MY “BAPTISM OF FIRE.”
The weather had cleared somewhat during the afternoon, but when, at a few minutes before five o’clock, the Mikasa made the signal for the destroyer flotilla to weigh and proceed, the clouds had gathered afresh, and it was looking as wild as ever. It was exactly five o’clock when the Asashio, followed by the Kasanumi, led the way out to sea; and as we began to move, the Admiral signalled us: “Go in and sink the enemy’s fleet. I pray for your success.”
The Elliot group of islands, from which we started upon our great adventure, is situated some sixty miles north-east of Port Arthur, and within some seven or eight miles of the mainland. Our nearest and best way, therefore, under ordinary circumstances, would have been to creep down the coast close inshore. But this would have involved our passing Dalny on the way, and there were the Russian destroyers, which were said to patrol as far as that place every night, to be reckoned with. We did not desire to encounter them on the way, and so afford them a chance to slip back to Port Arthur and give the alarm; our object was to get in between them and Port Arthur, and so cut off their retreat. Also, we had decided to approach Port Arthur from the south-west, so as to give the idea that we were the Russian boats returning after a scouting excursion in the offing; we therefore headed due south at the start, our speed being fifteen knots, which was later increased to twenty-two, as the course which we had decided upon took us far out of our way and nearly doubled the distance to be run.
The sun disappeared beneath the horizon in a heavy squall of rain, the wind breezed up fiercely, and it was piercingly cold. The night shut down upon us dark as a wolf’s mouth, the only relief to the intense blackness being the phosphorescence of the bow wave as it swept, roaring and scintillating away to port and starboard, and the faint gleam of a shrouded lamp which each vessel bore at her taffrail as a guide to the craft next astern of her. Well, so much the better; the darker the night, the better for our purpose; only I fervently wished that the water had not been so brilliantly phosphorescent, for in the intense darkness the gleam of it was visible for quite a considerable distance, and I feared that, if the Russians were keeping a sharp lookout, it would prematurely reveal our approach. We had cleared for action before getting under way, and each boat carried two torpedoes in her tubes, her guns loaded, and ammunition ready to pass up on deck at a moment’s notice.
Hour after hour we steamed on, describing the arc of a big semi-circle as we altered our course from time to time, until at length we were heading west-nor’-west for Port Arthur; and during the whole time we had not sighted a craft of any description.
At length, about half-past ten, the darkness ahead seemed to grow blacker than ever, and turning to Ito, who stood beside me on the bridge, I said:
“Do you see that darkness ahead, Ito? Surely that is the loom of land.”
“Yes,” answered Ito, who spoke English excellently. “Without a doubt that is the high land on either side of Port Arthur; and—ha! there is the Pinnacle Rock light, straight ahead. By Jingo! as the honourable English say, Captain Matsunaga has ‘hit it off splendidly.’ And see there,”—as a light began to wink at us from the bridge of the Asashio ahead—“there is the signal for the 4th and 5th Divisions to part company. Yes; there they go; and now, as again the honourable English say, ‘we shan’t be long.’”
I shivered involuntarily. A quarter of an hour more and that blackness ahead would be pierced by the blinding rays of the inexorable searchlights and stabbed by the fierce flashing of artillery, the glare of bursting shells, and the radiance of star rockets. And we should be in the midst of it. It would be my first experience of actual warfare, and I wondered how I should pass through the ordeal. I had already learned that the Japanese soldier or sailor is absolutely the most fearless creature in existence. He fears death as little as he fears sleep, provided that it comes to him in the service of his Emperor and his country. To die for his Emperor, indeed, who is to him as a god, is the very highest honour, the greatest glory, that the male Japanese can look forward to. He faces such a death with the same pure joy, the same exaltation, that the early Christian martyrs displayed when they were led forth to die for their faith. It was this spirit, this eagerness, this enthusiasm to die in battle, that caused the enormous losses suffered by the Japanese during the war; but it made them invincible! How was my conduct going to compare with that of men like these, I who was animated by no more lofty sentiment than the desire to do my duty to the best of my ability, to play my part as a man should, and, above all, to uphold the honour and dignity of my race? I was happy in the conviction that I should not disgrace myself by any exhibition of craven fear, but what I dreaded was that in the excitement of the moment I should get “nervy,” lose my head (if only figuratively), and perhaps forget to do something that I ought to do, to miss some opportunity that I ought to see and seize. “Brace up, Paul!” I said to myself, “pull yourself together for the honour of the dear homeland; forget all about yourself, and think only of the work that lies before you.” And I did. My thoughts went back to my talk with the Admiral in the Mikasa’s cabin that afternoon; I suddenly remembered that the work in hand was to be carried out as I had planned it; and in a moment all my anxiety vanished, I was my own man again, mentally planning what I would do; and from that moment I felt as cool and collected and keen as was Ito who stood beside me.
