THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 UNIVKRS1TY 
 OP GAL IFOR"
 
 THE 'NOVIK
 
 \
 
 THE "NOVIK" 
 
 AND THE PART SHE PLAYED IN 
 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR, 1904 
 
 BY LIEUTENANT A. P. STEER 
 
 IMPERIAL RUSSIAN NAVY 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 L. A. B. 
 
 TRANSLATOR AND EDITOR OF "RASPLATA 1 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 1913
 
 Copyright by Augustin Challamel, Paris
 
 
 S*l 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 MY cordial thanks are due to Captain 
 de Balincourt of the French Navy, who 
 rendered the book into French, for 
 kindly permitting me to translate it into 
 English. 
 
 L. A. B.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE author of this little work, Andrew 
 Petrovitch Steer, was born in 1878. 
 Entering the Imperial Navy, he became 
 Sub-Lieutenant in 1897, Lieutenant in 
 1901. In December 1903 he joined the 
 3rd class cruiser Novik, Commander 
 von Essen, of the Pacific Squadron, 
 after previous service on that station 
 in the Djigit and Rossia. Between 
 March 1905 and March 1906 Steer com- 
 manded the submarines Delphin and 
 Som at Vladivostok. Returning to St. 
 Petersburg, he commanded a torpedo- 
 boat in home waters for a year, then, in 
 February 1907, once more proceeded to 
 Vladivostok to assume command of the 
 
 destroyer Skory. On 17th October the 
 *
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 same year the crew mutinied, and a 
 petty officer shot Steer dead while in 
 bed in his cabin. 
 
 Readers of Easplata will find many of 
 Semenoff's statements corroborated in 
 this account, which was written soon 
 after the war was over, with the princi- 
 pal object of setting right the many 
 incorrect or purely fanciful statements 
 which had appeared in the Russian 
 Press. 
 
 It is believed that Steer never saw 
 any of Semenoff's books. 
 
 L. A. B. 
 
 October 1912.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE TORPEDO ATTACK IN THE NIGHT 
 
 OF FEBRUARY 8-9, 1904 . . i 
 
 II. ACTION OF FEBRUARY 9, 1904 . . 14 
 
 III. THE SQUADRON AWAITING ADMIRAL 
 MAKAROFF'S ARRIVAL THE FIRE- 
 SHIPS . . . . .27 
 
 IV. ARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 BOMBARDMENT BY INDIRECT FIRE 
 THE Loss OF THE " PETROPAVLOVSK " 48 
 
 V. THE BATTLESHIPS "HATSUSE" AND 
 
 "YASHIMA" BLOW UP Loss OF 
 
 " YENISSEI " AND " BOYARIN " . 73 
 
 VI. THE SHIPS CANNONADE THE JAPANESE 
 
 TROOPS THE SQUADRON SAILS ON 
 JUNE 23 . . 91 
 
 VII. NAVAL ACTION OF AUGUST 10. . in 
 
 VIII. THE LAST DAYS OF THE "Novm" 
 
 UNDER THE RUSSIAN FLAG . .130 
 
 IX. ACROSS SAGHALIEN . . .154
 
 THE 'NOVIK" 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE TORPEDO ATTACK IN THE NIGHT 
 OF FEBRUARY 8-9, 1904 
 
 I ALWAYS look back with a feeling of 
 bitterness to the time of my service in 
 the cruiser Novik at Port Arthur. I 
 still feel the sting of that indescribable 
 ill-will of which our squadron was the 
 object, and I can still hear the echo of 
 that libellous legend to the effect that 
 the Japanese were able to carry out 
 their torpedo attack so easily because 
 our officers were feasting and dancing 
 on shore at the house of Admiral 
 Starck, who then commanded the
 
 2 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 squadron. But what is still more 
 astounding to me is that a public, which 
 had so readily swallowed so preposterous 
 a tale, received with a sceptical smile 
 on its lips not only the contradictions 
 which we sent to the entire Press, but 
 even a letter of protestation written by 
 Madame Starck ; so much so that to 
 the present day our conduct on that 
 occasion is made the subject of the most 
 disagreeable comment. 
 
 One moment's reflection should con- 
 vince any honest person that, ball or 
 no ball, the sequence of events would 
 have been precisely the same. Let us 
 consider the first incident : the admiral's 
 entertainment on shore. Whoever pos- 
 sesses the most elementary knowledge 
 of the navy and the life on board, is 
 aware of the fact that permission to 
 go on shore is given only by the second- 
 in-command, who keeps the captain 
 informed ; that an immutable regula-
 
 WATCH-KEEPING 3 
 
 tion demands that one-half of the officers 
 shall always be on board ; and that the 
 captain and his second-in-command 
 may never go on shore at the same time 
 excepting, of course, in small craft, 
 like destroyers, torpedo-boats, gunboats, 
 etc. On board all men-of-war watch- 
 keeping duties are carried out by one, 
 and most of the time by two officers 
 (if the numbers of these permit), who 
 not only may not go on shore, but who 
 may not leave the bridge or upper 
 deck, who have their meals only after 
 they have been relieved ; a fortiori, they 
 may not " turn in." To admit for one 
 moment that the officers of the watch 
 were not at their stations appears to 
 me monstrous ; to bring this about, the 
 whole of the senior officers must have 
 connived at it. But this is not all : 
 in addition to the officer actually on 
 watch there must always be on board 
 two other officers : the one who has
 
 4 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 just come off watch and the one about 
 to relieve the deck. I think I have 
 shown conclusively that the whole of the 
 officers could not have been on shore, 
 even supposing that all the captains, in 
 a fit of extreme good-nature, had de- 
 liberately shut their eyes. Together 
 with theofficer of the watch there are 
 also on duty a certain number of men, 
 including signalmen, whose business it 
 is to keep a close watch on all that is 
 going on at the anchorage and in the 
 offing. Even if, in times of peace, the 
 whole of the officers of a ship had been 
 dancing on shore, enough people would 
 have remained on board to ensure the 
 safety of the vessel. 
 
 On going over my correspondence, I 
 chanced upon one of my letters dated 
 from the Novik on 5th February ; in it 
 I complain that for several days past 
 we had been ordered to be on board 
 by eight o'clock in the evening, and I
 
 PRECAUTIONS 5 
 
 mention that an officer, who arrived 
 all out of breath at the landing-place, 
 from which his ship's boat had only 
 just shoved off, had hailed it and made 
 it come back for him. But the admiral, 
 who had most unfortunately overheard 
 the whole thing, sent a reprimand to 
 the captain the next morning for slack- 
 ness in carrying out his orders. It is 
 quite clear, therefore, that on the 
 evening of 8th February all our officers 
 had been on board since eight o'clock, 
 and that the admiral never dreamt for 
 a moment of inviting anyone to dance 
 at his house. I would add that, although 
 hostilities had not officially broken out, 
 the defences of the anchorage had 
 been strengthened and all lookouts 
 doubled. A proportion of the guns 
 were kept loaded, ammunition handy, 
 bugles and drums for calling to quar- 
 ters at the officer of the watch's 
 elbow.
 
 6 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 It may be asked : How was it possible 
 for the Japanese destroyers to approach 
 without having been made out ? Or 
 were they seen too late ? I have no 
 difficulty in replying to this. Let us 
 imagine that we are taking part in one 
 of these big " battues " in a forest. An 
 old sportsman has as his neighbour in 
 the line of guns a novice at the game, 
 to whom he explains that so long as the 
 line of beaters has not begun to advance, 
 there is no need to worry. Still the 
 novice loads and cocks his gun, while 
 his mentor repeats that the beaters are 
 still too far off and that the game is not 
 yet on the move. As the young man 
 persists, he is told bluntly to keep quiet, 
 to sit down and light his pipe, that the 
 big game won't come upon him with- 
 out some warning, that he will see the 
 ground game come along first. The 
 words are hardly spoken before a wild 
 boar charges past, amidst the noise of
 
 NO WARNING 7 
 
 broken branches. Our young friend 
 loses his head, but manages to get off 
 a snap-shot, though too late : the 
 animal is already out of range. Furious, 
 he turns round to upbraid the old sports- 
 man, but the latter has prudently dis- 
 appeared and his voice is presently 
 heard retailing the incident to some of 
 his friends. Well, this is exactly what 
 happened to us at Port Arthur. We 
 ought to have been told over and 
 over again that war might break 
 out at any time, that we ought to 
 take proper precautions and redouble 
 our vigilance. On the contrary, we 
 were assured that there would be 
 no war, and that everyone being at 
 peace we could sleep soundly in our 
 beds. 
 
 To accuse the admiral commanding 
 the squadron would be unjust, for he 
 was not in supreme command, and re- 
 sponsibility must be looked for higher
 
 8 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 up. I know perfectly well that a junior 
 flag officer can show a certain amount 
 of initiative, but one has no right to 
 demand it, especially as there was at 
 Port Arthur a Viceroy and commander- 
 in-chief of all naval and military forces, 
 who alone was in a position to warn 
 the squadron that war was imminent. 
 Precisely on that day, 8th February, 
 at 11 p.m., his chief of the staff had 
 come on board the flagship with a 
 telegram from St. Petersburg giving the 
 assurance that the negotiations were 
 going well and that any fear of armed 
 conflict was mere chimera. Exactly 
 one hour and a half later the first guns 
 went off ! 
 
 As the people who had telegraphed 
 from St. Petersburg were negotiating on 
 their own account, without condescend- 
 ing to consult those who, being on the 
 spot, thoroughly knew the situation, we 
 have no right to put the responsibility
 
 LULLED TO SLEEP 9 
 
 on Admiral Alexeieff, in fact we 
 ought to go higher still. However, 
 I observe that I have already said 
 too much and that it would be danger- 
 ous for me to persist in this line of 
 argument. 
 
 The squadron was thus in the position 
 of that young sportsman to whom one 
 had repeated ad nauseam that he had 
 ample time, and who nevertheless, on 
 his own initiative, had loaded his 
 gun. 
 
 How could we possibly be expected 
 to assume that at the very moment 
 when we were reading these reassuring 
 telegrams from St. Petersburg the 
 Japanese destroyers were actually a 
 few miles off and heading straight for 
 us ? Was it therefore not perfectly 
 natural that we mistook them for our 
 own, who, we knew, had gone out scout- 
 ing ? The enemy had thus already 
 attained one-half of his object : our
 
 10 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 outermost ships, after a moment of 
 very natural hesitation, had opened 
 fire, while the remainder, anchored in 
 three or four columns (an arrangement 
 which certainly would not have been 
 made if an attack had been expected), 
 were asking themselves with consterna- 
 tion at whom or at what these could 
 possibly be firing. 
 
