Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

firing would not reach the Russians about Kinchau, and so apprise them of the presence of an enemy in the adjacent waters.

As we rapidly neared the enemy I made them out to be two destroyers, evidently escorting the third craft, which was a single-funnelled steamer of apparently about eighteen hundred tons. She sat deep in the water, as though loaded to her full capacity, but she was much too small for a transport, and for the life of me I could not imagine what her character might be. But there could be no doubt whatever concerning the destroyers; they were self-evident Russians, for they were four-funnelled, the funnels arranged in pairs, which was distinctly characteristic of a certain class of Russian destroyer.

Neither side wasted any time upon useless preliminaries; but it was the Russians who opened the ball by both craft firing, almost simultaneously, every gun they could bring to bear upon us. But their aim was nothing to boast of, for although we heard the shells screaming all about us, we remained untouched. Twice they fired upon us before I would give the word to our gun-layers, and both times ineffectively; then I gave the order to commence firing; and no sooner had the words passed my lips than our 12-pounder spoke, and a moment later there occurred two distinct explosions aboard the nearest Russian boat, which instantly became enveloped in a great cloud of steam. Apparently that first shot of ours had struck and exploded one of her boilers, for almost immediately she slackened speed and began to drop astern. This mishap, however, did not seem to in the least discourage her consort, which, putting on full speed, now dashed at us in the most determined and gallant manner, firing as she came, and receiving our fire in return. And then, for some ten minutes, we found ourselves engaged in a regular ding-dong fight, we and our antagonist closing to a distance of less than two hundred yards, and hammering away at each other as fast as the guns could be served.

But it very soon became apparent that our fellows were much the better and cooler gunners of the two; for whereas the Russians seemed to ram in their charges and let fly on the instant that their guns were loaded, our men waited, watching the roll both of their own ship and that of the enemy, and firing at her waterline as she rolled away from us, with the result that within the first five minutes of the fight a lucky shot from our 12-pounder sent a shell through her upturned bilge a foot or so below her normal waterline, blowing a hole through her thin plating that admitted a tremendous inrush of water every time that she rolled toward us. Her crew at once got out a collision mat and made the most desperate efforts to get it over and stop the leak; but our 6-pound quick-firers peppered them so severely that, after struggling manfully for two or three minutes, they were obliged to let the mat go, and lost it. Then they launched a torpedo at us, which missed us by inches only, whereupon I ordered our men to cease fire, and hailed the Russian to ask if she would surrender. But, not a bit of it; their reply, as translated to me by Hiraoka, who was an excellent Russian linguist, was, that they knew how to die, but not how to surrender; and the reply was accompanied by another salvo from every one of their guns that would bear. And this, too, at a moment when it became only too apparent that the boat was rapidly sinking. Since, therefore, it was evident that they were resolved to fight to the last, there was nothing for it but to open fire upon them afresh, much as I regretted it, as they obstinately persisted in keeping up a fire upon us.

The end, however, was nearer than even I thought, for we had fired but a few more shots at our opponent when there occurred a terrific explosion aboard her, instantly followed by several others, her deck opened up like the lid of a box, a great sheet of flame leapt up from her interior; and, seeming to break in two, the dismembered hull rapidly disappeared, the bow and stern portions rearing themselves out of water for a few seconds ere they plunged to the bottom, leaving nothing to show where the boat had been, save a great cloud of acrid smoke and steam, a few fragments of wreckage, and some half a dozen men struggling in the water.

Of course we instantly stopped our engines and launched a boat; but we only found and saved three men out of the boat’s total complement of forty-seven. We learned that the name of the lost destroyer was the Beztraschni, and that all of her officers had perished with her.

We now had leisure to attend to the other two craft, which were by this time some three miles astern, having apparently stopped their engines to await at a safe distance the course of events. Swinging round, we headed for them at full speed, with all guns loaded, and a torpedo in each tube, ready to open fire as soon as we got within effective range. As we drew nearer, however, it became evident that there was something very seriously wrong with the destroyer which we had first fired upon, and which had dropped astern, disabled, for there were boats in the water about her, seemingly passing between her and the other craft, boats going to her with only two or three hands in them, and leaving her loaded. By the time that we had arrived within a mile of her we could see that the destroyer was in a sinking condition; and a minute later we lost sight of her altogether: she had gone down.