As the tail lights of the 4th and 5th Divisions of the flotilla vanished in the darkness on our port quarter, the Asashio’s signal lantern began winking again, and Ito read off and translated the message to me:
“Reduce speed to twelve knots. Be ready to show signal lanterns if required. When I starboard helm, Division one will follow me, while Divisions two and three will port helm and sheer off to the eastward.”
A single flash from our own carefully shrouded signal lanterns informed the Commodore that the message had been read and understood, and all was opaque darkness once more. The rain had by this time cleared off and the atmosphere was much clearer, so clear indeed that the outlines of the hills ahead showed with tolerable distinctness, and the water was getting smoother.
The lighthouse light was showing very bright and clear by this time, and two or three other and much dimmer lights, like those of houses, showed here and there in the shadow of the hills. The gap between the hills which marked the harbour entrance was also visible, while a faint glare in the sky to the right of it showed that Port Arthur was still awake. But everything seemed absolutely peaceful, and there were no signs of that alertness which we had expected to find.
Suddenly the lighthouse light, upon which my gaze happened to be fixed, seemed to blink several times in a very curious manner; then it disappeared altogether for a moment, and I saw a great black shadow that seemed to rapidly increase in size as I stared at it. Then I glimpsed at the base of the shadow the ghostly gleam of phosphorescent foam, such as is piled up by the bows of a ship travelling at speed, and high above it a rolling, swirling cloud of blackness spangled with evanescent sparks which, a moment later, I saw was issuing from three of a group of five tall funnels.
“By Jove! Ito,” I exclaimed, “here comes the patrol cruiser—the Askold —and she is heading straight for us! Gun and tube crews, stand by! Quartermaster, light those two signal lanterns, white above red, bend them on to the signal halliards, and stand by to hoist away when I give the word.”
“Yes,” agreed Ito, his voice tense with excitement; “she has seen and intends to speak us. See, she has stopped her engines, and is hailing the Asashio! What a jolly, bloomin’ chance,” (Ito was very proud of his command of English slang, and availed himself of every possible opportunity to air it) “to honourably torpedo her! Will the honourable Swinburne augustly grant the humblest of his servants permission to do so?”
“Heavens! no, man,” I exclaimed, “not for worlds. And I pray that Matsunaga may also have the sense to refrain from doing so.”
“But why, my honourable friend; why?” demanded Ito, literally dancing with eagerness and impatience.
“Because, don’t you see, my honourable duffer, that if we did so the explosion would put all Port Arthur, and the fleet too, on the qui vive long before we could get at them, and thus spoil our chances of bagging the battleships?” I replied. “No, certainly not. Let the cruiser go; it is the battleships we want. There go the Asashio’s lanterns. Hoist away, quartermaster!”
“Yes, yes; I see,” replied Ito in crestfallen tones; “you are honourably right, of course. Aha! there goes the cruiser. The honourable Captain Matsunaga has evidently honourably satisfied her. He honourably speaks Russian like a native.”
It was an exciting moment; but, tense as it was, I could not help being amused at the pertinacity with which Ito, like all the Japanese, dragged in the word “honourable” upon every possible and impossible occasion. It arises, of course, out of the desire, drilled into them, generation after generation, to be extremely polite; and doubtless when speaking in their own tongue, the word is never unsuitably used; but when they undertake to talk English, it is frequently pitchforked into the conversation in the most incongruous and even ludicrous fashion, and I decided that it would only be kind to give Ito a lesson upon the absurdity of employing it inappropriately. The opportunity came a few minutes later.
The Askold, apparently satisfied with Captain Matsunaga’s explanation, put her helm hard a-starboard and swept on, presently vanishing in the darkness; and a minute or two later the Asashio made the signal for the Divisions to separate as arranged, starboarding her helm as she did so and leading Number 1 Division to the westward, while Divisions 2 and 3 ported and swerved sharply away to the eastward.
“The critical moment is at hand,” said I. “Be so good, Mr Ito, as to go down on the main deck and assure yourself that everything is ready, and that the men are standing by the tubes and guns.”