 I had the middle watch that night 
 [midnight to 4 a.m.]. The drummer 
 was close to me and at the first gun I 
 shouted to him to beat to quarters. 1 
 The captain and officers rushed on deck, 
 asking me what all the excitement was 
 about. No sooner had the former seen 
 the flash of our guns than he gave orders 
 to light fires in all boilers, and that is 
 why, when the admiral at last made 
 up his mind to make a general signal 
 to that effect, we were already under 
 
 1 [In the Russian Navy our old custom still obtains 
 of beating to quarters on the drum.]
 
 ' TOO SOON ' 11 
 
 steam, and weighed at once so as to 
 fall upon the enemy. Alas ! The bird 
 had flown ! 
 
 I was assured later on that Admiral 
 Starck had requested in writing the 
 Viceroy's permission to make all 
 necessary preparations for action, 
 also to modify the complicated plan 
 of anchorage, which was barely per- 
 missible in times of peace, seeing 
 how the vessels were masking one 
 another. 
 
 The Viceroy, it is said, merely returned 
 the paper with the marginal note : " Too 
 soon." The chief of the staff, who 
 I trust has preserved so important a 
 document, would alone be in a posi- 
 tion to guarantee the truth of this. In 
 my opinion the blame for this blunder 
 should be divided between the two flag 
 officers : the admiral commanding the 
 squadron had no need to ask permission 
 to carry out that which was altogether
 
 12 THE TORPEDO ATTACK 
 
 his business, but the moment he thought 
 fit to do so, the Viceroy should not have 
 replied with a negative. Had the ships 
 been anchored in a single line parallel 
 with the coast, an attack by torpedo- 
 craft need not have troubled them much. 
 The attacks in the night of 23rd to 24th 
 June proved this. It was when anchored 
 on such a plan that we successfully beat 
 off the attacks which were delivered 
 continuously from sunset to sunrise 
 by a host of destroyers, who paid dearly 
 for their tenacity. Not one of them 
 ever got within effective torpedo range. 
 I should add that our ships' companies, 
 who had not turned in that night, lulled 
 by pacific telegrams from St. Peters- 
 burg, were indeed on the qui vive. In 
 the attack of 8th to 9th February not 
 one of our vessels was sunk, and the 
 damage was repaired in an astonishingly 
 short space of time, seeing how feeble 
 the resources of Port Arthur were.
 
 NO VESSEL SUNK 13 
 
 Why not admit at once that we might 
 very easily have been sent to the bottom, 
 one by one, if our men had not been 
 at their stations and had not done their 
 duty conscientiously ?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ACTION or FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 HOSTILITIES effectively commenced on 
 that date. The night torpedo attack 
 was not, strictly speaking, an act of 
 war ; it was at the best a ruse, quite as 
 useful as it was dishonest, invented for 
 the purpose of making the war inevit- 
 able. The English, it is true, have said 
 that they would have acted exactly as 
 the Japanese did, but then the English 
 have not, so far as I know, ever been 
 held up as models of courtesy in their 
 dealings with other Powers. Did they 
 not express great surprise at our not 
 having sunk in the Mediterranean (by 
 mere " accident," of course) the cruisers
 
 4 ENEMY IN SIGHT ' 15 
 
 Nishin and Kasuga, which the Japanese 
 had bought from the Argentines ? 
 
 In the early morning of 9th February, 
 Admiral Starck had gone ashore to give 
 the Viceroy a full account of all that 
 had happened during the night, when 
 Japanese cruisers were sighted on the 
 horizon, come to take stock of the 
 results of their night attack. Received 
 by a violent cannonade of our squadron, 
 they retired with the satisfactory feeling 
 of having carried out their duty, with 
 the added conviction that thanks to 
 their enterprise we were now several 
 units short. Soon afterwards numerous 
 columns of smoke appeared above the 
 horizon at different points : the con- 
 centration of the fleet of Japan was an 
 accomplished fact ! 
 
 At eleven o'clock the Bayan steamed 
 towards us at full speed flying the 
 signal, " The enemy is heading for 
 Port Arthur in strength." Our admiral
 
 16 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 had only just time to jump into his boat 
 and to make us weigh for our first 
 action in the war. 
 
 Notwithstanding that three of our 
 big ships had been seriously injured a 
 few hours ago, we were, though inferior 
 in numbers, in a much better position 
 than our adversaries, who had come so 
 close that the greater part of our coast 
 batteries could have joined in the action. 
 We felt that we had behind us a fortress 
 whose confidence and warlike ardour 
 were unimpaired, whereas any damaged 
 Japanese vessel, being far from home, 
 had no other refuge but the bottom of 
 the sea. The moral effect of this was 
 enormous. 
 
 The enemy had to divide his shots 
 between our ships and the works on the 
 seafront. Hence on this occasion he 
 was unable to carry out any concentra- 
 tion of fire. It was, however, only much 
 later that he discovered the advantage
 
 FIRST DAMAGES 17 
 
 of a method which he subsequently 
 made much use of. His fire, badly 
 corrected, was a long way short, and 
 the few projectiles which reached us did 
 not do very much damage. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Novik, having been 
 struck by an 8-inch shell, had to retire 
 precipitately into port, where she re- 
 mained for ten days making good her 
 damages. 
 
 Our being put out of action was, in 
 spite of all the captain's valour, an 
 event of very small importance. The 
 six 4-7-inch guns which formed our 
 armament did not permit us to pretend 
 to " lie in the line." In truth, we were 
 merely a tolerably good fleet scout, but 
 especially a good " destroyer of de- 
 stroyers " ; such, at least, was the 
 opinion of the Japanese destroyers, 
 whose bugbear we speedily became. 
 From this first engagement on, our 
 reputation was established.
 
 18 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 With guns which were as nothing 
 compared to those of the Japanese 
 armoured ships, our intrepid captain 
 never hesitated to throw himself at 
 them full tilt, and he only turned off at 
 the shortest range which I have been 
 able to observe throughout the campaign. 
 It is therefore to him alone that our 
 celebrity was due. 
 
 I must state once more that, notwith- 
 standing our weakness, we were that 
 day in a better position than our 
 adversaries. Who was it, then, who 
 allowed an opportunity to slip by which 
 was never to occur again ? The admiral 
 commanding the squadron or the Vice- 
 roy, who had assumed control of the 
 action from the heights of Golden Hill ? 
 
 The entire Japanese fleet steamed 
 past us in one well-kept line ahead, 
 the cruisers bringing up the rear ; always 
 following in the wake of their battleships, 
 they very quietly steamed away, com-
 
 LOST OPPORTUNITIES 19 
 
 plete in numbers, after they had 
 traversed the arc of fire of our guns 
 ashore and afloat. Any sea officer 
 with the slightest notion of what war 
 meant, or simply possessing some 
 energy, would not have hesitated to 
 fall upon this tail of the line, so as to 
 cut it off from the main body, which 
 would then have been obliged to turn 
 back. Everyone was expecting this 
 manoeuvre, when the signal was broken : 
 " Destroyers to attack the enemy." 
 This was sheer folly, seeing that it was 
 absolutely impossible for the small 
 flotilla we possessed to get unharmed 
 within torpedo range in broad daylight. 
 This signal, which was negatived after 
 some moments of hesitation, before even 
 our destroyers could get under weigh, 
 had only served to furnish the proof that 
 our leaders had on that day lost all 
 judgment. 
 
 As was only to be expected, the Japan-
 
 20 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 ese squadron had prudently retired, 
 after having satisfied themselves that 
 nothing more was to be got out of us. 
 They did not intend returning for some 
 time, as several of their damaged ships 
 had been obliged to make for home. 
 
 To the present day I remain con- 
 vinced that, if instead of obstinately 
 sticking to a passive defence, we had 
 shown the slightest spirit of enterprise, 
 things might in the end have perfectly 
 well turned to our advantage. 
 
 It is extremely difficult for anyone 
 who is actually engaged in a fight to 
 analyse, and above all to remember, 
 the impressions which follow one 
 another too rapidly to leave behind 
 anything but a hazy recollection of a 
 large number of projectiles, some of 
 which pitch into the sea, throwing up 
 huge columns of water, sometimes so 
 near that everything is drenched, whilst 
 others strike the ship direct, causing a
 
 FEELINGS IN ACTION 21 
 
 general upheaval. The brain overflows 
 with the thoughts which crowd in on 
 it. Occupied with the search for means 
 to stop the sudden inrush of water 
 somewhere below, one unconsciously 
 shudders at the dull roar of a big pro- 
 jectile passing overhead, or at the 
 groans of some wounded close by ; the 
 stampede of the stretcher party hustles 
 you ; the deafening sound of your own 
 guns momentarily obliterates the distant 
 thunder of those of the enemy. The 
 agonising thought that death is near, 
 or that it will be your turn next to be 
 mutilated, grips you by the throat and 
 to some extent clouds your brain, 
 without however preventing your keep- 
 ing your head sufficiently to attend to 
 cases of minor damage, to watch the 
 effect of your fire, correct the ranges 
 and somehow the time does pass. How 
 shall I manage to give more than a 
 very vague description of what struck
 
 22 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 my senses, when all that is left in my 
 innermost being is the firm conviction 
 that modern war, especially at sea, is 
 an abomination ? 
 
 The fate of a battle does not, so to 
 speak, depend on individuals : the 
 commander-iii-chief alone has it in his 
 hands. By this I don't mean that the 
 skill of the gunlayer, the correct estimate 
 of the range, and generally the systematic 
 control of fire do not play an important 
 part, but this part is completely thrown 
 away if the admiral hesitates to force 
 home the attack and confines himself to 
 warding off the enemy's blows with the 
 indolent gesture with which one drives 
 off a troublesome fly. Now this gesture 
 very accurately sums up all our tactics 
 off Port Arthur. Not once did our 
 leaders really assume the offensive. 
 Their sole object apparently was, so far 
 as possible, to keep their materiel, their 
 personnel, and above all their own
 
 MODERN TACTICS 23 
 
 precious skins out of harm's way. And 
 in the end all these precautions led them 
 directly to exactly the opposite result. 
 
