A Secret Service agent, although making no friends or acquaintances, always makes it his business to converse with and study his fellow travelers. Following my usual habit, I went out of my way to cultivate the acquaintance of the Japanese, particularly Huraki. A scholar of no mean attainments was the Baron.
Quietly, without being didactic, he upheld his end in most discussions on applied sciences or philosophic arguments, putting forth his deep knowledge in an unobtrusive way. I found this trait to be an invariable rule with most of the Japanese with whom I came in contact. Once or twice during our lengthy and pleasant chats I tried to veer the subject round to the all-engrossing Eastern question, only to be met with the maddening bland smile of the East. I was rather inexperienced in the fathomless, undefinable ways of the Orient, but on the Bayern I learned rapidly the truths that Western methods and strategy are absolutely useless against the impenetrable stoicism of an Asiatic and that only personal regard and obligation on their part will produce results. In striking contrast to the Japanese, small and sinewy, any two of them weighing no more than one Russian, quiet, taciturn, genial and abstemious, were the children of the "Little White Father." The Russians were an aggressive, big, well set up, heavy type of men, by no means teetotalers, talkative, with overbearing swagger, always posing, talking contemptuously about the possible struggle in the East, invariably referring to the Japanese as "little monkey men." Fortunate for me was it that the Bayern was carrying both Russians and Japanese; the knowledge I acquired from Baron Huraki of the Asiatics was invaluable in Singapore; what I learned of Russians, I needed at Port Arthur. But I am anticipating my narrative.
Arriving in Singapore, I put up at the Hotel de la Paix on the Marine Parade. I posed as an ordinary tourist with a leaning toward hunting and a fad of doing research work in tropical botany. I gradually became acquainted with a number of English officers and was introduced at their clubs. The information obtained through these channels about the new naval base was merely theoretical and I soon found that to obtain practical results I would have to get in touch with the native clerks. In the English Eastern possessions, you see, most clerical and minor mechanical positions are held by natives. It soon was brought home to me, though, that this cultivating natives was by no means easy and a rather dangerous thing to do. To be in any way successful, I had to find a native of a higher caste, one with sufficient influence to command the clerks. If I could get hold of one of the numerable discontented petty rajahs, for instance, there might be a chance of obtaining what I sought.
In one of the clubs, I found a clue. A young Rajah, one of the numerous coterie of petty princes--fair play compels me to withhold his name--had got himself into some trouble and the paternal government had promptly suspended his income. Here was my chance. I soon ascertained young Rajah's haunts and made it my business to frequent them. One day I found him on the veranda of the Marine Hotel and asked him for a match, making a return compliment of a cigarette. This was a procedure against established British social usage in the East, where it is considered infra dig to meet a native on a social footing. Herein lies a grave danger to English colonial policy. Your semi-European educated native, having partly absorbed European manners, resents this subordination and ostracism. So, with this high-spirited, rather clever young rajah. I accepted his invitation to whiskey "pegs" and subsequent dinner at his bungalow. One visit led to another and we were soon rather intimate. The young Rajah, having the usual native taste for luxury well developed and his income stopped, I became of some monetary assistance to him. Also, judiciously fostering his discontent against the government, I soon had him in a desired frame of mind. Through his influence on the native clerks, I was able to gain all the plans, data and photographs of England's new naval base in the Straits Settlement.
By this time my close association with this notorious young Rajah was marked and I found it advisable to pull up stakes, which I did in short order, arranging passage on the N. D. L. liner Sachsen, homeward bound. Having a week to spare and finding that by leaving the Sachsen at Colombo, I could catch the Prinz Regent Leopold of the same line, coming up from Australia en route for Europe, I had my ticket transferred. This would give me a ten-day vacation in Ceylon, where I had a number of acquaintances, having hunted there during my early travels. Accordingly, at Colombo I put up at the Galle Face Hotel, and the first man I met was Allan MacGregor, one of Lipton's tea estate managers, in Kandy and Newara Elya. MacGregor and I were old pals, having done much hunting and bridge playing in days gone by. I planned to spend a week with him and go after some leopards. By the by, I'd like to see the MacGregor's face when he learns that his quondam friend and boon companion was an international spy!
"Dinna get sair, Mac. You're no the only chiel what'll tak a wee surprise."
I was just arranging a hunting trip with MacGregor when Bill Peters, manager of the hotel, another old acquaintance, handed me a cable knocking all my plans to bits. It was a cipher message from Captain von Tappken, and shortly I was again on the high sea, bound not for home, but for Port Arthur. My orders were to ascertain how far the Port Arthur fortifications were completed and to report on the general conditions as I found them. I wondered not a little at this mission, as I could not then see what close interest Germany could have in a possible war between Russia and Japan. Also, I by no means relished the assignment, for it was a perilous business and I judged the Russians to be extremely suspicious--which I afterwards learned they were not.
I decided to travel under the cloak of a doctor of natural history and botany, my medical training giving me the necessary knowledge to impersonate the character. The reader will understand that if Doctor Franz von Cannitz is subsequently mentioned, it refers to me. Almost everybody, especially my government, knew that war between Russia and Japan was inevitable. I say, all, except Russia.
To make this situation clear, let me hark back a little. Japan, beating China in the war of 1895, took and occupied Port Arthur. Japan later, compelled by hostile demonstrations on the part of Russia backed up by France and Germany, restored Port Arthur to China. Note the holding aloof of England here. The actual text of the ultimatum delivered was that the possession of ceded territory by Japan would be detrimental to the lasting peace of the Orient. Japan was bitterly humiliated and an Asiatic never forgets or forgives. Japan bided her time. Russia's duplicity in the Boxer Campaign, and her seizure of Port Arthur, gave Japan the needed casus belli. Result, the Russian-Japanese War.
Arriving in Port Arthur, I established myself at the Hotel l'Europe and with prospecting spade, botanical trowel and butterfly net, I sallied forth around the hills of Port Arthur. The first thing which struck me was the enormous number of Chinese and Chunshuses (bad Coolies) employed everywhere. I came to know that they were not all Chinese Coolies and that almost every tenth man was a disguised Japanese. To an observer, trained in the facial characteristics of the Oriental, it was not difficult to pick out the Japanese from the mass of Coolies. They fairly swarmed in Port Arthur right under the very noses of the Russians. As Baron Huraki had told me during our passage on the Bayern, his countrymen were actually employed in the building of the Port Arthur defenses! These Japanese were later able to give invaluable information in directing the Japanese batteries. Numerous other alleged Coolies were acting as servants to Russian officers. I also found that on the Lioa Teah Shan Railway and at Pidgeon Bay the very porters were Japanese. In fact, the entire Russian stronghold was infested with them.