Then Ito turned upon me and poured out an impassioned entreaty that he might be “honourably” permitted to take charge of and fire the torpedoes himself. I considered for a moment. The man who might chance to score a hit in the coming attempt would gain immense kudos, I knew, and, in all probability, promotion also. By rights, of course, Ito’s station should be by me, to take my place should I chance to be hit; but he was just as liable to be hit on the bridge as anywhere else; also it would be doing him a kindness to grant his request. So:
“Now, look here, Ito,” I said, “it is of paramount importance that the men in charge of the tubes to-night should be first-rate shots, and as cool as cucumbers; for, hit or miss, I do not suppose we shall be afforded a chance to discharge more than the two torpedoes already in our tubes; therefore they must both hit. Now, are you a good shot with the torpedo?”
Ito solemnly assured me that there was not a better torpedo shot than himself in the whole Japanese fleet.
“And is your nerve all right? I mean, are you perfectly cool?” I demanded.
“As cool as the honourable cucumber,” he asserted. “Feel my unworthy hand.”
I could not help laughing. Here was the inevitable “honourable” being dragged in again. I seized his hand and held it loosely in mine for a few seconds. It was firm and steady as a rock.
“Good!” I said. “You will do, Ito. Go down and work the tubes, my boy, and see that you excel yourself to-night. And, Ito, if you love me, do not, for heaven’s sake, forget to withdraw the honourable safety pin from the honourable fan before you honourably fire the honourable torpedo, or you will make no honourable hits this honourable night. Do you honourably take me?”
There! I had fired off my little joke on Ito; illustrated to him, I fondly thought, the absurdity of indiscriminately dragging in the word “honourable” in and out of season. How would he take it, I wondered.
“The august captain may honourably rely upon his unworthy lieutenant to do his honourable best,” he gravely answered; and the next moment was “honourably” descending the bridge ladder to the deck. My miserable attempt at jocularity had absolutely missed fire; the dear, innocent fellow had accepted my speech as uttered in all seriousness.
It was at this moment that I first caught the loom of the Russian ships, showing up a deeper black against the black shadow of the frowning cliffs away to starboard; and a second or two later a long, brilliant beam of intensely white light shot out from one of the black shapes and slowly swept hither and thither, now striking the heaving surface of the black water, and anon vividly illumining one of her sisters. Our orders had been not to discharge at a higher range than five hundred metres.
Slowly, the beam swept round toward us until it halted and rested steadily upon a great lump of a craft that towered out of the water like a castle, almost immediately between itself and us. Luckily, the dazzling light itself was hidden from our eyes by the bulk of the ship upon which it rested, but it invested her with a sort of halo of radiance against which she stood out black and grim, a perfect silhouette. She was a big craft, evidently a battleship, with a lofty superstructure, three big funnels cased half-way up, a long overhanging bridge, and two stout military masts with fighting tops, and two yards across each. She was just within range, and, seizing a megaphone, I was in the act of raising it to my lips to order Ito to let fly at her, when I saw a long, silvery shape flash out from our after-deck, and a few seconds later a great cone of water leaped into the air and fell like a deluge upon the great ship, which seemed to lift half out of the water, as though hove up by a giant. A heavy boom followed, and I had the extreme gratification of knowing that the little Kasanumi’s first Whitehead had got home.
The explosion was quickly followed by several others; and in the midst of them a sudden transformation took place. The pitchy darkness gave way to the glare of a perfect network of searchlight beams streaming out from ship after ship and from the cliffs above, sweeping here, there, and everywhere, lighting up the fleet, the cliffs, the channel leading to the harbour, the lighthouse, everything, in fact, except our destroyers, which they all seemed to miss in the most miraculous way. Excited shouts came pealing across the water to us from the decks of the various ships, boatswains’ whistles shrilled, order after order was hoarsely bellowed, and with a rattling crash of gun-fire a perfect tempest of projectiles was sent hurtling out to sea from the now thoroughly awakened and panic-stricken Russians, not a solitary shot of which came anywhere near us; for the enemy seemed to have not the slightest idea of our actual whereabouts. And then, to add to the turmoil and confusion, the forts on the cliffs above opened fire with their heavy guns, and we heard the shells go muttering angrily far overhead, as the gunners ashore also fired into the offing.
The fleet as a whole now lay broad on our starboard beam, and we in the Kasanumi were crossing the bows of a two-funnelled battleship which, from her position as the outermost ship of the fleet, I knew must be the Tzarevich, when, out of the tail of my eye, so to speak, I again caught the flash of one of our Whiteheads as it leapt outward and plunged into the sea. Breathlessly I awaited the result, and presently, to my delight, I saw that our second torpedo had got home!