 The single line ahead, to which we 
 persistently clung throughout the cam- 
 paign, destroyed the initiative, the 
 courage, and the individuality of the 
 captains, who were reduced to sticking 
 to their bridges, there to await with 
 stoicism the fatal shot. The officers 
 became simple machines, playing their 
 part as at General Exercise. Nowa- 
 days there is no room afloat for that 
 dash, that moral support, which is so 
 invaluable in a land fight. On the other 
 hand, in a duel between two vessels 
 a captain can use his skill in taking up 
 a more advantageous position. Still, 
 naval war conditions have been so 
 altered for some time past that he 
 could hardly hope to repeat the brill- 
 iant manoeuvres of the sailing-ship days. 
 Everything depends on the number of
 
 24 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 lucky hits. The bravery or cowardice 
 of the crew are of no account. If the 
 poltroons (and there always are some) 
 wished to save themselves or to hide 
 in a corner, that would not help them 
 in the very least. Their fate is fixed 
 in advance : if beaten, unless killed 
 before the final issue, they will be 
 drowned like the ships' companies of 
 the Souvaroff, the Borodino, and the 
 Alexander III. Individual bravery only 
 helps to cut a fine figure and to look 
 calmly at death or the horrible sights 
 which one is forced to witness and 
 that is why naval war is so revolting. 
 On land one can attribute that madness 
 to kill, the kind of murder which one 
 indulges in, to nervous excitement, to 
 the sight of an adversary close by, and 
 finally to that instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion which bids you kill your neighbour, 
 so as not to be butchered by him like 
 a sheep. At sea, on the other hand,
 
 THE BAND 25 
 
 it is cold-blooded, calculated killing; 
 death hurled from a distance of five or 
 six miles and more, at a man whom one 
 does not see, whom one will never see, 
 and whose ship one can barely make 
 out. 
 
 When the Novik left Germany, where 
 she had been built, the captain and 
 officers had, at their own expense, 
 started a band, which had a great 
 influence on the ship's company. After 
 the action we steamed into harbour with 
 the band playing the National Anthem, 
 which brought on general cheering, es- 
 pecially in the coast batteries, from 
 where the whole scene of the action 
 could be seen. According to them, we 
 had approached the enemy so near 
 (especially by comparison with the other 
 ships) that it was believed we intended 
 to torpedo them, and with the assistance 
 of a certain amount of imagination 
 some of the men even pretended they 
 3
 
 26 FEBRUARY 9, 1904 
 
 had seen one of the Japanese vessels go 
 down under our attack. Our band- 
 master (an ordinary civilian) had scorned 
 our offer to discharge him to the shore, 
 and had asked leave to exchange his 
 baton for a rifle, so as to enable him to 
 remain on board. 
 
 The same evening the Novik was 
 taken into the dockyard to have a 
 number of damaged plates on her side 
 replaced. Thanks to frantic efforts, 
 which lasted through ten days and ten 
 nights, the leaks were made tight, and 
 the Japanese had the disagreeable sur- 
 prise of seeing us once more outside ; 
 for, as they themselves admitted, they 
 fully believed they had sunk us the 
 previous week.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SQUADRON AWAITING ADMIRAL 
 MAKAROFF'S ARRIVAL THE FIRESHIPS 
 
 AFTER 9th February we were a long 
 time without again seeing the Japanese. 
 This was a depressing time for the 
 squadron, which for a fortnight had 
 nothing on hand except a few recon- 
 naissances by the destroyers, and the 
 repairs of the torpedoed ships, which 
 were splendidly carried out. And yet 
 we only had two dry docks : both 
 useless ; one still in course of con- 
 struction, the other so small that it could 
 only just take in a cruiser. I have been 
 assured that in his capacity as Vice- 
 roy Admiral Alexeieff had repeatedly
 
 28 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 demanded money for the works in the 
 dockyard, and especially for the com- 
 pletion of this dock, but that St. 
 Petersburg had always refused on the 
 ground that all our ships were prac- 
 tically new and would therefore not 
 require anything, but if any accident 
 were to happen to one of the battle- 
 ships, she would be sent to Japan, 
 which was amply provided with docks 
 and basins of all dimensions. This may 
 be a " galley yarn," but it is after all 
 very plausible, for we have seen replies 
 of this kind take flight from the 
 " Arrow " l of the Admiralty. Having 
 no docks, we had to make use of ex- 
 pedients, in this case " cofferdams," 
 which we do not pretend to have in- 
 vented, and which we thought had been 
 relegated to the lumber of old-world 
 contrivances, as no longer of use. So 
 
 1 [Allusion to the gold arrow of the vane on the 
 tower of the Admiralty building at St. Petersburg.]
 
 COFFERDAMS 29 
 
 far as I know, they have never before 
 been applied on such a scale. We 
 started with a failure. The first coffer- 
 dam, 1 owing to an error in calculating 
 stresses, gave under the pressure of 
 water and burst. Our engineers, not 
 in the least discouraged by this, tried 
 again, and succeeded in completing their 
 task without the slightest hitch, and as 
 quickly as if they had had a dry dock at 
 their disposal in fact, even three times 
 as quickly, for the Tsesarevitch, Retvisan, 
 and Pallada, having been damaged at 
 the same time, would have had to be 
 docked one after the other, whereas 
 now it was possible to repair them all 
 three simultaneously. Cofferdams were 
 in fact such a success that they were 
 afterwards used even for destroyers. 
 
 Interest was now centred on the coast. 
 We expected that the Japanese would 
 effect a landing any moment. No one 
 
 1 [They are fully described in Rasplata, p. 55.] 
 3*
 
 30 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 ignored the fact that on shore nothing 
 was really ready neither batteries nor 
 earthworks and that a few pegs planted 
 here and there on the heights, according 
 to a beautiful plan, alone indicated our 
 good intentions as regards constructing 
 forts later on. 
 
 I observed that there were two periods 
 of real activity. Immediately after the 
 torpedo attack a landing of the enemy 
 was generally expected. When, by and 
 by, it was seen that the Japanese, 
 evidently in no great hurry, began to 
 concentrate on the Yalu, calm was 
 re-established. "It is pretty far off," 
 was said, " and they won't have anyone 
 to spare to send to Port Arthur." 
 Later on there was a sudden alarm, 
 which brought about renewed activity, 
 when, at a moment when it was least 
 expected, our land communications were 
 cut so suddenly that within an ace the 
 Viceroy was shut in with us. The
 
 NEW BATTERIES 31 
 
 squadron now took an active part in 
 the defence in landing a portion of its 
 guns for the purpose of arming shore 
 batteries, the cruisers providing the 
 necessary working parties. 
 
 The Novik was told off to construct 
 a battery of five 12-pounder quick-firing 
 guns. Every morning one of the lieu- 
 tenants took one-half of the ship's com- 
 pany to the works. To build such a 
 battery is not an easy matter for a poor 
 naval officer, whose sole technical equip- 
 ment for such a business are vague 
 recollections of his course on fortifi- 
 cations at the Naval College, and who 
 has at his side neither a director nor 
 even a simple adviser. When our pieces 
 were at last on their mountings, and the 
 latter on their platforms, the one and 
 only military engineer officer, for whom 
 the entire line of coast defences were for 
 ever clamouring, came to inspect the 
 result of our labours and declared every-
 
 32 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 thing to be perfect, except for one small 
 matter : one gun which was not able 
 to use its whole arc of fire, and which in 
 consequence had to be slightly shifted. 
 For us this work provided a welcome 
 change in the enervating life, yet so full 
 of the unexpected, which we led, and 
 the men seemed as delighted in their 
 occupation on shore as we. All the 
 same, we had many a time to cover at 
 the double the three miles which 
 separated us from the Novik, when she 
 received unexpected orders to go out. 
 We used to laugh about it then, but 
 now it seems to me that the authorities 
 rather abused our goodwill, both ashore 
 and afloat. For no particular reason, 
 up went the signal : " Novik get up 
 steam." Someone fancies he can make 
 out fireships : " Novik close the strange 
 sail and report." A column of smoke is 
 seen on the horizon : " Novik to weigh." 
 The admiral has slept badly : " Make
 
 TRANSPORTING GUNS 33 
 
 the Novik go out." These calls had 
 been so frequent that a signal-mast 
 was erected on Golden Hill for our 
 special benefit. No sooner were our 
 pendants made out on it than officers 
 and men dropped everything and rushed 
 helter-skelter down to the landing-place. 
 One morning, while in my bath, I saw our 
 pendants go up, and had only just time 
 to wipe off the soap and to jump into my 
 clothes, which I had to button on the way. 
 If the sailors did not prove them- 
 selves irreproachable sappers, it must in 
 justice be admitted that they showed in- 
 comparable adeptness in another line : 
 the moving of heavy weights. It 
 seemed mere child's play to them to 
 get a 6-inch gun across the deep and 
 wide ditches of the forts. On a certain 
 occasion an officer of Engineers, who 
 had been summoned to a consultation, 
 after much and deliberate thinking, 
 asked for time to make the necessary
 
 calculations which would enable him to 
 say definitely whether the operation was 
 feasible or not. A naval officer who was 
 waiting all the time with his gun, merely 
 asked permission to " carry on." He then 
 made the boatswain rig a pair of sheers, 
 and half an hour later the gun was safe 
 on the other side of the ditch, much to 
 the delight of the scientist, who had 
 considered that one could not think of 
 rigging sheers before having minutely 
 calculated their several stresses and 
 breaking strains. Lieutenant Komenko 
 proved in these circumstances that he 
 was as energetic as he was competent. 
 This was all he had for solving the 
 problem of dragging, with his men, guns 
 of calibres of 8 to 9 inches, as well 
 as their mountings, up considerable 
 heights, so steep that a man could only 
 reach them by crawling on hands and 
 knees, clinging to the bushes and 
 bunches of grass. I have visited some
 
 COLONEL MULLER 35 
 
 of these forts, amongst others the so- 
 called " Eagle's Nest," and can yet 
 not understand how the Japanese could 
 have taken them by assault. It is true 
 that they lost an appalling number of 
 men over it, but they must have possessed 
 an almost superhuman tenacity of 
 purpose to climb these sheer heights, 
 by trampling under foot the bodies of 
 their fallen comrades. 
 
 Whilst at work on the coast defences 
 I was able to assure myself of the 
 astounding ignorance of the officer 
 commanding the artillery as to the real 
 treasures in guns and ammunition which 
 our storehouses contained. 
 
