Nights of alarm have again begun. They suspect the near presence of Japanese cruisers, which have a base in the English Seychelles Islands, by which we are now passing.
At the wireless telegraph office they are receiving strange dispatches. There are more grounds for caution now than there ever were before. No doubt as the fleet moves forward the chances of a meeting with the enemy increase. All day I felt fairly well, but towards the evening a strange depression came over me. Anxiety wrings my heart. I have lost all interest in everything. They say that the Japanese are near. What then? It is all the same to me.
I often pass through bad moments. One grieves, rages, censures, criticises, and condemns everything. Our army is acting independently, and the fleet does not combine with the movements of the army. The self-same fleet is split into little pieces, which do not act in conformity with the movements of the others. Three (or now, perhaps, two) ships are doing something, or more probably are lying at Vladivostok. Our fleet is moving east, and the third remains behind somewhere (where we do not know); and they are collecting some remnants at Cronstadt and Libau. All these parts do not know what the others are doing. Can there be success under these conditions? I think that there are many disorders in the army. There is no method or organisation anywhere. Among our enemies all is worked out, foreseen, and guessed beforehand. They conduct war on a scientific programme. Is success likely to be on our side? No.
Of course, anything might happen. We might win, but it would only be by chance. With us it is the old system called "Perhaps," and the old game of trusting to luck. Everything is done anyhow. Not without reason some one remarked that the "apes were righting the anyhows." To do him justice, it would be difficult to say a worse or a truer thing.
The Oleg is steaming astern, and other cruisers are ahead and abeam of the fleet. All the battleships, torpedo-boats, and transports occupy the centre.
March 9th (8 a.m.).—Six times to-day the tow-ropes of torpedo-boats have carried away. This is rather often. The Dimitry Donskoi reports that at night she saw lights of three ships, which were communicating with searchlight flashes, and were going the same course as ourselves.
Another sailor has died in the Oslyabya. He will be buried at sea. He died the day before yesterday, but the coaling prevented his body being committed to the deep yesterday. There are frequent deaths in the Oslyabya, and most of them occur when the fleet is under way.
The admiral always had weak nerves, and now especially so. He sleeps very little, is worried, and gets beside himself at every trifle. Probably he will not hold out to the end.
11 p.m.—We are going desperately slowly. So far we have made a thousand miles. If we go by one course there will be 2,800 miles left, and by another 2,500. This means we have to toss on the sea for fifteen or twenty days, if nothing happens.