A DANGEROUS LANDING
WHERE were we to land? This was the question that exercised our minds from the beginning to the end of our voyage. To land at Taku-shan and attack Haicheng and Liao Yang in the north, was one of the suggestions made. To go straight to the Gulf of Pechili and land at Iakao was another. A third suggestion was that we were to land at a certain point on the coast of Liaotung, and then go south to attack the stronghold of Port Arthur. Of course, all the views and opinions advanced were changed according to the direction in which our bows pointed. But at last, when we saw on the chart that we were sailing south of the Elliot Isles, all agreed at once that our destination was some spot leading to Port Arthur. What excitement and joy when we saw the transports and the guard-ships proceeding together toward that spot! After a while we began to notice a dark gray, long, slender piece of land dimly visible through thick mist. That was indeed the Peninsula of Liaotung! the place where, ten years before, so many brave and loyal sons of Yamato had laid their bones, and the field of action on which our own bodies were to be left! Since the previous evening the sky had been dark, the gray mist and clouds opening and shutting from time to time, the wind howling at our mast-heads, and the waves beating against our bows flying like snowflakes and scattering themselves like fallen flowers. Behind us there was only boundless cloud and water. Beyond those clouds was the sky of Nippon! The enthusiastic Banzais of the cheering nation, the sound of rosaries rubbed together in old women’s hands, the war-songs coming from the innocent lips of children—all these seemed still to reach our ears, conveyed by the swift winds.
We were to land at a gulf called Yenta-ao, on the eastern coast of the peninsula, to the southwest of Pitsu-we. This was only a small inlet on the sea of China. There was no good harbor in the vicinity except Talienwan, on the east side of Liaotung Peninsula; but that good harbor was then in possession of the enemy; so we had to risk everything and land on this less desirable spot, from the strategic necessity of the case. The sea and the currents of that neighborhood are both very treacherous; a storm of the least degree would make it extremely difficult, not only to land, but even to stay there at anchor. Moreover, the water is very shallow and a ship of any size must anchor one ri[25] away from the shore. When the wind is strong, a ship is sure to drift several miles further to the offing. Such being the case, we can well imagine the difficulty and anxiety those in charge of our debarkation experienced. Just as mother birds watch over their young, our convoys were watching us far and near, to protect our landing from surprise by the enemy. But the wind that had begun to blow in the morning became fiercer and fiercer, angry seas and frantic waves rose in mountains, transports and sampans were shaken like flying leaves, Chinese junks chartered by our government, raising their masts like forest trees, were being tossed and teazed by the winds as in the time of the great Mongol invasion in the Bay of Hakata.[26]
Could we land safely in such a storm? Were we to face the enemy at once on going ashore? We were like horses harnessed to a carriage—we did not know anything about our surroundings. All was known only to our colonel, in whose hands lay our lives. We did know, however, that two things were ahead of us, and they were—landing and marching. After a short wait, our landing was begun in spite of the risk; evidently the condition of the campaign did not admit delay. Hundreds of sampans, boats, and steam-launches—whence they had come, we did not know—surrounded the transports to carry men and officers away. Tremendous waves, now rising like high mountains and now sinking like deep valleys, seemed to swallow men and boats together. Carrying the flag with due solemnity, I got into the boat with the colonel. Innumerable small boats were to be fastened to steam-launches like beads on a rosary. Rolling and tumbling, these rosaries of boats would whistle their way to the shore. Our regimental flag braved the wind and waves and safely reached its destination. Ah, the first step and the second on this land occupied by the enemy! It seemed as if we had left our Fatherland but yesterday, and now, not in a dream, but in reality, we were treading on the soil of promise!
What an exquisite joy, to plant once more the Imperial Flag of His Illustrious Virtues on the Peninsula of Liaotung, also the soil of Japan, consecrated by the blood of our brothers!
The storm went from bad to worse; it seemed impossible to complete the landing, neither could the men go back to the transports. The only thing possible was to trust to the mercy of winds and waves, jump into the water and struggle for the shore as soon as the boats came near. The experience of my friend Captain Tsukudo is an illustration of the extreme difficulty of landing.
Captain Tsukudo, with over sixty men under his care, was in a boat, which was towed away from the transport by a small launch. His boat rolled in the waves like a ball and was in constant danger of being swallowed in the vortex. The tug cast off her tow and fled for safety. The gigantic ho[27] which sweeps through ten thousand miles without rest, even his wings are said to be broken by the waves of the sea. Much less could a small boat stand the force of such waves. It seemed as if the bravest of men had no other choice than being “buried in the stomachs of fishes.” Rescue seemed impossible. Heaven’s decree they must obey. Death they were ready for, but to die and become refuse of the sea, without having struck one blow at the enemy now close at hand, was something too hard for them to bear. With bloodshot eyes and hair on end, the captain tried in every way to save his men, but alas! they were like a man that falls into an old well in the midst of a lonely meadow, not sinking, yet not able to climb up—the root of the vine that he clings to as a life rope being gnawed by a wild rat!