 The discoveries of Colonel Miiller of 
 the Marine Artillery gave us all the more 
 pleasure since General Biely, who had 
 not the slightest conception of what we 
 really possessed, pretended that, thanks 
 to one of these magic wands which some 
 people employ to find water, he had
 
 36 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 extracted from the old Chinese store- 
 houses quantities of projectiles, and even 
 guns, in excellent condition. As he 
 was not at Port Arthur at the time when 
 we took over the place from the Chinese, 
 he might have made this an excuse for 
 his ignorance. But how can one con- 
 done a case of crass ignorance such as 
 the following ? Colonel Miiller requiring 
 one day a considerable number of carts 
 to transport ammunition, knew where 
 they were to be found. So as not to 
 lose time, he simply took them. Then, 
 fearing that he might get into trouble 
 over this action, he subsequently made 
 a formal application for the supply of 
 these carts. Imagine his amazement 
 when next morning the general replied 
 that as the fortress did not possess a 
 single cart, he regretted that the request 
 could not be complied with. And all 
 this time the said carts, full of ammuni- 
 tion, were rolling along the road !
 
 OLD SUBMARINE 37 
 
 This energy of the colonel's brought 
 about fresh surprises every day. As 
 soon as the sun was up, he was to be 
 found either in a fort, on board one of 
 the ships, or in some workshop, and 
 every evening turned musician, thus 
 whiling away the unoccupied remnant 
 of his day. In the forts he mounted 
 the guns, in the workshops he made 
 contrivances of his invention by means 
 of which he was, for instance, able to 
 extend the effective range of the 10-inch 
 guns on Electric Hill. Still better : he 
 first raised and then carried out trials 
 with the submarine Drezevieky, which 
 had been abandoned long ago, and in 
 fact it was thus that he was nearly 
 drowned. It was in consequence of 
 this incident that the admiral forbade 
 any further dangerous experiments of 
 the kind, not being at all anxious to 
 lose so valuable an officer. It was a 
 great pity that his undermined health
 
 38 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 forced him to leave Port Arthur before 
 he was able to give us all we had a 
 right to expect from such a man as he. 
 
 To meet the first attack of the fire- 
 ships we had, besides the destroyers and 
 coast batteries, the gunboat on guard 
 duty outside, and the battleship Ret- 
 visan, unfortunately aground close to 
 the channel. 
 
 If I am not mistaken, the first attempt 
 at blocking up the harbour entrance 
 took place in the night of 23rd to 24th 
 February. No one expected it. The 
 town, the dockyard, and the roadstead 
 were enveloped in the inky darkness 
 of a moonless night. No fires, not the 
 least glimmer, all lights shaded by 
 shutters or hoods. Consequently the 
 Japanese had nothing to guide them. 
 Both ashore and afloat everyone not on 
 duty was asleep. On board the Ret- 
 visan acting as outer guardship, a sharp 
 lookout was being kept for Japanese
 
 "FIRESHIPS" 39 
 
 torpedo-craft. Towards three in the 
 morning I jumped out of bed and went 
 on deck, very much puzzled as to 
 the unaccountable noises which had 
 awakened me. My eyes were dazzled 
 by a truly fairylike scene : the sky, black 
 as ink, was streaked in every direction 
 by the searchlight beams of the Retvisan 
 and the coast batteries. The hilltops 
 were spitting fire from all the forts, and 
 the entire seafront reverberated from 
 an incessant cannonade. The Novik's 
 upper deck was in great confusion ; 
 officers and men all mixed up, and each 
 asking the other what was up : every 
 kind of explanation was put forward, 
 without our being any the wiser. 
 
 Having gone aloft, from where I was 
 able to overlook a portion of the outer 
 anchorage, I did not at first see anything 
 but shell bursting in the air ; then 
 I made out a Japanese three-masted 
 steamer passing close to the Retvisan,
 
 40 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 who had just fired a salvo and managed 
 to place two 12-inch shell, which went 
 off in a prodigious explosion; in an 
 instant the entire forepart of the steamer 
 was wrapped in one huge flame, which 
 brightly lit up all the surroundings, 
 after which the darkness seemed blacker 
 than ever. We then realised that the 
 Japanese, in a fit of mad pluck, had 
 tried to sink steamers in the narrow 
 entrance, so as to bottle us up in Port 
 Arthur. It was a critical moment, for 
 at all costs this enterprise had to be 
 frustrated. That night we did not 
 husband our ammunition, but guns 
 alone do not suffice to stop a vessel 
 steaming ahead, for only hits below 
 water are of any use. They are of no 
 account above water, especially if they 
 strike on the hull of a steamer laden 
 with pebbles. At most they can produce 
 some effect on the personnel, but if the 
 latter possess iron nerves this will not
 
 BLINDING LIGHTS 41 
 
 prevent them persisting in the task 
 they have set themselves. Luck was 
 on our side : with one exception all the 
 steamers ran aground on the rocks on 
 each side of the channel. I think we 
 must attribute this lucky result to the 
 searchlights, whose beams so blinded 
 the personnel of these vessels (which, I 
 know not why, were given the pompous 
 title of " fireships ") that they could 
 not see where they were going. All 
 those who have ever received a search- 
 light beam straight in the eye, know 
 to what extent one immediately loses 
 all measure of distance and direction. 
 This blinding process simply paralyses 
 one : there is no choice but to shut one's 
 eyes until these horrid rays have left 
 one. This is what must have happened 
 to the captains of the " fireships," who, 
 blinded and not knowing where they 
 were going, ran straight on the beach. 
 It needed the arrival of Admiral 
 4
 
 42 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 Makaroff to make people understand 
 that guns alone were not enough in 
 cases such as the above, and that they 
 have to be supplemented by other 
 measures, such as mooring contact mines 
 and closing the entrance with booms of 
 various kinds. 
 
 The width of the channel was reduced 
 to what was barely necessary by sink- 
 ing on each side two large and old 
 steamers filled up with stones and rubbish. 
 Then things became more serious. The 
 Japanese repeatedly sent such " fire- 
 ships," all of which grounded on these 
 artificial shoals. Some of these carried 
 quantities of petroleum, and we were 
 therefore bound to assume that their 
 intention had been to pour it overboard 
 burning, at the time of the flood-tide, so 
 as to set fire to everything afloat and to 
 the dockyard. Although this was mere 
 hypothesis, still, to provide for all even- 
 tualities, a special boom was placed in
 
 PLUCKY CREWS 43 
 
 position, consisting of an arrangement 
 of vertical tin plates, intended to stop 
 any floating liquid, whether burning 
 or not. 
 
 The morning after this first attempt 
 at blocking, the Novik was sent to 
 Pigeon Bay, to find out what had become 
 of two destroyers sent there to remain 
 on guard all night ; on our way through 
 the roadstead we were able to verify 
 the results of this midnight drama : 
 on the beach were four steamers, one of 
 which, quite close to the Retvisan, was 
 still on fire. The sea was covered with 
 wreckage of every kind, boats that had 
 been ripped open, lifebuoys, lifebelts, 
 etc. Some of the men had perhaps 
 managed to save themselves in their 
 boats, but the greater part must have 
 been drowned or killed by our shell. 
 We made prisoners of the few Japanese 
 who had remained on board, but when 
 we wanted to take them away in our
 
 .44 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 boats things became tragic. Some of 
 them committed suicide. An officer 
 jumped overboard, reached the shore, 
 and climbed up on the rocks, where he 
 defended himself like mad ; then, when 
 he had fired away his last cartridge, he 
 tried to strangle himself with his belt, 
 and our people only arrived just in time 
 to prevent this. These were our first 
 prisoners of war at Port Arthur, and it 
 must be confessed, alas ! that we did 
 not make many more later on. 
 
 The Japanese Press repeatedly de- 
 clared that these fireships were manned 
 by volunteers, who were made to draw 
 lots as their numbers were so great. 
 Things had gone quite differently, as 
 we found out when we questioned our 
 prisoners the same morning. They had 
 been trapped on board these ships ; 
 they had been given to understand that 
 it was intended to send back to Japan 
 these old and useless vessels. After
 
 BEING CHASED 45 
 
 proceeding for some hours, course was 
 altered for Port Arthur, without telling 
 anyone. I am not very much astonished 
 at this, for notwithstanding all the 
 goodwill and the patriotism of the 
 Japanese, it is difficult to admit that in 
 so short a time it had been possible to 
 collect so many men prepared to com- 
 mit suicide. 
 
 Having found our two destroyers 
 safe and sound in Pigeon Bay, we took 
 them back with us to Port Arthur. 
 On our way back l we had a disagreeable 
 surprise : four hostile cruisers steaming 
 full speed so as to cut us off from our 
 base. We went ahead like mad. Orders 
 were given to press the engines to their 
 utmost. Our only chances of escape 
 depended on these. We ended by 
 passing through a hail of projectiles, 
 leaving behind us the Japanese, who 
 
 1 [Pigeon Bay is round the corner from the har- 
 bour's mouth.] 
 4*
 
 46 AWAITING THE ADMIRAL 
 
 were greatly disconcerted at seeing so 
 fine a prize escape them. Next morning 
 the enemy's entire fleet appeared in 
 sight to verify the results of the " fire- 
 ship " attack. So as to prove to them 
 effectually how unsuccessful they had 
 been, the Askold, Bayan, and Novik 
 were sent out, and they at once engaged 
 the enemy's advanced ships. When 
 our three ships opened fire, our captain 
 asked permission to return to port, in 
 view of his vessel's weakness. This was 
 negatived. Realising then that to re- 
 main out under these conditions would 
 only result in the useless sinking of 
 one of our vessels, he headed the Novik 
 at top speed for the enemy, with the 
 intention of torpedoing them. However, 
 before he was able to carry out his 
 project a signal was made from the signal 
 station ordering us to return immediately 
 to the anchorage. 
 
 The Japanese, who on this occasion
 
 TWENTY WRECKS 47 
 
 kept at a respectful distance from our 
 shore batteries, did not reappear for a 
 long time. Still, they had not given up 
 the idea of bottling us up, and several 
 times more sent off " fireships " for that 
 purpose at night. At daylight the 
 following morning their cruisers used to 
 appear very regularly to see what had 
 been the result of the attempt, and 
 we did not fail on these occasions to 
 send out a cruiser or battleship, so as 
 to show them quite unmistakably that 
 the channel was still clear. 
 
