Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

by Harry Collingwood

We obtained a compartment to ourselves, and my new friend at once started smoking cigarettes and chatting in the most animated manner upon the prospects of war. He was in high spirits, and apparently had no doubts at all as to the outcome of the fighting—if fighting there was to be. And of this also he appeared to entertain no doubt, although there were people who still believed that either Russia or Japan would climb down and so avoid a fight.

By the time that the train reached Dover we were “as thick as thieves,” for Nakamura’s perfect frankness and his geniality of manner quickly conquered my insular aloofness toward the foreigner; and upon boarding the Channel steamer we at once went below and were busy with our luncheon almost before the boat had cast off from the pier.

At Calais, Nakamura, who seemed to speak every language under the sun, took charge of my baggage as well as his own, and by some mysterious process, probably not altogether unconnected with “backsheesh,” managed to clear the whole through the Customs in about five minutes. Then he again “squared” the guard and secured our privacy as far as Paris, where we arrived about five o’clock in the evening. There was a train leaving for Marseilles at half-past seven, so we took a cab, drove across the city, and dined at the railway station in comfort before beginning the long night journey. Then, once more securing a compartment to ourselves, we settled down for our twelve hours’ run to the shore of the Mediterranean.

I was very much amused at the naïvété of some of my companion’s remarks. He asked the most intimate questions in the coolest possible manner, and if I had not already resolved to be absolutely frank with my new comrades in arms I should have been somewhat embarrassed to find replies for some of them. He was greatly surprised to learn that I was not yet eighteen years of age, and was still growing, for although he appeared to be not more than twenty-five, he informed me that he was actually thirty-three, and I was a head taller than he, the fact being that I had a natural tendency toward bulkiness which my passion for athletics had further encouraged. He jocularly remarked that he hoped the authorities would have sense enough to appoint me to a battleship, for he was sure that in no other quarters would I find room to stand upright.

We reached Marseilles without adventure at eight o’clock on the following morning, and, after breakfasting at the railway station, chartered a cab and drove down to the Joliet, where we found our ship, the Matsuma Maru, lying alongside a wharf piled yards high with crates, bales, and cases of all sorts and sizes waiting to be stowed in the ship’s holds. The skipper was somewhere ashore, it appeared, but we hunted up the chief officer and introduced ourselves, upon which we learned that every effort was being made to have the ship ready for sea by three o’clock that afternoon, but that it would be impossible for her to get away a minute earlier than that; we therefore found the chief steward, got him to show us our cabins, and had our baggage carried aboard. Then we went ashore again and, Nakamura happening to learn that the place boasted a zoological garden, nothing would satisfy him but we must needs go there, which we did, afterwards finding our way to the handsome Museum. Then down into the town again to lunch, finally returning to the ship at a quarter to three. I had been accustomed to seeing work smartly done in our own navy, but I was amazed to see what a few hours of strenuous labour had effected upon that wharf. It was practically cleared, and even as we stood and watched, the last cases were slung aboard, and the first bell, warning visitors that the ship was about to start, was rung, whereupon we trotted aboard and took up a position on the poop, where some fifty or sixty other passengers, all men, with about half a dozen exceptions, were already congregated. Nakamura looked eagerly about him and quickly spotted at least a dozen acquaintances and fellow-countrymen, to all of whom he insisted upon introducing me; and his mention of the fact that I was going out for the express purpose of fighting for Japan at once ensured me a most friendly welcome among them. While this was going on, the ship was unmoored, and a few minutes later we were outside the harbour and shaping a course that took us at no great distance past the islet which Hugo has immortalised in his Count of Monte Christo.

Once clear of the harbour, the skipper rang for full speed; and the Matsuma Maru, a white-hulled, steel-built ship of some four thousand tons, rigged as a topsail schooner, soon showed that she was the possessor of a nimble pair of heels. She was loaded well down, yet an hour after the patent log had been put overboard it recorded a run of seventeen knots. The weather was gloriously fine and the sea glass-smooth, so that one had not much opportunity of judging her quality as a sea boat, but when I went forward and, duly paying my footing, looked over the bows and noted their outward flare as the sides rose from the water, I had not much difficulty in deciding that she would prove very comfortable and easy in a seaway.

Upon going below to dinner that night, a glance round the saloon tables showed that at least seventy-five per cent, of the passengers were Japanese, while, of the remainder, half, perhaps, were English, the rest being composed, in pretty nearly equal proportions, of French, Germans, and, somewhat to my surprise, Russians. These last, however, it eventually transpired, had booked only as far as Hong Kong, from whence it was probable that they intended to proceed to Port Arthur, although they said nothing to that effect.

We passed through the Straits of Bonifacio and Messina, and in due course arrived at Port Said without incident, except that, thanks to Nakamura, I soon became upon friendly and even intimate terms with all the Japanese passengers in the saloon, as well as the ship’s officers. There was one old gentleman in particular, rejoicing in the name of Matsudaira Hashimoto, an ex-professor of languages at the Imperial College of Tokio, who, happening to hear that I was anxious to utilise the large amount of time occupied by the voyage in acquiring as much knowledge as possible of the Japanese language, at once came forward with an offer to gratuitously teach me, in order that, as he remarked, I might be equipped with a working knowledge of the language upon my arrival, and so be in a position to immediately render my services valuable. The old gentleman, it appeared, had been remarkably successful in his day as a teacher of languages, working upon a system which he had himself invented; and, luckily for me, his system was so excellent that, working with me for five hours daily, he actually succeeded in redeeming his promise so thoroughly that when we at length reached Yokohama I was able to manage quite fairly well without the services of an interpreter. This by the way.

It was a part of the skipper’s plan to replenish his bunkers at Port Said, an operation involving a detention of three hours. We therefore all went ashore, and I posted a letter to my friends, the Gordons, attaching to it a number of stamps of different denominations, for the benefit of Ronald, who was an enthusiastic collector. We then roved about the town, but, finding nothing to interest us, soon returned to the ship, which we found enveloped in a cloud of coal dust which was playing havoc with her fresh white paint, despite the canvas screens spread to protect it.

We got under way again shortly after three o’clock that afternoon, two of our passengers—Russians who looked very much like military men in mufti—cutting things so fine that they were actually compelled to follow after us in a steam launch; and when at length they overtook us, scrambled aboard, and went at once to the cabin which they shared, the skipper, with whom Nakamura and I had become very chummy, caught our eyes and signed to us both to come up to his cabin on the bridge, the ship then being in charge of a canal pilot, with Sadakiyo, the chief officer, standing beside him on the navigating bridge.