III. Correspondents must not transmit unconfirmed information about the enemy, such as rumours of victory, or threatening movements, which may cause public uneasiness in Russia.
IV. All correspondents without credentials will be turned back. Those given permission to join the forces are in honour bound to observe the regulations, with the penalty of expulsion without warning for any violation. They can go anywhere in the field, and are barred only from the Russian fleet.
"H'm," said Fred, as he read over the printed rules, "fair enough, though 'a simple statement of fact' is hard lines on a flowery writer. If my friends the Japs had been as liberal, I shouldn't have got into Port Arthur in a hurry."
He soon made the acquaintance of two or three other newspaper men from European capitals, and managed to get a few good cables through the censor without their being mangled beyond recognition. He soon discovered Stevens's lodgings, where he learned that the traitor had the entrée of Staff headquarters, and was known as Henry Burley, of Liverpool. For the present Fred could see no spoke to put in his wheel, for the interests of the United States were, as far as he knew, in no way involved in the man's character or actions. Still, as Fred soliloquised, "he would bear watching."
The war proceeded with unabated vigour. During the second week of Fred's enforced idleness another sea-tragedy took place in the Yellow Sea, off Korea. The Japanese transport Kinshiu Maru was proceeding from Nagasaki to the Korean coast, with ammunition, coal, supplies, and infantry. In the middle of the night several large ships loomed up through the haze. Supposing them to be Togo's fleet, the Kinshiu Maru signalled, "I am bringing you coal." What was her commander's dismay to read the answer, twinkling out in red and white Ardois lights, "Stop instantly!" At the same moment the cry ran through the transport, "The Russians! the Russians!"
"Surrender!" signalled Admiral Yeszen, from his flagship. It was the Vladivostock squadron of formidable cruisers, released at last from the ice which for months had both protected and fettered them.
Instead of surrendering, the crew of the Kinshiu Maru began to lower their boats in mad haste, hoping to escape in the darkness; a Russian steam cutter captured every boat but one, which was afterward picked up by a Japanese schooner, many miles from the scene of the disaster.
The Russians boarded the transport, and found about one hundred and fifty soldiers, who barricaded themselves in the cabin and refused to surrender. Withdrawing to their ships, the victors began to shell the doomed hulk. The Japanese soldiers swarmed on deck and discharged their rifles in the direction of the foe, shouting old Samurai battle-songs. Pierced and shattered, the transport settled lower and lower in the water. At last a Whitehead torpedo, exploding against the ship, tore a great hole in her hull amidships, and she plunged into the depths of the sea. Up to the last moment, when the waves rolled over them, the soldiers shouted their defiance and steadily loaded and fired. With two hundred prisoners, the Russian squadron returned to Vladivostock.
On land the Japanese advanced steadily. Gradually the long, throttling fingers extended from east and west toward the railroad that meant life or death to the great fortress. Then came the battle of the Yalu, to the east. The river was crossed, the Japanese poured into Manchuria, and the position of the Russian forces on the Liaotung peninsula became still more critical. Supplies were crowded into the beleaguered port, and non-combatants filled the northward-bound trains to overflowing. Early in May it became evident that with one more clutch of the relentless hand of Nippon all communication between Port Arthur and the rest of the world would be cut off.
Fred Larkin saw that he must decide whether to move out at once or remain virtually a prisoner in the town. Most of the other correspondents had already gone. The instructions from the home office were ambiguous. He tried to cable again, but the wires were pre-empted for military despatches in those stirring days. He decided, reluctantly, to abandon Port Arthur and join the Russian army now entrenched a few miles north, on the line of the railroad.