 The roadstead of Port Arthur was 
 thus covered with the wrecks of over 
 twenty Japanese vessels, without a single 
 one succeeding in blocking the channel.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL MAKAROFF BOM- 
 BARDMENT BY INDIRECT FIRE THE 
 Loss OF THE " PETROPAVLOVSK " 
 
 ALL February and more passed in a 
 state of inaction and awaiting Admiral 
 Makaroff s arrival. The most that was 
 ever done were a few reconnaissances 
 within a radius of forty or fifty miles 
 from Port Arthur. Everything was 
 being saved up against the arrival of 
 the " Master," as he was already called : 
 " The Master who is coming will judge 
 for himself." In fact, he did arrive on 
 7th March, and lost no time in passing 
 judgment on a few, beginning with 
 
 Admiral G., the Superintendent of the 
 
 48
 
 DRASTIC MEASURES 49 
 
 Dockyard, whom he removed at once. 
 This officer probably owed it to his 
 incapacity that he was sent to Vladi- 
 vostok in a like " capacity." There, 
 during the mutiny, he took only one 
 step on his own initiative : to take 
 refuge with all his staff on board the 
 Almaz, refusing to make the smallest 
 effort to suppress the revolt, from fear of 
 14 encroaching upon the prerogatives " 
 of the commandant of the fortress (he 
 said this himself). It will be readily 
 understood that, once the mutiny was 
 quelled, his position became impossible. 
 He beat a hasty retreat to St. Petersburg, 
 where he was simply pitchforked into 
 the office of Superintendent of the 
 Dockyard there. Of course I know that 
 14 dog won't eat dog," but, honestly, 
 can one ever hope to reform the navy 
 by such manoeuvres ? 
 
 Admiral Makaroff's arrival shook up 
 the whole of Port Arthur. Pronounced
 
 50 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 partisan of cruisers, he fixed his atten- 
 tion at once on the Askold and Novik, 
 hoisting his flag in the latter for the 
 purpose of making a closer examination 
 of the hostile squadron, which was 
 cruising in the neighbourhood, and 
 whose destroyers he wished to cut down. 
 However, the enemy's main body having 
 advanced, he saw himself obliged to 
 turn back, which rather shook his faith 
 in light vessels. He first shifted to the 
 Askold, and then to the Petropavlovsk, 
 and confessed in the end that he found 
 more peace on the latter, and above all 
 was less exposed; for however difficult 
 it may be to knock out a properly 
 constructed battleship by a single hit, 
 any projectile was good enough to stop 
 the Novik. The commander-in-chief 
 must not expose himself to such risks ; 
 not so much on account of his own life 
 as in view of the position he occupies. 
 The admiral's first care was to teach
 
 STEAM EVOLUTIONS 51 
 
 us the handling of the ships in com- 
 pany. It is painful to have to declare 
 that not one of our captains had any 
 conception of this. Although it went 
 against the grain, we could not help 
 admiring the evolutions of the Japan- 
 ese squadron outside Port Arthur : never 
 the least hesitation, never a mistake. 
 Compared with this, what must have 
 been Admiral Makaroff's feelings when 
 he wanted us to take up our first 
 formation ? The signal was hardly down 
 before things were at sixes and sevens, 
 and two battleships, who had not 
 understood what was required of them, 
 promptly rammed one another. It was 
 only thanks to pure luck that they 
 managed to do this without seriously 
 damaging each other. And yet one 
 could not in reason expect these captains 
 to know that which no one had ever 
 taught them. When it is a case of 
 handling a battleship in a squadron,
 
 52 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 while performing evolutions, mere theo- 
 retical knowledge is of no use, even in 
 the most simple cases. What is re- 
 quired is constant practice at sea, and 
 that was precisely what we all lacked. 
 The admiral had first thought of pro- 
 viding us with this, but he seemed to 
 have thought better of it, for fear that 
 his precious battleships might sink one 
 another. Perhaps he might have got 
 over his first disappointment, and have 
 gone on instructing his captains, if an 
 end so near, so tragic, had left him time. 
 It was the very morning after his 
 arrival that the Japanese tried for the 
 first time to bombard the town and 
 inner anchorage by indirect fire. When 
 one has to act as target, a good battle 
 seems a hundred times better. For my 
 part, I know nothing which is such 
 a trial to the nerves than to remain 
 at anchor waiting for a 12-inch shell 
 to fall on top of one, especially when
 
 INDIRECT FIRE 53 
 
 said projectile weighs about 800 Ib. 
 On board the battleships they were 
 much more calm than we on board 
 the light cruiser ; all they had to do 
 was to go down on the main deck, 
 behind armour. The thickness of the 
 side of a light cruiser or destroyer is 
 hardly that of one's little ringer. A 
 bombardment under such circumstances 
 positively lacked all charm for us. 
 
 The attacking vessels kept so far 
 away that our batteries could not think 
 of replying ; our battleships alone could 
 do this by high-angle fire. However 
 problematical the result may be, it is 
 a great satisfaction to be able to hit 
 back, instead of twiddling one's thumbs, 
 waiting to be hit. The surrounding 
 waters on the chart were at first divided 
 off into squares and each turret told 
 off to one square. On the tops of the 
 hills signalmen and telephone operators 
 were stationed to watch and report the
 
 54 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 fall of our 12-inch and 9'2-inch shell, 
 and we were then able to correct the 
 ranges on our sights. The Japanese 
 were thus compelled to shift their posi- 
 tions frequently, and this threw out 
 their fire. We only scored one lucky 
 hit : a big shell plumped on the Kasuga, 
 but it sufficed to put an end to the 
 bombardment. 
 
 The whole of the month of March was 
 given up to progressive training of the 
 squadron. During this time no opera- 
 tions on a large scale were undertaken, 
 but only reconnaissances on an increas- 
 ing radius, during which we brought 
 up every steamer we sighted, just to 
 make it clear to the Japanese that we 
 in no way conceded the command of 
 the sea to them. During one of these 
 expeditions in the neighbourhood of 
 the Miao-Tao Islands, we came upon a 
 small Japanese steamer, which tried to 
 disappear in that archipelago, and which
 
 A PRIZE 55 
 
 we at once chased. When she saw that 
 escape was hopeless, she transhipped 
 part of the crew to a Chinese junk, 
 which at once made sail, while the 
 steamer steered at top speed for the 
 coast, evidently intending to run 
 aground. Our attendant destroyer 
 brought up the junk, whilst a shot 
 across her bows made the steamer stop 
 engines. I boarded her in one of our 
 boats and found on the upper deck an 
 old rusty whitehead torpedo, and hidden 
 in the hold three Japanese, whom I 
 sent on board the Novik, in accordance 
 with my instructions, together with 
 the four Chinamen forming the crew. 
 A fifth, of distinguished appearance, 
 whom I first took to be the captain, 
 would have liked to kill me by his 
 withering glances from the height of 
 the bridge. I politely invited him to 
 step into the boat, where he sat down 
 in the stern sheets with much dignity,
 
 56 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 without saying a word. But the cox- 
 swain, who took everyone for a spy, 
 having felt about on top of his head, 
 accidentally knocked off his cap, and 
 with it a wig and pigtail, presenting 
 thus to our astonished gaze a Japanese, 
 got up as a Chinese to perfection. 
 
 We tried to tow the steamer, but the 
 Novik was so fast that the old tinpot 
 was unable to stand the strain : her 
 mast went by the board, tearing open 
 her bows, so that we were obliged to 
 cast off tow, and to sink our prize by 
 gunfire. The Japanese were all brought 
 back to Port Arthur as prisoners. 
 
 A few days later we met a Norwegian 
 steamer, which the admiral ordered us 
 to examine. As the weather was not 
 of the best, our captain thought it 
 would be much simpler to send her 
 into Port Arthur, where the search 
 could be carried out in comfort. I had 
 just got on board the vessel when the
 
 AWKWARD NAVIGATION 57 
 
 semaphore informed me of this change 
 of plans. My boat returned to the 
 Novik and left me to my unenviable 
 fate : as a matter of fact the captain 
 possessed no chart of the immediate 
 neighbourhood and I had only a very 
 superficial knowledge of the local pilot- 
 age. I should add that I had never been 
 precisely in these waters : on the other 
 hand, I knew only too well that we had 
 planted them thick with floating mines ; 
 to crown all, I could see nothing but 
 shoals all around us. As it was highly 
 desirable to hide my anxiety from the 
 skipper, I made him take station astern 
 of the Novik, whose every movement I 
 intended to follow closely, without realis- 
 ing that she was being set steadily aside 
 by a current, which increased in strength 
 as we neared the shore. The result was 
 that at a given moment we found our- 
 selves so near the rocks that the captain 
 roused himself sufficiently from his 
 5
 
 58 
 
 apathy to ask me whether we were 
 really all right. I replied that we were 
 obliged to shave the rocks, to avoid 
 the mines we had dropped all over the 
 place. To add to my misfortunes, the 
 captain's wife, who had become very 
 nervous, was standing near us. At 
 the word " mines " she burst into tears, 
 clutched at my clothes and implored 
 me to release them. The scene became 
 so ridiculous that I was in doubt 
 whether to laugh or be angry, all the 
 more as at bottom I really pitied these 
 poor people, pretty well sure that their 
 ship did not contain anything in the 
 shape of contraband. I don't under- 
 stand how we managed to reach Port 
 Arthur, where no sooner was the anchor 
 dropped than I hastily fled from the 
 sobs of this over-sensitive woman, who 
 however was released next morning, 
 together with the ship. 
 
 These frequent reconnaissances of the
 
 RECONNAISSANCES 59 
 
 admiral were a considerable incon- 
 venience for the Japanese, who, being 
 thus tied to the place, were unable to 
 return to Japan to replenish supplies. 
 They then decided to establish an ad- 
 vanced base for coal and ammunition 
 at the Elliott Islands. It is quite 
 probable that the admiral's object in 
 making a series of, so to speak, platonic 
 reconnaissances was to make them relax 
 their vigilance, and then one fine morning 
 to fall upon this base suddenly, or even 
 to reach Vladivostok. Whatever really 
 were his plans, fate did not permit of 
 their being executed, for on 13th April 
 was enacted that horrible drama which 
 cast a blight over all the remainder of 
 the campaign : I refer to the loss of the 
 Petropavlovsk. 
 
 The admiral had said one day that he 
 would " do the job," provided he did 
 not allow his momentary enthusiasm to 
 get the better of his cool judgment, and
 
 60 
 
 it was precisely this kind of thing which 
 was the cause of his undoing. 
 
 On 13th April, at dawn, the cruisers 
 went out, closely followed by the battle- 
 ships : the object was to set free the 
 destroyers, who on return from a night 
 expedition had run into the hostile 
 cruisers. It was, by the way, not the 
 first time that these nocturnal cruises 
 had degenerated into the most unex- 
 pected adventures. One of our destroyers 
 had calmly spent the whole night in 
 the middle of a hostile flotilla, which in 
 the dark he had mistaken for his own. 
 When it became light the error was 
 discovered mutually : they all fell on 
 him, and he only escaped by the skin of 
 his teeth. 
 
