One of these boats, if not more (I have never been able to ascertain precisely what happened to the five torpedo boats that left Odessa), made a dash at the Turkish squadron; the weather not permitting him to use his Whitehead, he decided to try what his pole torpedo would do. As he approached the head-most vessel, he found (as he explained afterwards to me) that something stopped his way, and he saw at the same time several black objects approaching him. Nothing daunted, he struggled to get close to the bows of the ironclad; when he got as near as he could manage he fired his torpedo, without, however, doing any harm to his enemy. Scarcely had he done this when he found himself in the water and his boat gone from under him: the real facts being that the black objects he had seen were the guard-boats, which were closing on him, the ropes that connected them together having fouled his screw, and caused the disaster; his boat was capsized and went to the bottom. Four or five of her crew were drowned, as he would have been, had he not been fished out of the water by the Turkish guard-boats, and made prisoner.
The name of this daring naval officer was Putskin. His cool courage was very amusing. When interrogated, while still in a half-drowned condition, he exclaimed in excellent English, 'Why the devil didn't I blow that ship up?' He was asked if he had any idea what stopped him, and it was suggested to him that something must have fouled his screw. He answered, 'I don't know what stopped me, but why the devil didn't I blow the ship up?' I told him that I had a sort of notion he might be hanged for using such a fearful weapon. He said, 'No brave man would hang me; but why,' &c.
He seemed to have only one idea, and that was he was a fool for having failed. He was too good a man to let go, so we kept him till nearly the end of the war.
Wherever he may be now he is a fine fellow, whose bravery I for one shan't forget in a hurry.
A short time after the above-named occurrence the Russians attempted an attack upon Sulina by land and water, with what object I have never been able to understand; as, if they had succeeded, they could not have held it so long as our ships were anchored in the offing. Perhaps their intention was, by driving us out of the river, to utilise its position for torpedo attacks.
I have explained that Sulina was surrounded by sea and vast marshes. Along the seashore there was a narrow causeway of sand, on which ten men could march abreast. The only other approaches were by sea and by the river, the latter, at about ten miles distance, being in the hands of the Russians. As a defence we had placed on the beach, at about a gun-shot's distance, several torpedoes, buried in the sand, and connected by electric wires with the batteries of Sulina. A simultaneous movement was made by three or four Russian gun-boats descending the river, and two regiments of troops accompanied by artillery were sent along the causeway. Suspecting something in regard to torpedoes, they drove before them as a sort of advance guard about two hundred and fifty horses without riders, it being the duty of the poor animals to take the shock of the explosion should torpedoes be placed on the beach. And so they did, for, on the horses passing the spot where the torpedoes were placed, an explosion took place through which several horses were killed. The rest turned right back, and the causeway being very narrow, dashed amongst the advancing troops, causing the greatest confusion, so much so that the whole party had to retreat and we saw them no more.
It is true that one of the small ironclads had about got the range of the advancing enemy along the sea-beach, so making their position rather precarious, but I believe that the real cause of the failure was the action of the horses.
In the meantime, the light draft Russian gun-boats came down the river, and began to fire shell and shot at a long range at the small town and fortifications of Sulina. This was answered by the temporary batteries alone, the ships being out of range. Desultory fighting went on for about twenty-four hours, when the Russians, finding the hopelessness of the enterprise, especially now that the troops had retired, gave it up as a bad job and steamed up the Danube again. This was the only serious attack made upon Sulina, which Russia could never have taken and held till she had destroyed the Turkish fleet. After this I went to Batoum, which place Dervish Pasha was gallantly holding against Russia. He was sadly in want of naval help, as the Russians had advanced by the sea-shore to within six miles of that much-coveted port. On arriving there I took the command of eight Turkish ships of war, besides transports that were constantly coming and going between Constantinople and Batoum with provisions, ammunition, &c., for the army and navy. Here, again, if the Russians could have disposed of the Turkish fleet they would have easily taken Batoum. By commanding the sea, even with a couple of vessels, they would have prevented supplies being sent. It must be remembered there was no way of supporting the soldiers and sailors except by sea. My first object was to drive the Russians, by the fire of the ships, more inland. This was easy enough, as of course the enemy had no guns with them to compare in range with those on board the ironclads. Some time after my arrival, however, they brought down two fifteen centimètre Krupp guns from Ardahan, guns that had a considerably longer range than our twelve-ton Armstrongs. They gave us some trouble; however, the position of the attacking camp was changed so as to be out of range of our guns, a move in every way satisfactory to the Turkish military commander. This action of our fleet gave great annoyance to the enemy, and it was determined if possible to make our lying at Batoum a dangerous if not impossible matter. This was to be done by the so-called almighty torpedo. I received notice from our secret agent at Sebastopol that a serious expedition was being organised, that the Turkish ships at Batoum were to be destroyed or frightened away at any cost. Frightened away, indeed! To the uninitiated a torpedo is a thing to frighten any one away. We had heard of magnificent results of torpedo trials in peace, how ships (I fancy only hulks) had been blown up, columns of water half a mile high being sent into the air, &c. Nothing, it was said, could save you. Whatever my ideas, however nervous I may have felt, I knew that those I was commanding had no fear—they don't know what it means, the more especially of a not understood possible casualty, and though more enlightened as to torpedoes and their accepted effects, I wasn't to show my people a bad example. When lying in bed in the middle of the night, having read the warning letter before retiring, I thought:—'Suppose one of these nasty things goes off and blows the flagship up at this moment. How pleasant! What cowardly things these are; no fair fight, up you go, unshriven. I have heard that a man who is hanged is likely to go to heaven; I wonder if the same chance would be given to him blown up by a torpedo?' These sort of feelings came over me. However, said I, 'Let us see if we can prevent their being realised;' so I went to work to try to do so. As a sportsman I calculated that to fire at a dark object in the night, especially when that object had a background of high hills such as we had at Batoum, was most difficult, so the first order I gave was no lights, not even a cigarette light; utter darkness under severe penalties. Next, considering that Batoum is a very small port, with an entrance difficult to find even in broad daylight, almost impossible in the night without the lighthouse as a guide, I ordered that the lighthouse should not be lighted. Then I arranged with the shore authorities that no lights should be seen in the town; this was more difficult, as there were many Russian friendlies in Batoum.
However, the application of somewhat severe discipline made Batoum like a city of the dead after dark.
In addition to these precautions I put a barrier of booms ahead of the ships lying in the port, placed guard-boats to watch it at the entrance of the harbour, and having done all this, I bided my time. For some nights, rather sleepless to me, though to my disgust I heard my officers snoring all round me, nothing happened (though, as I heard afterwards, a good deal had been going on outside the harbour), when, at about three o'clock in the morning of the third or fourth night after I had received the warning, I heard a row going on in the direction of the guard-boats and an explosion near to one of the outlying ships. I had hardly time to think, when something struck the chain of my flagship and seemed to spin past, like a fish in the water. Then dead silence. I immediately sent orders to the two fast cruisers, which were lying with steam up, to go to sea and reconnoitre.