I got the following story somewhat indirectly, and for that reason cannot vouch for its truth. It was told to my informant by a Japanese officer while in rather a more communicative mood than is usual for an officer of the Mikado.
This Japanese official at the time commanded a torpedo-boat. In the flotilla of which his vessel was one there was a torpedo-boat that carried neither guns nor torpedoes, for she had been stripped of all armament and every mechanical device not absolutely essential to her navigation, in order to lighten her. And then she was loaded with dynamite to her full capacity.
The Japanese officer declared that when a volunteer crew of half a dozen men was called for to navigate her, ten times the required number offered themselves, although they well knew that they were going to certain death.
The flotilla was steaming slowly through the darkness one night, not far from Port Arthur, when there suddenly loomed up ahead the huge bulk of a Russian warship. At once the dynamite-laden craft threw herself directly in front of the oncoming leviathan.
Without the pause of an instant, the doomed Japanese crew sprung the huge mine, when a vast cone of flame shot up, reddening the night, carrying with it high into the air, decks, superstructure and guns of the warship. The warship’s magazines, fired simultaneously by the dynamite blast, aided the complete demolition. The returning torrent of guns and wreckage plunged into the sea.
All was over, and it was dark again.
A WILD PROJECTILE
In spite of every precaution at Government proving grounds, big projectiles do sometimes glance out of the butts or heaps of earth into which they are fired, or from the face of armorplates against which they are directed, and finally land in most unexpected quarters.