 As the hostile squadron did not appear 
 to be fully concentrated, the admiral 
 at first thought of attacking it; but 
 their battleships had joined up with 
 the cruisers before we could get within
 
 MINELAYING 61 
 
 range, and we had just decided to fall 
 back under the protection of our coast 
 batteries, when the Japanese succeeded 
 by a ruse in stopping our retreat and in 
 inducing us to follow them on to a mine- 
 field they had just laid out. 
 
 How was it that Admiral Makaroff, 
 who during the war with the Turks 
 [1878 to 1879] had made his reputation 
 as the most accomplished minelayer, 
 never thought that the Japanese might 
 have taken a leaf out of his book ? 
 Previous to the Petropavlovsk disaster 
 no one any more than himself had 
 bothered their heads about such an 
 eventuality, no precautions whatever 
 were taken, and it was quite natural 
 that the movements of the Japanese 
 minelayers had escaped our attention. 
 The slightest fog seriously interferes 
 with the searchlights, forming a kind 
 of screen against which the beams seem 
 to flatten themselves out as if against 
 5*
 
 62 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 a wall. Later on, when I happened to 
 be on duty in one of the coast batteries, 
 I have frequently heard the enemy's 
 torpedo-craft moving about in the roads 
 during calm and hazy nights, but I 
 could do nothing ; for before being able 
 to sink one I should have to get her into 
 the beam of a searchlight, and even then 
 we could not be sure that they had not 
 already accomplished their task as mine- 
 layers. All we could do was to sweep 
 for their mines next morning and to lay 
 out preventive nets. 1 I can certify to 
 the fact that these two expedients 
 were largely employed. The mines were 
 swept for by specially fitted steam 
 hoppers, and our minelayers carefully 
 laid out the nets. But, alas ! all these 
 precautions were only taken after the 
 admiral's death, and once more the 
 
 1 [Steel wire grummet nets, such as are carried by 
 battleships against torpedo attacks, were hung from 
 spars forming booms, the ends of which were moored.]
 
 FOUR HUNDRED MINES 63 
 
 truth of our old proverb had been 
 proved : " So long as he has not heard 
 the thunder, the peasant does not think 
 of making the sign of the cross." 
 
 Our inventive genius was later on so 
 developed that we laid regular traps for 
 these minelaying destroyers, and then, 
 at the end of the siege, we succeeded in 
 capturing a Japanese steamboat whose 
 propeller had got foul of fishing nets 
 suspended from empty casks. 
 
 The Japanese had laid out such 
 quantities of mines that we fished up no 
 less than 400 in the two narrow channels, 
 swept only to the width necessary for a 
 single ship to pass. From this figure 
 one can form an idea of the number 
 which must have been left in the parts 
 of the roads we did not explore. 
 
 Let us, however, return to Admiral 
 Makaroff, whom we left performing 
 evolutions in the roads and about to 
 follow up the Japanese. Suddenly, at
 
 64 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 about 9.30 a.m., immediately after a dull 
 explosion, the Petropavlovsk began to 
 heel over ; then followed in quick suc- 
 cession a series of perfectly deafening 
 explosions, and the big ship, literally 
 broken up into several parts, began to 
 go down fast, head foremost. We saw 
 by degrees the propellers, still revolving, 
 appear out of the water, then her bottom, 
 painted bright green, whilst positive 
 sheets of flame ran along the upper deck, 
 like lava pouring over the slopes of a 
 volcano in eruption. The Petropavlovsk, 
 whom the sea was swallowing up with 
 increasing rapidity, finally disappeared 
 in a veritable geyser of steam and 
 columns of water. Were I to live a 
 hundred years this drama, which lasted 
 barely a minute and a half, could never 
 be banished from my memory, and this 
 hideous spectacle seems to be engraved 
 upon my eyeballs as if I saw it to-day. 
 It was awful, all the more awful since we
 
 GONE DOWN! 65 
 
 could do nothing in the way of rendering 
 assistance to the victims or in any way 
 arrest the appalling catastrophe. Under 
 this blow we all remained stunned and 
 riveted to the spot. I remember that 
 after the first explosion, although I 
 had given orders for the quarter-boats 
 to be lowered, for several minutes 
 neither I nor any of my men made the 
 slightest movement : it was as if our 
 arms had been cut off. 
 
 Soon afterwards boats began to arrive 
 on the scene, steamboats and destroyers, 
 to pick up the few survivors. As we 
 could not believe that the admiral had 
 gone down, every ship in the squadron 
 was asked by signal for news of him, and 
 from everywhere came the same heart- 
 rending reply. However, it took hours 
 for last hopes to die away : when all 
 the boats had returned to their ships, 
 even without the poor consolation of 
 having recovered his body.
 
 66 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 An hour after the Petropavlovsk had 
 gone down, the Pobieda in her turn struck 
 a mine : she got off cheap, as notwith- 
 standing a great inrush of water, she 
 was able under her own steam to regain 
 the harbour, there to be repaired. 
 
 The consequences of the Petropavlovsk 
 striking that mine were probably so 
 terrible because the point of impact was 
 abreast one of the main magazines, 
 which in blowing up caused the boilers 
 to burst, their antiquated type making 
 them very liable to this. 
 
 I shudder when I think how many 
 lives were lost, how many of those men 
 disappeared who formed the admiral's 
 staff and whose brilliant attainments 
 were so valuable to the squadron, in 
 that explosion which only lasted a few 
 seconds. It is awful to think that 
 those who were in the depths of the 
 vessel went down in her alive and must 
 have remained so for a long time,
 
 BURIED ALIVE 67 
 
 knowing that they were (if one may use 
 the expression) buried alive. Instinct- 
 ively, therefore, I rebel against war, that 
 method, which should have outlived 
 itself, of settling difficulties mostly 
 created by diplomats. 
 
 A similar drama was enacted on board 
 the Rossia : a Japanese projectile 
 having caused an outbreak of fire, 
 several men found themselves hemmed in 
 by the flames in a compartment. When 
 they realised their desperate position 
 and that all would soon be over for 
 them, they struck up together the hymn 
 De Profundis, while waiting for death to 
 reduce them to silence. 
 
 How did the admiral really come by 
 his death ? No one could say. It was 
 stated that he had been crushed on the 
 bridge by the falling foremast. After 
 all, it does not matter much ; his death 
 was, not only for Port Arthur but for 
 the whole of Russia, the irreparable
 
 68 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 misfortune which doomed the squadron 
 to inevitable destruction. 
 
 When the explosions were taking place 
 in the Petropavlovsk a rumour arose on 
 board the other ships that we were being 
 attacked by submarines, which caused 
 an indescribable panic. Both battle- 
 ships and cruisers opened fire on every- 
 thing they saw floating about : pieces 
 of wood, empty tins of preserves, and 
 any other object which they took for 
 periscopes. This insane cannonade went 
 off without anyone directing it. With- 
 out any regard for their neighbours, 
 the gunlayers fired at less than two 
 cables [400 yards] ; shells were indeed 
 whistling all round us. 
 
 Luckily the captain of the Novik did 
 not lose his head ; as soon as he had, 
 by tremendous energy, got the men to 
 cease firing, he went full speed astern 
 with both engines, so as to get out of 
 the range of fire of his neighbours. At
 
 SUBMARINES ? 69 
 
 that moment we received a semaphore 
 to say that a submarine was heading for 
 us. It is very likely that the wash of 
 our screws was taken for one, as I could 
 not make out anything of the kind, 
 however attentively I watched. The 
 men were literally off their heads : one 
 of the gunlayers pointed out a lump 
 of oakum floating in the water and 
 swore it was a periscope. 
 
 I believe it was only the Poltava and 
 ourselves who thought of clearing out of 
 this rabble. We left the other ships 
 making for the port, crowding one upon 
 the other like a lot of sheep. Our new 
 squadron commander managed at last 
 to get a signal through for forming up. 
 and we were naturally the last. 
 
 For a long time there was doubt as 
 to the presence of submarines on that 
 day. As, moreover, for most of us 
 this new type of vessel was quite un- 
 known, we had no idea what its capa-
 
 70 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 bilities were. The Japanese certainly 
 possessed submarines, for we had bought 
 some ourselves in the United States at 
 the same time as they. But since 
 nobody ever saw one throughout the 
 war, everyone was at liberty to give 
 vent to his imagination concerning them. 
 Some firmly believed that the submarines 
 would penetrate into the dockyard, fire 
 their torpedos, and quietly disappear. 
 Anyhow, an obstruction was formed of 
 nets, on a system invented by Lieutenant 
 Ulianoff, which were meant to catch sub- 
 marines exactly as a poacher catches 
 quails. 
 
 More than once the signalmen mistook 
 simple logs of wood for periscopes, or a 
 seal disporting itself for a submarine 
 coming to the surface, and their sema- 
 phore reports used to alarm the whole of 
 Port Arthur. On one occasion I was 
 sent off in the Novik's steam cutter after 
 a submarine reported by the White
 
 ADMIRAL VITYEFT 71 
 
 Wolf signal station. Before starting I 
 received the following instructions : to 
 seize the submarine by its periscope, 
 then to smash it by blows with a mallet, 
 so as to blind its crew ; better still, to 
 wrap a flag or piece of canvas round it ; 
 or lastly (which would have been the 
 best of all), to tow the said submarine 
 by its periscope into the inner harbour. 
 
 After the war I commanded for one 
 year some of our submarines at Vladi- 
 vostok, which enabled me to see how 
 ingenuous, not to say grotesque, our 
 ideas were at the time. Although as an 
 engine of war it has not yet reached 
 perfection, such as it is to-day it con- 
 stitutes a very formidable weapon. 
 
