I think he had not recognised me until then, although we knew each other very well. He gazed at me dubiously for a moment, then his hand shot out to grasp mine as he exclaimed:
“Hillo! my dear Swinburne, what does this mean; what are you doing here? And are you all alone?”
I answered his question by informing him, in as few words as possible, of what had happened to the ill-fated Kinshiu Maru, and then we got down into the boat and pulled across to the Idzumi, where Kamimura and his officers were impatiently awaiting us. They gave me the warmest of welcomes, and would not even permit me to tell them my story, the lieutenant who had rescued me assuring them that he had already obtained all the particulars and could tell it as well as I could. I was accordingly at once turned over to the care of the ship’s surgeon, and made comfortable in the sick bay, the squadron immediately resuming its cruise.
Now that the tension of looking after myself was relaxed, a reaction set in, with high fever, and for the next four days I was really ill, with frequent intervals of delirium. But there were no complications of any kind, and by the end of the sixth day I was so far recovered as to be able to dress and sit up for an hour or two. Everybody aboard the Idzumi was exceedingly kind to me, as kind indeed as though they had been brothers; and this fraternal feeling of kindly interest was not confined to the Idzumi alone, Kamimura himself informing me, with a smile, that it had become quite a habit for the other ships to signal an inquiry as to my condition, every morning. As the officers of the ship came off watch, they came tiptoeing along to inquire after me; and if I happened to be awake, and the doctor permitted it, they would sit and chat with me for half an hour or so before retiring to their cabins, by which means I gradually acquired all the missing links in the story of the squadron’s abortive cruise.
From these conversations I gathered that after the squadron and the Kinshiu parted company off Gensan, while we in the transport headed for Iwon, the squadron proceeded toward Vladivostock, being much delayed by a dense fog, through which it steamed at half-speed, each ship towing a fog buoy as a guide to the ship immediately following, though, even with this assistance, keeping touch was only accomplished with extreme difficulty. Thus they proceeded until, by dead reckoning, they arrived at a point seventy miles south of Vladivostock, when, the weather being much too thick to permit of fighting the enemy, even should the two fleets blunder together, Admiral Kamimura decided to retrace his steps, arriving at Gensan two days later. Here the Japanese consul boarded the Idzumi and imparted to the Admiral the startling information that on the previous day four strange warships, accompanied by a couple of destroyers, had appeared off the port, the warships being later identified as those constituting the Vladivostock squadron. The destroyers had entered the harbour, boarded a small Japanese craft loaded with fish, ordered her crew to get into her boat and go ashore, and had then torpedoed her; the expended torpedo being probably at least as valuable as the ship which it sank! Later on, the Russian cruisers had entered the harbour, but had left again without doing any damage. In reply to an inquiry concerning the Kinshiu Maru, the consul replied that neither she nor her escort had yet returned. This information caused Admiral Kamimura some uneasiness, since there had been time for us to do all that we had been ordered to do, and to get back to Gensan; and the squadron was actually getting its anchors, preparatory to its departure to hunt for the transport, when Commander Takebe with his torpedo-boats arrived. Questioned as to the whereabouts of the Kinshiu, he expressed surprise at her non-arrival, briefly relating particulars of the discussion which had resulted in the transport leaving Iwon, unescorted, while he remained in harbour to see what the weather developments were going to be.
This was enough for Kamimura. Takebe’s story, in conjunction with that of the consul at Gensan, convinced the Admiral that something very serious had happened; and he at once gave orders for the torpedo flotilla to proceed along the coast to hunt for news of the transport, while he, with his squadron, started off in chase of the Russians.
It was on the morning following this second departure of the squadron from Gensan, that they sighted the junk from which I was rescued. It is possible that, in his eagerness to overtake the Russians, he might have pushed on without pausing to examine a small, apparently derelict junk, but for the fact that, fortunately for me, two or three of the Idzumi’s officers recognised her as the junk which the Kinshiu had taken with her to facilitate the landing operations at Iwon.
After they had taken me off the junk, the Japanese had pushed ahead direct for Vladivostock, in the hope of arriving there before the Russians. But in this hope they were disappointed. Upon their arrival, the Russian cruisers were seen to be already back in harbour; and all that was accomplished was to drive precipitately back into the harbour two Russian destroyers which had the impudence—or the courage—to come out and threaten them; and also to exchange a few shots with the Russian forts.