Captain Tsukudo jumped into the sea and swam toward the shore with all his might; but the waves were too relentless to yield to his impatient and impetuous desire to rescue his men. They swallowed him, vomited him, tossed and hurled him without mercy; the brave captain was at last exhausted and fainted away before reaching the shore. Heaven, however, did not give up his case; he was picked up on the beach, and when he recovered consciousness he found himself perfectly naked. Without waiting to dress, he ran to the headquarters of the landing forces, and with frantic gestures asked for help for the men in his boat; he could not weep, for tears were dried up; he could not speak, for his mouth was parched, but he succeeded in getting his men saved.
Another boat loaded with baggage and horses capsized; one of the poor animals swam away toward the offing. The soldier in charge of the horse also swam to catch the animal. Before he reached it, the steed went down and soon afterward the faithful man also disappeared in the billows. Poor, brave soul! his love of his four-legged charge was stronger even than that of the stork who cries after its young in the lonesome night. Though he did not face the enemy’s bullets, he died a pioneer’s death on the battle-field of duty.
Was the Canaan of our hopes the country that we had pictured to ourselves? Contrary to our expectations, it did not look at all like a place our brethren had bought with their blood ten years before. It was simply a desolate wilderness, a deserted sand-plain, a boundless expanse of rolling country, a monotonous insipid canvas, with dark red and light gray all over. Compared with the detailed, variegated picture of Japan that we had been accustomed to, what a sense of untouched and unfinished carelessness! What a change of scene to see hundreds of natives swarm to the spot of our landing, with horses and wagons, to get their job! Were they men or animals? With ill-favored faces, they would whisper to each other and pass on. As knavish fellows they deserve anything but love, but as subjects of an ill-governed empire they certainly deserve pity. At first they dreaded the Japanese; they stared at us from a distance, but did not come near us; probably because they had been robbed of their possessions by the Russians, and their wives and daughters had been insulted by them. The Japanese army, from the very first, was extremely careful to be just and kind to the natives and encouraged them to pursue their daily work in peace. Consequently they soon began to be friendly with us and to welcome us eagerly. However, they are a race of men who would risk even their lives to make money, and would live in a pig-pen with ten thousand pieces of gold in their pockets. How our army suffered from the treachery of these money-grubbers will be told later on.
“Ata, ata! Wo, wo!”
This strange cry we constantly heard at the front—it is the natives’ way of driving horses and cows. Their skill in managing cattle and horses is far beyond ours. We could not help being struck with the manner in which the animals obeyed their orders; they would go to right or left at the sound of these signals, and would move as one’s own limbs without the slightest use of whips. The relation between these natives and their cattle and horses is like that between well-disciplined soldiers and their commanders; not the fear of whip and scolding, but a voluntary respect and submission, is the secret of military discipline and success. The fact that the Russian soldiers were lacking in this important factor became clear later by the testimony of the captives.
After some companies of our division had landed with much ado, the storm grew worse and the landing was suspended. The colonel, an aide-de-camp, the interpreter, the chaplain, and myself, accompanied by a handful of guards, crossed the wilderness and wended our way toward Wangchia-tun, fixed as our stopping-place for that night. We busied ourselves with the map and the compass, while the interpreter asked question after question of the natives. I consulted a Chinese-Japanese conversation book, and asked them in broken words, “Russian soldiers, have they come?” to which they replied, “To Port Arthur they have fled.” We were of course disappointed not to encounter the long-looked-for antagonists at once!
Seven ri’s journey through a sand plain brought us to the willow-covered village Wangchia-tun in the rainy and windy evening, when strange birds were hastening to their roosts.
Stupid-looking old men and dirty-faced boys gathered round us like ants and looked at us with curiosity. Long pipes were sticking out from the mouths of the older men; they seemed utterly unconcerned or ignorant of the great trouble in their own country. The filth and dirt of the houses and their occupants were beyond description; we newcomers to the place had to hold our noses against the fearful smells. Military camp though it was in name, we only found shelter under the eaves of the houses, with penetrating smells attacking us from below, and surrounded by large and small Chinese highly scented with garlic! Before our hungry stomachs could welcome the toasted rice-balls, our olfactory nerves would rebel against the feast.
We who had succeeded in landing spent our first night in Liaotung in this condition. The spirits of the deceased comrades of ten years before must have welcomed us with outstretched arms and told us what they expected of us. Under tents, half exposed to the cold and wet, the men slept the good sleep of the innocent on millet straw, and an occasional smile came to their unconscious lips. What were they dreaming of? Some there were who sat by the smoky fire of millet straw all the night through, buried in deep thought and munching the remnant of their parting gifts with their lunch boxes hanging from the stone wall.
The day was about to dawn, when suddenly thunder and lightning arose in the western sky. Not lightning, but flames of fire; not thunder, but roar of cannon! Furious winds added to the dreariness of the scene; the sky was the color of blood.
The great battle of Nanshan! We could not keep still from fullness of joy and excitement.
Ch. V.