 Admiral Vityeft, who succeeded Ad- 
 miral Makaroff in the command of the 
 squadron, appears to have been fully 
 conscious of the fact that he was not 
 quite equal to his new task. He there- 
 fore decided that the squadron was not
 
 72 ADMIRAL MAKAROFF 
 
 to undertake any operations outside, 
 preferring to concentrate all the means at 
 his disposal on the defence of the fortress : 
 which led the wits of the place to de- 
 clare that " for the remainder of the 
 war the squadron would observe the 
 strictest neutrality."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BATTLESHIPS "HATSUSE" AND 
 "YASHIMA" BLOW UP Loss OF 
 " YENISSEI " AND " BOYARIN " 
 
 THE death of Admiral Makaroff left 
 the squadron without a head, and it 
 was doomed to inaction; only the de- 
 stroyers went out on their daily round 
 of guard duty. This was an ungrateful 
 task for them, wearisome and dangerous 
 into the bargain : several of them came 
 to an untimely end, some by striking 
 sunken rocks, others went down under 
 the Japanese fire, without any of them 
 having the opportunity of discharging 
 one of those weapons which gave them 
 their name, 1 with the sole exception of 
 
 1 [In Russia destroyers are called " torpedo-boats."] 
 6
 
 74 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 the one commanded by Lieutenant 
 Krinitsky, who attacked the fireships 
 and attempted (though unsuccessfully) 
 to torpedo their escorting vessels. 
 
 By day all of these small vessels 
 which were not on guard duty outside, 
 assisted at the recovery of mines, 
 together with rowboats, tugs, and 
 " sweepers " from the dockyard. This 
 sweeping service constituted a duty 
 which was no less full of risk than the 
 night duties I have just mentioned. 
 All these humble workers ensured the 
 big ships being able to go out, and it 
 seemed to me that these wretched 
 destroyers were often made to get 
 under weigh only so that it might be 
 said that Port Arthur was " still up 
 and doing." 
 
 Towards the end of April there was a 
 report that the enemy had just landed 
 on the Liao-Tung Peninsula. No one 
 worried very much about it, bearing
 
 SHUT IN 75 
 
 in mind what Kuropatkin had stated 
 publicly : " It does not matter where 
 the Japanese land, as I shall always 
 drive them into the sea." And in 
 those days we still had faith in Kuro- 
 patkin. As to our admiral, he was 
 said to have declared bluntly that the 
 means at his disposal did not permit 
 him to oppose any Japanese landing. 
 I don't know whether this is true, but 
 in any case it is shameful that nothing 
 was tried, that he did not even make a 
 pretence at trying something. Several 
 days later we heard from a reliable 
 source that the enemy had effected a 
 landing at Pitzevo, and that his ad- 
 vanced guard had been bold enough to 
 push on to the railway, from where 
 they had fired at a passing train. By 
 the middle of next month Port Arthur 
 found its communications cut off : we 
 were without post and telegraph, in fact 
 we were completely and definitely shut in.
 
 76 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 The halt of the Japanese after their 
 first battle was an enormous mistake : 
 had they pushed on, Port Arthur would 
 have fallen at once. The three months 
 they thus lost was certainly not time 
 lost for us, for it enabled us to make 
 such dispositions that it took them 
 seven months to reduce the defenders 
 to despair or rather, General Stoessel, 
 without whose action the capitulation 
 (which I admit was inevitable) would 
 certainly not have taken place until 
 very much later. 
 
 At the commencement of the siege 
 our squadron was able, by indirect 
 means, to pay out the Japanese to a 
 certain extent for Makaroff s death and 
 the loss of the flagship. Primarily to 
 prevent the enemy from bombarding 
 us from seaward, we had strewn with 
 mines all the waters not actually covered 
 by our coast batteries ; we had laid 
 out some off Cape Liao-ti-Shan and
 
 THE AMUR 77 
 
 outside Talienwan. Admiral Vityeft 
 had the happy thought to sow also a 
 few more between these two points, 
 about seven miles to the south-east of 
 the entrance. Captain Ivanoff, com- 
 manding the minelayer Amur, was the 
 author of a secret plan, which he kept 
 locked up, and he now took advantage 
 of one of his sorties to carry it out. 
 The Japanese had established a regular 
 blockade, and every day we saw them 
 moving up and down a line about ten 
 miles off the coast-line, a distance at 
 which they judged themselves to be out 
 of range of our heaviest guns, those 
 mounted on Electric Rock, our only 
 coast battery of real worth. They 
 were quite aware that our shell could 
 not reach them at that distance, and 
 they defied our poor gunners, who spent 
 night and day at the breeches of their 
 guns, hoping for some false move by 
 
 the enemy, which would have given 
 6*
 
 them a chance of getting a shot in. 
 Unfortunately, the Japanese were wide 
 awake and never risked getting even 
 half a mile inside their self-imposed 
 limit. The captain of the Amur, having 
 noticed this peculiarity, cleverly took 
 advantage of a fogbank to reach the 
 spot he had chosen, and to drop some 
 mines there. Admiral Vityeft, having 
 been informed of what he called a 
 mad prank, naturally began to get 
 angry : he roundly abused Captain 
 Ivanoff, and even went as far as to 
 threaten him with removal from his 
 command. 
 
 As was natural, this story went 
 quickly round the town. Consequently 
 next morning everyone who was not 
 actually on duty met as if by appoint- 
 ment on Electric Rock. Towards ten 
 o'clock the Japanese battleships dis- 
 appeared behind Liao-ti-Shan in single 
 line ahead, after having steamed safely
 
 YASHIMA SUNK 79 
 
 right through our mine-field. We had 
 hardly recovered from our disappoint- 
 ment when away to the left the cruisers 
 hove in sight, and at the same time 
 the battleships, having turned round, 
 reappeared from behind Liao-ti-Shan 
 and steered straight for the danger 
 zone. After several minutes of feverish 
 expectation, we saw them all stop engines 
 together, and one of them, of the Yashima 
 type, commence heeling over heavily to 
 port. Although no one actually saw 
 the explosion, this heel, which steadily 
 got worse, showed us clearly that the 
 vessel must have exploded a mine under 
 her bottom. Moreover, we could make 
 out with our glasses that all the boats 
 of the squadron were pulling towards 
 that ship, whilst the remaining battle- 
 ships, still stopped, were waiting around. 
 The excitement in Port Arthur was now 
 at its height. The destroyers were 
 standing by to go out, and the Novik
 
 80 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 having received orders to bring her 
 fires forward, I was obliged to leave 
 Golden Hill, where all were congratu- 
 lating one another on our success, whilst 
 showering curses on the Japanese. 
 However, it was by no means over. At 
 a moment when least expected, an 
 enormous column of white smoke shot 
 up from a battleship of the Hatsuse type, 
 in which she completely disappeared, 
 No sooner had this smoke blown away 
 than we saw the battleship go down, 
 bows first. And then there burst forth 
 a kind of ferocious joy, a joy of savages, 
 without restraint, with caps thrown 
 into the air and with cheers, and the 
 people all but rushed into one another's 
 arms. The loss of the Petropavlovsk 
 was indeed avenged, as the Hatsuse, 
 which bad displaced 15,000 tons, be- 
 longed to a more powerful, and above 
 all more modern type than our ship. 
 The general elation even spread to the
 
 HATSUSE'S FATE 81 
 
 foreign Naval Attaches : the German 
 clapped his hands; the Frenchman, in 
 ecstasy, waved his cap, shouting, " Fini 
 les japonais ! Rien ne va plus ! " Only 
 the American, keeping his thoughts to 
 himself, left Golden Hill without uttering 
 a word. 
 
 It is probable that they were not able 
 to save many men from the Hatsuse, 
 as no sooner were all boats hoisted up 
 than the squadron steamed away at full 
 speed, leaving the wretched Yashima, 
 still stopped and heeling over, to her 
 fate. Later on she slowly righted, and 
 also got away. 
 
 The Novik and the destroyers, as soon 
 as they had got outside, had been divided 
 into three groups. I must point out 
 once more that these daylight attacks 
 had not the least chance of success. 
 In fact the cruisers, who surrounded the 
 ill-fated battleship, opened so hot a fire 
 on our vessels that they were unable to
 
 82 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 get anywhere near. We heard later 
 on that this attempt would have served 
 no purpose, as the Yashima was so 
 damaged that she sank before she could 
 get to Japan. 
 
 The English Press has written that 
 the Japanese newspapers had deeply 
 deplored the loss of the Petropavlovsk 
 and Admiral Makaroff s death. Already 
 somewhat sceptical on that point, I 
 was fully confirmed in my view after 
 the loss of their battleships. If we 
 Russians, with an essentially easy-going 
 and peace-loving nature, gave way to 
 such demonstrations of savage joy at 
 seeing hundreds of our enemies go down, 
 I feel not the slightest doubt that the 
 jubilations of the Japanese, who are 
 after all cruel and vindictive Malays, 
 must have passed all bounds. 
 
 By the middle of May the enemy had 
 seized the position of Kintchao, judged 
 to be impregnable by our Port Arthur
 
 THE GALLANT BOBR 83 
 
 tacticians, who had counted on the 
 support of our squadron, but which 
 failed them, as it was convinced of its 
 own impotence. The gunboat Bobr was 
 sent to the east of Dalny, where her 
 co-operation was most valuable. It was 
 she who forced the Japanese to keep 
 away. On the other hand, nothing of 
 the kind was done in the west, which 
 allowed the Japanese army to take our 
 batteries in reverse and completely to 
 turn our position. The departure, and 
 above all the return, of the Bobr will 
 ever remain glorious pages in the annals 
 of the siege. Commander Schelting, 
 who commanded the gunboat, was 
 niggardly rewarded with the cross of 
 St. George. He had received orders to 
 shell the enemy up to the last moment 
 and, if Kintchao were unhappily to fall, 
 he was to sink his ship and bring the 
 crew back to Port Arthur overland. 
 Schelting, who had brilliantly carried
 
 84 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 out the first part of the programme, 
 lacked the sad courage to carry out the 
 second part. When the moment came 
 for sinking the Bobr, he thought it might 
 be better to try and bring her back into 
 harbour, which was more than risky, 
 seeing that with the fall of Kintchao the 
 Japanese ships had recovered liberty of 
 movement and commanded the sea. 
 The Bobr effected her retreat in a dark, 
 blowy night, running neck and neck 
 with the enemy. The darkness alone 
 saved her : her guns, more than ob- 
 solete, though very formidable with 
 their shrapnel shell against land troops, 
 had no effect whatever on the ships 
 opposed to her. 
 
 I have often heard it said that, since 
 the Bobr had done so well against Dalny, 
 it was a great mistake not to have sent 
 out better armed vessels than she. The 
 answer is this : the spot from which it 
 was alone possible to fire was so
 
 THE YENISSEI SUNK 85 
 
 restricted that only a very small, short 
 vessel could maintain herself there, and 
 even so she had to keep moving her 
 engines the whole time. 
 