“Good old Ito!” I exclaimed aloud; and, as I spoke, the man himself stood beside me.
“Two hits!” he gasped, almost inarticulate with excitement and delight. “The Kasanumi has done her duty to-night.”
“She has,” I agreed; “and so have you, splendidly, old chap. This means immediate promotion for you, Ito; for you may rest assured that, if we get out of this alive, I will not fail to report to the Admiral what you have done. I don’t see—”
“Ah, but,” he interrupted me, “the real credit of it all belongs to you, not me. For if you had not warned me, I should certainly, in my excitement, have forgotten to withdraw the pins before firing the torpedoes. As it was, I very nearly did so when firing the first, but luckily your warning flashed into my mind at the very instant when I was about to fire. I am afraid that many of our men have forgotten that essential; for although all the torpedoes must be by this time discharged, I do not think that many ships have been hit.”
I had noticed the same thing myself, and was about to say so, but at this moment the Russian ships opened fire with their heavy guns, and conversation, which up to now had been difficult enough, became quite impossible owing to the deafening din. But I observed that the ships and batteries were all firing out to sea, whereas our destroyers were by this time between the fleet and the land, completely absorbed in the deep shadow of the lofty cliffs, so that up to that moment I believed we had remained unseen. Then the Asashio flashed the signal for Number 1 Division to retire at full speed, putting her helm hard a-port as she did so, for by this time we were running parallel with the shore on the west side of the harbour, and a few minutes more would have taken us to the harbour’s mouth, which was now brilliantly illuminated by the rays of some half a dozen searchlights, which it was essential for us to avoid if we wished to escape instant annihilation.
It was at this moment, when I was eagerly taking note of the most distinctive features of the harbour entrance, brought thus prominently into view—with the idea that such knowledge as I might then be able to acquire might prove useful at some future time—that three destroyers, coming out of the harbour at full speed, rushed across the illuminated area and, turning sharp round the Pinnacle Rock, headed almost directly toward us. A single glance sufficed to show that they were Russian craft, for they were of a different model from ours, and their four funnels were arranged differently from ours, being in pairs.
For a moment I believed that they saw and were about to engage us, I therefore laid my hand upon Ito’s arm to attract his attention, pointed to the boats, and then yelled in his ear:
“Russians! Stand by to give them a broadside as they pass.”
Ito nodded comprehendingly, and vanished from my side. A minute later, the leading Russian destroyer came abreast the Asashio, and Captain Matsunaga showed that he was as wideawake as the rest of us, by plumping a 12-pound and three 6-pound shells into her. Then came our turn, and we did the same, each of the four Japanese boats in turn firing all the guns that would bear upon each of the three Russian boats as they came up, without receiving a single shot in return; for, strange as it may seem, the Russians appeared to have no suspicion of our whereabouts until we actually fired upon them.
But perhaps we should have been wiser had we allowed our valour to be tempered with discretion, and refrained from attacking the enemy’s destroyers; for the flashes of our guns, low down near the surface of the water, were instantly observed by a hundred sharp eyes, eagerly seeking the whereabouts of the elusive enemy, and almost immediately every searchlight on ship and shore swept round until it rested full upon us, thereafter inexorably following our every movement, while a perfect tornado of shell and rifle-fire hissed and whined about our ears. But for this, it might have been not very difficult for us to have inflicted further damage upon the battleships and cruisers; but as it was, there was only one thing to be done, namely, to effect our escape with the utmost expedition, if, indeed, escape were still possible; for to remain until fresh torpedoes could be got up on deck and placed in the tubes, would mean our swift and certain destruction before the opportunity came for us to work further mischief. As it was, it was simply miraculous that we were not instantly blown out of the water; for, with a dozen or more searchlights bearing full upon us, we were as plainly visible as though it had been broad daylight; yet, strange to say, not a shot struck any of us, a circumstance which can only be accounted for upon the assumption that the Russian gunners were so unnerved by our sudden and unexpected attack that, for the moment, they had completely lost the ability to shoot straight.
Through that frightful tempest of shot and shell we tore at top speed, the fragile hulls of the boats bucking and quivering to the impulse of their tremendously powerful engines, the water cleft by their sharp bows curling almost to the height of the navigating bridges and drenching the occupants with spray, while flames roared out of all four of their funnels as the stokers below toiled like fiends to feed the furnaces and maintain a full head of steam. To add to our difficulties, the glare of so many searchlights directed full upon us dazzled our sight to blinding point, so that it was only with the greatest difficulty we were able to find our way. The formation in which the Russian fleet was moored helped us, however, for we presently found ourselves rushing across the bows of their weathermost line, and we steered accordingly.