The boats were still in the water alongside the surviving craft, and men were climbing up her side from them as we arrived within some thirty fathoms of her and hailed, demanding her surrender. A reply instantly came from her to the effect that she surrendered; whereupon I dispatched Hiraoka on board, in charge of an armed boat’s crew; and some ten minutes later the youngster hailed, informing me that our prize was named the Vashka, of seventeen hundred and sixty tons register, originally a cargo steamer, but now adapted for mine-laying; and that she was from Dalny, bound for Kinchau Bay for the purpose of sowing the bay with mines, in anticipation of the probability that some of our ships would be sent to participate in the attack upon the isthmus. He added the information that the vessel, hoping to escape the notice of Japan’s warships by taking a roundabout route, had been escorted by two destroyers only, the Beztraschni and the Storozhevoi, the latter of which we had seen go down a few minutes before as a result of injuries inflicted upon her by our 12-pounder, the shell from which had not only blown a great rent in her bottom, as it burst, but the fragments of which had pierced two of her boilers.

It was evident that we had made a capture of considerable importance, I therefore proceeded on board the prize, with an armed reinforcement, and after going carefully into the matter with Hiraoka, arranged with him to take the Vashka to the Elliots, in charge of a prize crew, there to act according to the Admiral’s orders.

This matter arranged, I returned to the Kasanumi, and we resumed our voyage while the prize headed away south-west, on her way round to the Elliot Islands. We now had leisure to look into the extent of our own injuries. These, it proved, were by no means so serious as might have been expected, having regard to the fierceness and closeness of the fight. Our casualties amounted to two killed and five wounded, one of them seriously; while the top of the aftermost of our midship pair of funnels had been blown away, the rail of the navigating bridge smashed and doubled up in a most astonishing way, the pilot-house roof torn off, our topsides pierced in no less than five places, and a very pretty general average made of my cabin, in which a shell had evidently burst. Luckily, none of these injuries seriously affected the craft’s safety, while most of them could be at least temporarily patched-up in a few hours; also, very luckily, all the navigating instruments, the chronometer, my sextant, the nautical almanac, and my book of logarithmic and other tables had almost miraculously escaped all injury.

We steamed into Kinchau Bay, with all lights out, about an hour later than I had arranged for, but still in sufficient time for the work which lay before me; and when we arrived off the cove where I had previously landed, our largest boat was lowered, the buoys or rafts which I had caused to be prepared were placed in her, each having attached to it a very light chain of just sufficient length to securely moor it with the aid of a good grapnel; and, accompanied by two men, I then jumped in, and we pulled ashore, while the Kasanumi turned tail and steamed off to sea again at full speed, so as to be out of sight from the shore before dawn.

Arrived in the cove, we secured our boat, and then settled down as comfortably as was possible to await the dawn. It came at last, and, as I had expected, there very shortly afterwards arrived some forty Manchurian fishermen from a little village, about half a mile distant. At first they were somewhat alarmed to find the cove, and their boats, apparently in possession of Japanese men-o’-war’s-men; but I had taken the precaution to ensure that one of my men should be capable of playing the part of interpreter; and before long I was able not only to reassure them but also, by a judicious admixture of cajolery and threats, to secure their assistance in the completion of my scheme. Money appeals to the Manchurian fisherman just as powerfully as it does to most other people, more powerfully than it does to many, for he sees so little of it; consequently when I intimated that I was prepared to pay the magnificent sum of ten yen for a few hours’ use of one of their boats, with a crew of four men, the whole crowd came tumbling over one another in their eagerness to secure the prize. I chose the boat most suitable for my purpose, transferred my rafts and gear to her, leaving our own boat in charge of a man who undertook to guard her with his life for the sum of one yen; and then, in company with the other boats, which were going fishing in the bay, we shoved off and pulled out of the cove. By a stroke of the greatest good fortune, the day was beautifully fine and clear, so that I was able without the slightest difficulty to get every one of my bearings with the most absolute