Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

by Collingwood Harry

The game, however, was not yet finished. While we had been busily dropping our mines, what I thought a rather brilliant idea had occurred to me; and, ceasing work for a while, I steamed up alongside the Akebono, of our 2nd Division, and imparted my idea to Commander Tsuchiya, who was pleased to very heartily approve of it. In accordance with my scheme, therefore, the 1st Destroyer Division completed its task before daylight, and quietly steamed off round to the westward of Liau-ti-shan, where we remained snugly concealed, close in under the cliffs.

My idea was that if our 2nd Division were discovered—as it was necessary it should be, the Russians would probably send out a few destroyers to attack it; and the event proved that my surmise was correct. Six Russian destroyers were dispatched from the harbour, presumably with instructions to wipe the Akebono and Sazanami off the face of the waters; and as soon as the latter saw the enemy approaching, on a course intended to cut off their retreat to the eastward, the two boats swerved sharply away to the westward, with their funnels belching great clouds of smoke, and every indication that their crews were in a terrible state of fright—but with their engines working at only about three-quarter speed. The Russians, stimulated by our 2nd Division’s apparent terror, and finding also that they were steadily gaining upon the chase, strained every nerve to overtake them, and at length came pounding round the point in great style.

Meanwhile, the two retreating Japanese destroyers had already swept past us—thus giving us the signal to be on the lookout—and, veering round, in a wide semi-circle, formed up in our rear, we of the 1st Division having already started our engines as soon as they hove in sight.

On came the Russian destroyers, rolling and pitching on the long swell, with the water spouting and curling under their sharp bows to the height of their bridges; and the moment that the first of them swung round the point, over went the indicators of our engine-room telegraphs to “Full speed ahead!” Our gun crews had been standing to their guns for some time past, all ready for action, and as we swept out to seaward, crossing the Russians’ bows, we let fly at them with our twelve-pounders and as many of our six-pounders as could be brought to bear, concentrating our fire as much as possible upon the enemy’s guns, several of which we succeeded in dismounting.

I feel bound to admit that, taken by surprise though they were, the Russians put up a splendid fight; but although they were superior to us in numbers, our men would not be denied, they worked their guns as coolly and with as deadly precision as though they had been at target practice, and the Russian boats were hulled again and again, clouds of steam arose from them, fires broke out aboard some of them, and so closely were we engaged that we could occasionally hear the cries of the wounded that arose as our shot swept their decks. The fight, which was a very hot one, lasted some twenty minutes, by which time the Russians had managed to get back round the point and under the cover of the batteries. We followed them to the very mouth of the harbour, fighting every inch of the way, but, at length, with heavy shells falling all round us, in some cases dropping so close that our decks were drenched with spray, it became imperative for us to be off, and we accordingly ported our helms and made off, followed by salvos of shot, big and small, until we were out of range.

Then we slowed down our engines and proceeded to take stock of our injuries.

So far as the Kasanumi was concerned, we had got off pretty lightly, although there was a period of about three minutes when we were hotly engaged by two Russian destroyers at the same time. Our decks were rather severely scored by flying fragments of shells, we had three shot-holes in our hull, we had one man killed and two wounded, one of them being our chief engineer, who, although severely wounded by a fragment of a shell which burst in the engine-room, gallantly stuck to his post until the fight was over, when he was able to turn the engines over to his second. The Akatsuki had received the severest punishment, one of her steam pipes being severed, and four of her engine-room hands scalded to death. In all, we lost in this fight seven killed and eight wounded; but none of the boats was very seriously damaged.

Meanwhile, our 2nd Division, consisting of the Akebono and Sazanami, had vanished, without leaving a sign of their whereabouts. It was now daylight, and the weather tolerably clear, yet, although Hiraoka and I swept the whole surface of the sea with our glasses, we entirely failed to pick them up. The Asashio and Akatsuki were within hail, both of them engaged, like ourselves, in temporarily patching up the holes in their thin steel sides, through which the water was pouring in whenever we rolled extra heavily; and I hailed them both, inquiring whether either of them had seen anything of the missing craft. An affirmative reply came from my friend Ito, aboard the Akatsuki, who informed me that shortly after the fight began, on the other side of the promontory, he had momentarily caught sight of them both, steaming hot-foot after a destroyer which was in full flight, heading toward Pigeon Bay.

Scarcely had this reply been given when the sounds of light gun-fire faintly reached our ears from the direction mentioned, and a few minutes later two destroyers, flying the Russian flag, came foaming round the point, firing as they came, while close behind them appeared our two missing boats, also firing for all they were worth. The Russian boats were running in “line ahead,” and it seemed to me that the skipper of the leading boat was manoeuvring her in such a manner as to keep his consort as nearly as possible between himself and the pursuers; at all events the sternmost boat seemed to be getting the biggest share of the pursuers’ fire.

At once I shouted an order for the men engaged upon our repairs to hasten their work and bring it to some sort of finish, at the same time signing the quartermaster to put his helm hard over, my intention of course being to go back and render such assistance as might be required, while the Asashio kept on and stood by Ito, who had his hands full with his severed steam pipe.