Meanwhile we were plugging along in grand style and drawing so near to our destination that I called to the men to cease firing, and for two of them to stand by to let go the anchor while the rest came aft and held themselves ready to jump into our solitary boat when I gave the word. It was wonderfully exciting work, for as we drew nearer in we came into the range of fire of other forts and ships, and the air seemed to be thick with missiles, while shrapnel was bursting all round us, and the water was torn by flying shot to such an extent that our decks were streaming, and all hands of us were wet through with the thrown-up spray.
At length our appointed berth was so close at hand that I rang down to stop the engines and signed to the helmsman to put his helm hard a-port, while I stationed myself close to the electric button, pressure on which would fire the explosives in our hold and blow our bottom out. We were now so close in under the cliffs that the Golden Hill guns could no longer reach us, also we were out of range of the great searchlights, consequently we were enshrouded in darkness, yet the forts on the west side of the harbour still maintained their fire upon us; but we were now lost in the deep shadow of the cliffs, and the shots flew wide.
Half a minute later, I called down the tube to the engineer to send his engines astern to check our way, and then come on deck; and he was still ascending the engine-room ladder when I shouted to the men forward to let go the anchor. It fell with a great splash, and as we had snubbed her at a short scope, she quickly brought up in the exact spot destined for her.
“Lower away the boat, and tumble in, men,” I shouted; and the words were hardly out of my mouth when I heard the murmur of the falls through the blocks, and the splash of the boat as she hit the water. A few muffled ejaculations followed as the men slid down the falls, then came the rattle of oars as they were thrown out; and finally a voice crying:
“All ready, Captain, we only wait for you.”
“Good!” I ejaculated, and rammed down the button. A tremendous jolt that all but flung me off the bridge, accompanied by a not very loud explosion, followed, the ship trembled as though she had been a sentient thing, and the sound of water, as though pouring through a sluice, reached my ears. Down the ladder I rushed, on to the main deck, seized one of the davit tackles and slid down into the boat; and as the men replied to my question that all were present, the bowman thrust the boat away from the sinking steamer’s side, and the oars churned up the water as we pulled away.
“Give way, lively, lads,” I cried, as I seized the tiller; “we’ll get close inshore, where nobody can see us, and save our skins in that way. We have happily escaped thus far; and it would be a pity for any of us to get hit now. There goes the old Chiyo! she hasn’t taken long to sink, bless her! She is worth a lot more where she is, at the bottom of Port Arthur harbour, than she was when afloat.”
Chapter Seven.
THE KORYU MARU.
Meanwhile the Fukui Maru had also reached her destination, and as we pushed off in the boat from the side of our own sinking ship, we heard, through the din of firing and the explosions of bursting shells, the roar of her cable as her crew let go her anchor. I was sitting with my back turned toward her, intent upon getting our boat as close inshore as possible, when the engineer, who was sitting beside me, touched my arm and pointed.
I turned and looked, to see Hirose’s ship brought up right in mid-channel—the berth assigned to her; and, bearing down upon her, a Russian destroyer, her funnels and guns spouting flame and smoke as she tore furiously through the water. Another instant, and the destroyer swerved, just clearing the stern of the Fukui; there was the flash of a torpedo from her deck tube, a terrific explosion, and the Fukui seemed to be hove up out of the water on the top of a great cone of leaping sea intermingled with smoke and flame. The ship had been torpedoed, quite uselessly, indeed worse than uselessly, for the Russians had simply saved our people the trouble of sinking her.
The destroyer passed on, and we temporarily lost sight of her in the darkness and wreathing smoke. We saw the Fukui’s boat lowered, and the crew get into her; but she remained alongside so long that she only got away barely in time to avoid being dragged down with the ship. Meanwhile, shells were falling not only all round but also aboard the Fukui, and we presently saw that she was on fire, as well as sinking. Nearly or quite a dozen shells must have struck her before she finally foundered; but it was not until the next day that we learned the full extent of the tragedy. It then appeared that the explosion of the torpedo had either disconnected or shattered the wires connected with the explosives in the Fukui’s bottom, and a petty officer named Sugino had gone below to explode the charges. It chanced that this man was a blood-brother of Hirose, and, not returning to the deck as he was expected to do, Hirose went in search of him, after ordering the boat to leave the ship. A few seconds later a shell was seen to strike Hirose on the head, of course killing him instantly. Later on, we heard that his floating body had been picked up in the harbour by the Russians, who, to do them justice, buried it with military honours.
A small air of wind at this time came breathing down the harbour, momentarily dispersing the thick veil of smoke that overhung the water, and we were thus enabled to see that our third ship, the Yahiko Maru, had also succeeded in reaching the berth assigned to her, and was at that moment in the very act of sinking, close to the Pinnacle Rock, a great monolith which rose high out of the water on the western side of the harbour’s mouth. Thus far, therefore, everything had gone well with the expedition; and now all that remained was for the fourth ship, the Yoneyama Maru, to close up the gap that still remained.
I looked round to see if I could see anything of her, and presently the shifting of the searchlight beam from the Yahiko revealed her coming along in fine style, and heading straight for her appointed berth. Hitherto, the Russian batteries had been too busy, attending to us others, to take much notice of her, and she appeared to be all ataunto and quite uninjured. I felt curious to see what was going to happen to her, and gave my crew the order to “Easy all, and lay on your oars!”
As I did so, a Russian destroyer—I could not tell whether it was the craft that had torpedoed the Fukui, or another—emerged from the darkness, heading straight for the Yahiko, as though to run her down! Would they dare? I wondered. Surely not. But if they did not, there was no reason why the Yahiko should not; she was a stout-built, merchant steamer, and, old as she was, would shear through the destroyer’s thin plating as though it were brown paper. If I had been in charge of the Yahiko, I would not have hesitated an instant, indeed I would have jumped at the chance, and in my excitement I leaped to my feet and, making a funnel of my hands, yelled frantically: