Banzai! by Parabellum

by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

What could the two cruisers New York and Brooklyn, lying in dock for repairs, do without a single ball-cartridge on board? What was the good of the deck guards using up their cartridges before the red flag of Nippon was hoisted above the Stars and Stripes?

It is true there was a fight at one spot—out at Winfield Scott. Although the fog proved of great assistance to the Japanese in a hundred cases, the stipulated signal for attack, that is, the whistle of the Japanese auxiliary cruiser Pelung Maru, for example, being taken for a fog-signal, nevertheless an annoying surprise awaited the enemy elsewhere.

A steamer headed towards the Golden Gate in the wake of the Pelung Maru heard the roar of the sealions, and as this showed how near they were to the cliffs, the vessel dropped anchor and instead of blowing its whistle ordered the ship's bell to be rung. This was heard by the Pelung Maru a short distance ahead and interpreted as a sign that something had occurred to disturb the plan of attack. A steamlaunch was therefore sent out to look for the anchored ship.

The latter was the German steamer Siegismund, whose captain, standing on the bridge, suddenly saw a dripping little launch approaching with its flag trailing behind it in the water. And just as in every cleverly arranged plan one stupid oversight is apt to occur so it happened now. The launch carried the Japanese flag and the lieutenant at the helm called to the Siegismund in Japanese. As they were directly before the guns of the American batteries, the German captain didn't know what to make of it. He couldn't imagine what the launch from a Japanese warship could be doing here at dawn before the Golden Gate fortifications, and thinking that the fact would be likely to be of interest to the commander of the fort, he sent him the following wireless message: "Have just met launch of a Japanese warship off Seal-Rocks; what does it mean?"

This information alarmed the garrison at Winfield Scott, and the men at once received orders to man the guns. Then they waited breathlessly to see what would happen next.

An inquiry sent by wireless to the other stations remained unanswered, because these were already in the hands of the Japanese, whose operators were not quick-witted enough to send back a reassuring answer. As the commander of the fort received no answer, he became suspicious, and these suspicions were soon justified when a number of soldiers were discovered trying to force their way into the narrow land entrance of the fort. A few shots fired during the first bayonet assault and the bullets landing within the fort showed that it was a serious matter. Besides, a puff of wind dispersed the fog for a few seconds just then, and the shadowy silhouettes of several large ships became visible. Without a moment's hesitation the commander of Winfield Scott ordered the men to open fire on them from the heavy guns. These were the shots that had been heard at the San Francisco Post Office and Tom was quite right in thinking that he heard the rattle of musketry directly afterwards.

But with the small stock of ammunition doled out to the coast defenses in times of peace—there were plenty of blank cartridges for salutes—it was impossible to hold Winfield Scott. The fort sent out a few dozen shells into the fog pretty blindly, and, as a matter of fact, they hit nothing. Then began the hopeless battle between the garrison and the Japanese machine-guns, and although the shots from the latter were powerless to affect the walls and the armor-plating, still they worked havoc among the men. And the ammunition of the Americans disappeared even more quickly than their men, so that when at ten o'clock two Japanese regiments undertook to capture the fort by storm, the last defender fell with practically the last cartridge. Then the Rising Sun of Dai Nippon was substituted on the flagstaff of Winfield Scott for the Stars and Stripes.

In the city itself small Japanese guards were posted at the railway station, the Post Office and the telegraph offices, at the City Hall and at most of the public buildings, and as early as this, on the morning of May seventh, troops for the march eastward were being landed at the pier at Oakland. A standing garrison of only five thousand men was left in San Francisco, and these at once occupied the coast-batteries and prepared them for defense. The same thing was of course done with the docks and the naval station, with Oakland and all the other towns situated on the bay.

The sudden appearance of the enemy had in every case had a positively paralyzing effect. Among the inhabitants of the coast the terrible feeling prevailed everywhere that this was the end, that nothing could be done against an enemy whose soldiers crept out of every hole and cranny, and even when a few courageous men did unite for the purpose of defending their homes, they found no followers. It is a pity that others did not show the resolute courage of a Mexican fisherman's wife, who reached the harbor of San Francisco with a good catch early on Monday morning and made fast to the pier close to a Japanese destroyer. Almost immediately a Japanese petty officer came on board and demanded the catch for the use of the Japanese army. The woman, a coarse beauty with a fine mustache, planted herself in front of the Jap and shouted: "What, you shrimp, you want our fish, do you?" and seizing a good-sized silver fish lying on the deck, she boxed the astonished warrior's ears right and left till he fell over backwards into the water and swam quickly back to the destroyer, snorting like a seal, amidst the laughter of the bystanders.

The question naturally suggests itself at this point: Why didn't a people as determined as the Americans rise like one man and, arming themselves with revolvers and pistols and if it came to the worst with such primitive weapons as knives and spokes, attack the various small Japanese garrisons and free their country from this flood of swarming yellow ants? The white handbills posted up at every street corner furnished the answer to the question.