn of the following day found us all ready to make a start, and with Tsuchiya again as my principal aide, we quickly got to work, pressing every available hand into the service. Many hands make light and quick work, especially where those hands are willing, but I was astonished at the ardour and zest which those handy little Japanese seamen manifested; they toiled untiringly all through that long, hot day, with the result that, when we knocked off at nightfall, we had considerably more than half a mile of that boom put together and secured in position by ponderous anchors and stout chain cables.

We were hard at work upon the boom again when, during the afternoon of the following day, our battle fleet returned from Pi-tse-wo, after covering the landing of General Oku’s army. The fleet steamed in between the islands and Cape Terminal on the mainland, toward which we were running the boom; and my friend Ijichi, the skipper of the Mikasa, told me, with a laugh, that when the little Admiral first saw the boom and made out what it was, he could hardly credit his eyes. He had been under the impression that I was still in hospital, and would probably not be able to get to work for a week or more. Yet there I was, as large as life, in a picket boat, with my head still swathed in a bandage, superintending operations, and clearly recognisable with the assistance of a pair of binoculars. And when at the close of the day I went aboard the flagship to report myself, Togo did not hesitate to let me understand how intensely gratified he was at the progress which we had made.

Meanwhile, I was fast progressing toward complete recovery; and on the day following the return of the fleet to the Elliots, the bandage was removed from my head, and I was pronounced to be practically all right once more. And, to add to my gratification, a destroyer arrived from Sasebo, bringing mails for the fleet, among which were no less than three delightful letters from my friends the Gordons, at home, and two, equally delightful, from my Sasebo friends, Mr Boyd and his wife. Those from the Gordons were full of congratulations; for I gathered from them that a long and circumstantial account of our second attempt to seal up Port Arthur harbour had appeared in the home newspapers, in which somewhat conspicuous mention was made of my doings, and my friends were delighted to learn that I was “so successfully maintaining the finest traditions of the British Navy,” as they were kindly pleased to put it. My chum, Ronald, was particularly chirpy about it, expressing in no measured terms the wish that he could have been with me, while he informed me that, notwithstanding the painful circumstances under which I had left the Terrible—and the British Navy—the officers of that ship, with only one or two exceptions, had expressed their gratification, while several of them, whom he named, had desired him to convey to me their congratulations and good wishes.

During the next day or two excellent progress was made with the construction of the long boom; and then came a spell of bad weather which, although it did not hinder the putting together of the sections of the boom, in the smooth water of the anchorage, rendered it impossible for us to tow them out and splice them to the portion already in position. But although the bad weather greatly delayed us in this way, we did not altogether regret it, for the heavy sea kicked up by the gales afforded a splendid test of that portion of the boom already in place, and we were greatly gratified, as we steamed out day after day to examine it, to find that it had not been damaged or displaced in the smallest degree.

It was toward the end of the third week of May that the Admiral signalled me to proceed on board the flagship. It was late in the afternoon of a thoroughly wretched day; the wind had been blowing hard from the south’ard for the past three or four days, with almost incessant rain, and there was a very heavy sea running between the islands and the main. I had just returned from my second inspection of the boom that day, and I naturally thought that the signal indicated a desire on the part of the Admiral to question me in relation to the stability of the structure. And when I entered his cabin, and he greeted me with the question:

“Well, Captain Swinburne, how is the boom standing the sea, out yonder?” I was confirmed in my opinion. But I presently found that I was mistaken; for when I had told him all that there was to tell about the boom, and he had expressed his satisfaction, he said:

“By the way, it is Commander Tsuchiya who has been your chief assistant in this work, is it not?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“And I suppose he understands the whole business pretty well by this time, eh?” the Admiral continued.

“Every bit as well as I do, sir,” I answered, seeming to scent other work for myself at no great distance.

“That is good,” commented Togo. “Do you think he would be capable of completing the work without further assistance from you?”

“Undoubtedly he would, sir,” I replied. “Indeed, I think it right to say that, after the first day, Commander Tsuchiya required no help or suggestion of any kind from me at all. He seemed to perfectly understand the principle of the boom’s construction, almost from the very beginning; and after the first day’s work upon it he took the entire supervision into his own hands, leaving me nothing whatever to do but merely to look on and satisfy myself by personal observation that the work was being properly done.”

“Which it was, I presume?” remarked the Admiral.

“Which it certainly was, sir,” I replied.

“Good!” said Togo. “That being the case, you are free for another service. How would you like the chance to get a little fighting ashore, by way of a change?”

“Jove!” I exclaimed, “that would be splendid, sir. Are you going to land a naval brigade anywhere?”

“Well—no,” answered the Admiral, “hardly that, I think; at least, that is not my present intention, although circumstances may possibly render it desirable, eventually. The matter stands thus,”—turning to the table where a map of the Liaotung peninsula lay unfolded upon it.

“This,”—pointing to a certain spot on the map—“is where General Oku landed, the other day, with his army. And this,”—pointing to another spot—“is where he is now. His object of course is to march south and lay siege to Port Arthur. But at this point, some two and a half miles south of Kinchau, which, as I suppose you know, is a Chinese walled city, the isthmus is only about two miles wide; and in and about the city the Russians have