About this time the coxswain turned her nose to the Oyomaru, but before we got there the ship’s sampan glided alongside, the mate in her alive, jabbering Nipponese and gesticulating toward the ship. We hurried back.
As we climbed on board Villiers yelled: “You’ve spoiled it now. You’ll never see Port Arthur.”
Then we found we had created a sensation—this strange boat manned by eight foreigners, appearing in broad afternoon in the harbor of the nearest naval base to the scene of the fleet’s activities. Two warships had prepared to fire on us at word of command and signaling from the fleet to the shore had only found that it was “supposed” we were “neutral allies,” but that officially we could not be recognized. The captain was reprimanded and we were told to keep close to the ship until released. Tokyo had said nothing of us to Dalny. To-morrow we will be released. But we will not again go about the harbor. We will go on shore. We will have ears and eyes, but no legs or tongues.
[Chapter Two]
THE INVISIBLE ARMY
Ho-o-zan, (the Phœnix Mountain) three miles from and looking into Port Arthur, Sept. 14th: Here we are with the Third Imperial Army waiting for Russia’s downfall in the Far East. With her fleet gone, Russia’s sea power has vanished. With Kuropatkin smashed it will be another year before she can have a great army in the field. So now there remains only impregnable Port Arthur to say that Russia but eight months ago held all Manchuria.
Ten of us are privileged to follow the fortunes of the army of investment. We alone of eighty-four war correspondents who entered the field are here to record the details of a siege that promises to go down in history with Plevna and Sebastopol. At the present time I may tell you only of how the army lives and works, and what sensations engulf one in the midst of this elemental contest at the apex of a world, where two civilizations are in life and death throes.