All with one accord hoped—Port Arthur!
Ch. IV.
A DANGEROUS LANDING
WHERE were we to land? This was the question that exercised our minds from the beginning to the end of our voyage. To land at Taku-shan and attack Haicheng and Liao Yang in the north, was one of the suggestions made. To go straight to the Gulf of Pechili and land at Iakao was another. A third suggestion was that we were to land at a certain point on the coast of Liaotung, and then go south to attack the stronghold of Port Arthur. Of course, all the views and opinions advanced were changed according to the direction in which our bows pointed. But at last, when we saw on the chart that we were sailing south of the Elliot Isles, all agreed at once that our destination was some spot leading to Port Arthur. What excitement and joy when we saw the transports and the guard-ships proceeding together toward that spot! After a while we began to notice a dark gray, long, slender piece of land dimly visible through thick mist. That was indeed the Peninsula of Liaotung! the place where, ten years before, so many brave and loyal sons of Yamato had laid their bones, and the field of action on which our own bodies were to be left! Since the previous evening the sky had been dark, the gray mist and clouds opening and shutting from time to time, the wind howling at our mast-heads, and the waves beating against our bows flying like snowflakes and scattering themselves like fallen flowers. Behind us there was only boundless cloud and water. Beyond those clouds was the sky of Nippon! The enthusiastic Banzais of the cheering nation, the sound of rosaries rubbed together in old women’s hands, the war-songs coming from the innocent lips of children—all these seemed still to reach our ears, conveyed by the swift winds.
We were to land at a gulf called Yenta-ao, on the eastern coast of the peninsula, to the southwest of Pitsu-we. This was only a small inlet on the sea of China. There was no good harbor in the vicinity except Talienwan, on the east side of Liaotung Peninsula; but that good harbor was then in possession of the enemy; so we had to risk everything and land on this less desirable spot, from the strategic necessity of the case. The sea and the currents of that neighborhood are both very treacherous; a storm of the least degree would make it extremely difficult, not only to land, but even to stay there at anchor. Moreover, the water is very shallow and a ship of any size must anchor one ri[25] away from the shore. When the wind is strong, a ship is sure to drift several miles further to the offing. Such being the case, we can well imagine the difficulty and anxiety those in charge of our debarkation experienced. Just as mother birds watch over their young, our convoys were watching us far and near, to protect our landing from surprise by the enemy. But the wind that had begun to blow in the morning became fiercer and fiercer, angry seas and frantic waves rose in mountains, transports and sampans were shaken like flying leaves, Chinese junks chartered by our government, raising their masts like forest trees, were being tossed and teazed by the winds as in the time of the great Mongol invasion in the Bay of Hakata.[26]
Could we land safely in such a storm? Were we to face the enemy at once on going ashore? We were like horses harnessed to a carriage—we did not know anything about our surroundings. All was known only to our colonel, in whose hands lay our lives. We did know, however, that two things were ahead of us, and they were—landing and marching. After a short wait, our landing was begun in spite of the risk; evidently the condition of the campaign did not admit delay. Hundreds of sampans, boats, and steam-launches—whence they had come, we did not know—surrounded the transports to carry men and officers away. Tremendous waves, now rising like high mountains and now sinking like deep valleys, seemed to swallow men and boats together. Carrying the flag with due solemnity, I got into the boat with the colonel. Innumerable small boats were to be fastened to steam-launches like beads on a rosary. Rolling and tumbling, these rosaries of boats would whistle their way to the shore. Our regimental flag braved the wind and waves and safely reached its destination. Ah, the first step and the second on this land occupied by the enemy! It seemed as if we had left our Fatherland but yesterday, and now, not in a dream, but in reality, we were treading on the soil of promise!
What an exquisite joy, to plant once more the Imperial Flag of His Illustrious Virtues on the Peninsula of Liaotung, also the soil of Japan, consecrated by the blood of our brothers!