Then, quite unexpectedly, we came upon the three Russian destroyers again; and those of us who happened to be prepared—of which the Kasanumi was one—gave them a further peppering, to which, as before, they made no reply. And now, at last, we were reaching the end of the line, and the gauntlet was almost run, for as we drew out to seaward the inshore ships were compelled to cease fire for fear of hurting their friends instead of us. There was but one more ship to pass; and as we drew near to her I saw that she had a decided list to port, and was floating so deep aft that her “admirals’ walk,” or stern gallery, was very nearly submerged. Steam was roaring from her safety valves, and as we came up to her a small curl of water under her bows and a swirl at her stern showed that she was under way. It was the Tsarevich, heading for the harbour, evidently in a sinking condition, and we had the satisfaction of knowing that by that night’s work we had put at least one of the Russian battleships hors de combat. Her crew were much too busy to pay any attention to us; and a quarter of an hour later we were beyond the zone of that awful, merciless fire, and were heading south-east for Mokpo, where we had been ordered to rendezvous.
We did not, of course, at that time know the extent of the damage that we had succeeded in inflicting upon the Russian fleet; but trustworthy information reached us later, that the Tsarevich had been struck aft, the torpedo blowing a big hole in her hull and flooding her steering compartment to such an extent that her captain had been obliged to beach her to prevent her from sinking. The Retvisan had been struck amidships, and a large hole blown in her pump compartment, rendering it necessary that she also should be beached in order to save her. Those two battleships constituted the Kasanumi’s share of the bag; and very pleased we were with ourselves when the news became known, since those two ships were far and away the best in the Russian fleet, and the loss of them, even if it should prove to be only temporary, was a very serious matter for the Russians. But, in addition to these, the Pallada, cruiser, and the volunteer cruiser Angara were also hit, and were obliged to be beached to save them from foundering.
Thus we had done not at all badly; although some surprise was felt that, considering the favourable circumstances under which the attack was made—by which I mean our unsuspected approach, and the time which elapsed before the searchlights actually found us—we had not done a great deal more. For Divisions 1, 2, and 3, which had attacked the Russian fleet, consisted in all of ten destroyers, each of which had discharged two torpedoes—twenty in all. And of those twenty, only four, apparently, had got home. It was not a result to be proud of. But I had a suspicion that I could have put my finger upon the explanation, had I been asked to do so; and it would have been this: The night was bitterly cold; so cold, indeed, that the spray froze as it fell upon us, and the weather was simply atrocious; the result being that by the time the flotilla arrived in Port Arthur roadstead, the limit of even Japanese physical endurance had been almost, if not quite, reached. Most of our deck hands had been more or less severely frost-bitten, not only their bodies, but also their minds were benumbed by the arctic severity of the weather, and thus it came to pass (at least so I reasoned it out) that when the moment for action arrived their faculties, between physical suffering and mental excitement, became so confused that many of them made the mistake against which I had warned Ito, and failed to withdraw the safety pin before discharging their torpedoes, thus rendering the missiles ineffective. This was also Ito’s opinion, you will remember.
By the time that we reached Mokpo we were all in a most deplorable condition, nearly half of the deck hands of the expedition being compelled to go into hospital suffering from frost-bite, a few of the cases being of so severe a character that the patients lost either their hands or their feet, while one man lost all four members, and narrowly escaped dying outright. Ito and I were somehow lucky enough to escape without serious injury, but we both developed virulent attacks of inflammation of the lungs, which put us hors de combat for nearly three weeks. But there is no doubt that our recovery was greatly facilitated by the intimation, which reached us while we were still in hospital, that we had both been promoted to the rank of Commander.
Meanwhile, things had been happening at Port Arthur and elsewhere. On the morning following our attack, Togo sent three fast cruisers in toward the fortress to reconnoitre; and these ships having discovered pretty much how matters stood there, and reported to the Admiral, the whole fleet stood in and engaged the ships and batteries at long-range, firing only their 12-inch and 8-inch guns, the range being too long for the others. The weather had changed, and was now bright and comparatively warm, the atmosphere so clear that even comparatively small objects were clearly visible.
