“When you have had a good look at your ship, Mr Swinburne, come to me aboard the Mikasa, where I shall be all the morning.”
I found the docks without difficulty, and in the smaller graving dock lay the Kasanumi, my first command! Seen thus, out of water, she looked a craft of quite important dimensions, as indeed she was, being more than two hundred feet in length. She had four funnels, the space between the second and third being only about half that between numbers one and two, and three and four. She had beautiful lines, and looked as though she ought to be an excellent sea boat. Her armament consisted of one 12-pounder, mounted aft, and five 6-pounders, all quick-fire guns capable of discharging ten shots per minute. She also mounted on the after-deck two 18-inch torpedo tubes, firing Whiteheads of an effective range of eight hundred yards at a speed of thirty knots, and carrying a charge of one hundred and seventy-one pounds of gun-cotton—enough to destroy a battleship, if it happened to hit the right spot. The dock foreman, who happened to be an Englishman, told me that she was British built—a Thorneycroft boat, he believed—and that, on trial, she had steamed as much as thirty-three knots! Here was a craft which any reasonable man might be proud to command, and I there and then registered a vow that it should not be my fault if she did not make a name for herself during the coming war.
She was painted white, with a lead-colour bottom, and her four funnels were white with black tops. But they were burning and scraping off all her outside paint, from the sheer-strake downward, and I asked the foreman what colour they were going to repaint her. He answered that this had not yet been decided, whereupon I requested him to provide me with three small pots of paint, white, black, and blue, and with these three I compounded a smoky-grey tint of medium depth which I believed would be practically invisible by day and quite invisible at night, and this tint I applied to a small piece of board which I requested the foreman to take care of for me.
Then I went aboard and had a look at the Kasanumi’s interior arrangements. The engine and boiler-rooms, the torpedo room, and magazine naturally absorbed a large proportion of the interior space, but the accommodation for officers and crew, though a trifle cramped, was sufficient to ensure quite a reasonable amount of comfort. Everything of course was done to economise space, and the fittings were all quite plain, but the cabin which would be mine was a compact, cosy, little cubbyhole, with a tiny stove to warm it in cold weather, and I believed I could make myself very happy and comfortable in it, although the beams were so low that I should never be able to stand upright. The engines were superb pieces of machinery, as of course they had need to be, to drive the boat at a speed of thirty-three knots, and the working parts shone like burnished silver and gold, while the rest was painted green. I spent two hours aboard, making a few notes referring to suggestions which I proposed to make to the Admiral, and then started off to find the Mikasa.
This was not difficult, for the whole fleet—excepting one battleship and two cruisers in dry dock—were lying off the dockyard, while the Mikasa was easily distinguishable, even to a stranger, from the fact that she was flying the Admiral’s flag. I noticed also that her stem-head was decorated with a gilded conventional representation of the open chrysanthemum, the Imperial crest. The Admiral was in his cabin, I was informed, when I got aboard, but I was kept waiting nearly an hour before I was admitted to his presence, for he was holding something very much like a council of war with the officers of his fleet when I arrived. But when at length—the council coming to an end—I was ushered into the cabin, I could not avoid being surprised at the wonderful courtesy and politeness which everybody exhibited to everybody else, notwithstanding that they were all evidently so full of business that they seemed scarcely to know which job to tackle first. As soon as Togo caught sight of me he beckoned me forward and introduced me to as many of those present as I had not already met, and, this done, he handed me my appointment to the Kasanumi, and requested me to at once take up my command. Then he asked me if I had any suggestions to make; and upon my answering that I had, he opened a notebook which lay upon the table, and jotted them down as I read them out to him, and promised to give them early consideration. As I bowed myself out of the cabin he called after me, advising me to see to the ordering of my uniforms at once, as events were progressing rapidly, and there was no knowing how soon it might be necessary for us all to go to sea. Stepping out on deck, I encountered Captain Ijichi, the skipper of the ship, in earnest converse with several of his officers, to whom he at once introduced me, whereupon the First Lieutenant invited me to dine that night, aboard the ship, as his guest, which invitation I naturally accepted.
A week of feverish activity now ensued, by the end of which time every dock in Sasebo was empty, and every ship in the harbour ready, down to the last ropeyarn, bunkers and magazines full, and even the fires laid under the boilers ready to light at a second’s notice. War was by this time an absolute certainty, and the only question was when would it break out. The Japanese plan of campaign was ready cut and dried, and Togo, resolved to be in a position to act upon the instant of the receipt of his orders, had already dispatched the cruiser Akashi to sea, with instructions to ascertain the whereabouts of the Russian fleet and, after securing this information, to rendezvous at Mokpo, a port situate at the south-western extremity of the Korean peninsula. I had said farewell to my very kind friends, the Boyds, some days before, and had taken up my abode aboard the Kasanumi, which, with the Asashio, Shirakumo, and Akatsuki, constituted the 1st Division of the destroyer flotilla. Admiral Togo had approved my suggestion to paint the entire exterior of the boat a medium smoky-grey tint, and the effect had proved so satisfactory that the skippers of several other destroyers had followed my example.
At length dawned the eventful 6th of February 1904. A fresh north-easter was blowing, the sky was heavy and louring, and a fierce squall of snow and sleet was sweeping the harbour when a gun from the Mikasa caused all eyes to turn toward her, and the next moment there fluttered from her yardarms the signals commanding the fleet to light fires and prepare to weigh! So it had come then, that fateful moment for which we had all been waiting with bated breath, for a full week; and as the purport of the signals became known, a frenzied roar of “Banzai Nippon!” went up from ships and shore, a roar that sent a shiver of excitement thrilling through me, so deep, so intense, so indicative of indomitable determination, of courage, and of intense patriotism was it. Peal after peal of “Banzais” swept over the sullen, turbulent waters of the harbour, to be taken up and repeated by the thousands who thronged the wharves ashore, and who seemed to have sprung from nowhere in an instant; and before the shouts died away thin curls of light brown smoke were already rising from the funnels of the fleet and six fast transport steamers which were lying a little nearer the shore. Half an hour later, the blare of bands was heard ashore, one of the wharves was hurriedly cleared of people, and presently soldiers were seen marching down on to that wharf and aboard a whole fleet of lighters that were lying alongside. It was indicative of the thoroughness with which the Japanese authorities had thought out every minutest detail, that within three hours, three thousand troops, horse, foot, and artillery, with all their kit and camp equipment complete, were transferred from the shore to the transports, and the latter had signalled that they were ready to get under way.