The Mikasa opened the ball by firing a sighting shot from one of the 12-inch guns in her fore barbette, and at the same moment the Russian ships were seen to be getting under way. At low speed the Japanese fleet steamed past the port in “line ahead,” firing as they went, and after an engagement lasting some forty minutes, drew off, hoping that the Russian fleet would follow them, but in this they were disappointed. Our ships were hit several times and sustained a certain amount of damage, but, luckily, not of a serious character. It was reported that we lost four killed and fifty-four wounded, none of the wounds being serious enough, however, to necessitate the men being sent ashore to the hospital. It was some time before reliable information reached us as to the extent of the damage sustained by the Russians, but when it came it was to the effect that several of our shells fell in the town, scattering the piles of coal on the wharves and creating general panic; the Poltava was so badly hit that she could not move, a shell blowing her bows open; the Petropavlosk and Pobieda were also hit, though not seriously; our old friend, the Askold, was hit on the waterline and set on fire, as was also the Diana; while the Novik, which had steamed out toward our fleet, was sent flying back with her rudder damaged, so that they had to steer her with her propellers. This affair caused Admiral Stark to be superseded; his successor being Admiral Makarov, said to be the finest seaman Russia then possessed. At the same time General Kuropatkin was appointed commander of the Russian land forces.
Two days later, the Russians lost the mine-layer Yenesei in Dalny Bay. This was a particularly hard bit of luck for them, inasmuch as that she had practically completed her work when the disaster happened. Her mission was to sow Dalny Bay with four hundred contact mines, in order to prevent the Japanese from using the bay as a landing-place for troops. She had successfully laid all but two of the four hundred mines; but when the three hundred and ninety-ninth mine was launched overboard, it floated, instead of sinking to its prescribed depth. The captain of the ship is said to have opened fire upon it with his light guns, to explode it; and in this he appears to have been only too successful, since it not only exploded but also blew up the ship, which sank almost immediately, most of her crew going down with her. And on the following day the small cruiser Boyarin went ashore in Dalny Bay, and became a total wreck. Thus in less than a week the Port Arthur fleet had become reduced in strength by no less than three battleships, five cruisers, and one mining ship, exclusive of the cruiser Variag and the gunboat Korietz, destroyed at Chemulpo.
Encouraged by the success of the first destroyer attack upon Port Arthur, Admiral Togo arranged for a repetition of the experiment on the night of 13th February, and the attempt duly came off, the 4th and 5th Divisions of the destroyer flotilla being this time told off to conduct the attack. These divisions, consisting of eight boats, had not participated in the previous attack, and Togo no doubt wished to give them an opportunity to acquire kudos, and, at the same time, by arousing their emulation, spur them on to outvie our performance.
Unfortunately, however, for the expedition, the weather was even worse than that with which we had had to contend: the cold was intense, a gale was blowing, a tremendously heavy sea was running, and, to cap it all, a terrific snow blizzard was raging. The result of this combination of adverse conditions was that the destroyers very soon lost touch with each other, and only two of them succeeded in entering the harbour, the Asigiri preceding the Hayatori by nearly two hours. The Asigiri entered the harbour unseen, discharged two torpedoes—both of which her captain, Commander Isakawa, believed had got home—and then fled, encountering an enemy’s launch on the way, and sinking her. The explosion of the Asigiri’s torpedoes of course raised an alarm, searchlights flashed wildly hither and thither, gunners blazed away madly, and so great was the panic that several of the Russian destroyers opened fire upon each other and did a lot of damage.
When Commander Takanouchi, in the Hayatori, arrived two hours later, the confusion was still at its height, and taking advantage of it, he, too, slipped in unnoticed and, as he believed, successfully torpedoed a cruiser before he fled. But it seemed very doubtful whether, after all, either of the Japanese boats did much damage; for when the Japanese cruisers reconnoitred next day, none could be detected.
Then, on the night of 23rd February, all the Russian ships being inside Port Arthur, Togo sent in five steamers, under Commander Arima, whose instructions were that they were to be sunk across the harbour entrance, in such positions as would effectually block the passage. But their approach was prematurely discovered, and so terrific a fire was opened upon them from the batteries that two were sunk, while the other three, their steering gear being shot away, went ashore outside. The attempt was consequently a failure, while ten men lost their lives in making it.
On the night of 24th February and the morning of the following day, the Japanese fleet made a second attack upon Port Arthur, bombarding the town and fleet for twenty-five minutes. The Russian cruisers Bayan, Novik, and Askold were hit, some shells exploded in the batteries, and the town was set on fire in two places, but the damage done was inconsiderable; and at length, in accordance with his instructions to on no account risk his battleships by engaging the forts, Togo felt himself obliged to retire.