 Not knowing, of course, where the 
 landing would take place, we thought 
 that Dalny seemed to offer the best 
 chances ; it was therefore decided to 
 lay mines there. Early in February, 
 the Yenissei was sent there for the pur- 
 pose, and was lost by striking one of her 
 own mines. This gave rise to a violent 
 discussion, for nearly everyone thought 
 that this accident was directly due to 
 the captain's negligence. There were 
 not many who tried to discover the 
 cause and to reconstitute the drama 
 in the way it must have happened : it 
 was so much easier to put down every- 
 thing to the captain's carelessness or 
 incapacity. 
 
 Now, Commander Stevanoff was an 
 officer of considerable capacity, had
 
 86 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 graduated at the War College and him- 
 self designed a minelayer. Indeed, the 
 Yenissei had been built from his plans, 
 which I hasten to add the Ministry of 
 Marine had not hesitated to modify. 
 In the end Captain Stevanoff was de- 
 clared to be the father of a child bearing 
 only a distant resemblance to the one 
 he had conceived. Being, however, de- 
 voted to his profession, and especially 
 to everything connected with torpedoes 
 and mines, he had determined to make 
 the best of what they had been pleased 
 to leave of his design, and obeying only 
 the instincts of his enterprising and 
 courageous nature, he had repeatedly 
 asked permission to go out and lay mines 
 off the enemy's ports. His first ex- 
 pedition of the kind was to mine Talien- 
 wan Bay, in a stiff breeze, hazy weather, 
 with occasional snow squalls, and a 
 temperature well below freezing point. 
 He had already dropped 400 of his
 
 THE " OWN PETARD " 87 
 
 spherical mines, when it was reported 
 to him that one of them had come up 
 again. The state of the sea did not 
 permit of the mine being moored afresh, 
 and he was not anxious to leave behind 
 what was not so much a proof of want of 
 skill as something which would betray 
 the presence of mines. He therefore 
 decided to explode it, but before he 
 had time to do this, an explosion sud- 
 denly took place under the Yenissei, 
 which sent her to the bottom. What had 
 happened ? It is supposed that the 
 ship must have struck one of her own 
 submerged mines, which the heavy sea 
 had broken adrift from its moorings, 
 unless indeed, blinded by the driving 
 snow, she had steamed over one of the 
 lines laid by herself. All boats were at 
 once lowered to save the crew. Al- 
 though seriously wounded in the head, 
 and his body riddled by splinters of 
 every kind, due to the explosion, the
 
 88 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 captain had kept his presence of mind, 
 and himself superintended the filling 
 of the boats. When it was pointed out 
 to him that it was time to shove off, 
 he resolutely refused to leave the ship, 
 and as a true hero went down in her, 
 in full view of his shipmates. He had 
 doubtlessly come to the conclusion that 
 since the accident was due to some 
 neglect or even mere error in judg- 
 ment on his part, it was only just 
 that he should expiate the fault. 
 Who dare now to throw the first 
 stone ? 
 
 A few days later the catastrophe was 
 repeated, but in far less difficult con- 
 ditions, and the results were also quite 
 different. In the hope of hiding from 
 the enemy an event from which he 
 might have derived some advantage, 
 it was altogether hidden from the large 
 majority of Russians. It is as well 
 that they should know the truth now.
 
 THE BOYARIN DESTROYED 89 
 
 The Boyarin, 1 having been sent to 
 Talienwan, struck one of the mines 
 just laid out by the Yenissei. Let me 
 say at once that the captain of the 
 former could not be held responsible. 
 The plan by which these mines had been 
 laid out had been lost with the ship, 
 and the Boyarin was therefore quite in 
 the dark and had to take her chance 
 in carrying out her orders. Yet from 
 the moment the accident occurred her 
 captain's attitude has been a complete 
 mystery to me. The ship's company 
 were already all in the boats, when the 
 chief engineer reported to the captain 
 that the water was falling in the well. 
 Without listening to anything, the latter 
 dashed on board a destroyer which had 
 just turned up, and steamed away in 
 her at full speed, deserting his vessel, 
 which was still afloat, though not with- 
 out having previously given orders to 
 
 1 A similar vessel to the Novik. 
 
 7
 
 90 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UP 
 
 another destroyer to torpedo her. The 
 poor Boyarin, after having been missed 
 by two torpedos, floated about for 
 three days and then drifted on to the 
 rocks, where the sea broke her up.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SHIPS CANNONADE THE JAPANESE 
 TROOPS THE SQUADRON SAILS ON 
 JUNE 23 
 
 UP to the beginning of June the losses 
 of the war on both sides were entirely 
 due to mines. Both sides had laid 
 them out in great quantities : the 
 Japanese to prevent our going out, and 
 we to hamper them in their bombard- 
 ments. Naturally each side fished up 
 and destroyed the other's mines, while 
 trying to cause him at the same time 
 some additional damage, and this 
 frequently degenerated into skirmishes 
 between destroyers, usually harmless. 
 Every means was considered good 
 
 9'
 
 92 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 enough for the end in view : rafts, 
 destroyers, lighters, hoppers, the Amur 
 and even small merchant steamers. 
 The Japanese, on the other hand, never 
 employed anything but their destroyers, 
 which time and again were lit up by our 
 coast searchlights, when they were at 
 once fired upon by the batteries, which 
 claimed to have sunk several. This, 
 however, could never be proved, as with 
 the advent of dawn every trace of the 
 enemy disappeared. Frequently, especi- 
 ally towards the end, the Japanese 
 only made believe, probably as they 
 were short of material. We fished 
 up several mines which were found 
 to contain only one - quarter the 
 proper charge, and the explosion of 
 which would not have done much 
 harm. 
 
 Occasionally they changed their tactics 
 and set mines adrift which used to 
 strike the rocks, where their explosion
 
 DESTROYER ATTACK 93 
 
 only served to frighten the natives, 
 especially the fishermen. 
 
 Whether to convoy the Amur or to 
 drive off the destroyers which used to 
 hover about in groups between Port 
 Arthur and Talienwan, the Novik was 
 always under weigh. We once came 
 across seventeen of them, who tried a 
 combined attack on us, but thanks to 
 our speed we were easily able to keep 
 them at a distance and under our 
 fire. They then broke up into three 
 groups, so as to deliver their attack 
 from three different directions, but they 
 failed in this too. We fired on each of 
 the groups in succession, which made it 
 impossible for them to carry out a 
 simultaneous attack on the Novik, who 
 came out with flying colours, thanks to 
 speed and skill. The Japanese gave 
 up the chase, probably owing to damage 
 inflicted by us, as our fire was very 
 effective. The oily calm enabled us to 
 
 7*
 
 94 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 spot the fall of our shot accurately, and 
 nothing was easier than to correct the 
 errors in distance and direction, so 
 that we had the satisfaction of seeing 
 a number of our shell get home. This 
 affair showed us that a Novik, well 
 handled, had nothing to fear from de- 
 stroyers, no matter how numerous. 
 The Japanese had evidently come to 
 the same conclusion, for ever after 
 their destroyers made off the moment 
 our presence had been reported to them. 
 By the beginning of June the be- 
 sieging army had pushed their advance 
 so vigorously that our troops fell back 
 to the Green Hills, quite close to Port 
 Arthur. During this movement the 
 Japanese left wing had got so close to 
 the sea that our ships were able to 
 cannonade them. A series of such 
 operations therefore commenced on 
 14th June, which nearly always ended 
 in bringing about, if not a regular
 
 INDIRECT FIRE 95 
 
 engagement, at least a skirmish between 
 the big ships on both sides. 
 
 At the commencement of the siege 
 these same Green Hills had played a 
 certain part in our indirect fire, which 
 used to be corrected by observers 
 stationed there, our shell passing over 
 their heads. It was a very dull game, 
 for most of the time we never knew 
 what the results were of our bombarding 
 a target we never even saw. Added to 
 this were head- and ear-aches, for our 
 4*7-inch guns had the most penetrating 
 sound I ever heard. 
 
 It frequently happened that the 
 Novik and the gunboats steamed out at 
 dawn in the direction of Talienwan. 
 Ahead of us were the craft towing sweeps 
 to catch the mines, which the Japanese 
 laid out most conscientiously every 
 night in the waters they supposed we 
 should be steaming through. The whole 
 of us had constantly to stop engines,
 
 96 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 to enable one of the " sweeps," parted 
 by the explosion of a mine, to be hauled 
 in, refitted, and paid out again. These 
 constant stoppages were intensely irri- 
 tating, and in the end the Japanese 
 squadron appearing over the horizon 
 forced us by their long-range fire to 
 retire into Port Arthur. 
 
 One day our captain, who had had just 
 about enough of these constant delays 
 during a run, only made at 4 or 5 knots 
 as it was, threw everything to the 
 winds and decided to trust to his usual 
 luck, and the onlookers were thus able 
 to enjoy a spectacle differing much 
 from the usual one. In front the Novik 
 drawing over 18 feet, steaming at full 
 speed through the Japanese mines, 
 followed at the speed of the tortoise 
 by the gunboats towing the sweeping 
 lighters, whose draught did not ex- 
 ceed 12 feet. If these mad escapades 
 amongst the mines reacted very un-
 
 THE NOVIK'S LUCK 97 
 
 pleasantly (why hide the fact ?) on 
 our nervous system, they at any rate 
 enabled us to throw ourselves on the 
 rear of the enemy, who then left their 
 base precipitately, but who only arrived 
 just in time to see us regain our stables 
 with a light heart after having accom- 
 plished our object without waiting for 
 the 12-inch shell. The luck of the 
 Novik was incredible. Mines were swept 
 up at the very places we had just 
 passed over ; one was actually exploded 
 by the wash of our screws. A yard or 
 two more to starboard and we should 
 have been blown in half. 
 
 The capture of the Green Hills having 
 brought the Japanese in direct contact 
 with the place, these expeditions be- 
 came a delightful distraction : firstly, 
 because we had not far to go ; secondly, 
 because we at last saw what we were 
 firing at. One day as we were steam- 
 ing close along the shore, our attention
 
 98 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 was attracted by a dark spot about 
 half-way up the slopes of Taku-Shan. 
 Some thought that it was a clump of 
 pines, but the majority took it for a 
 detachment of Japanese troops. The 
 captain having decided to fire on these 
 suspicious spots, Sub-Lieutenant Maxi- 
 moff laid one of his guns on the target 
 himself. At the first shot the spot 
 moved. It looked as if the whole was 
 trying to move round to the other face 
 of the hill. We at once substituted 
 shrapnel for the common shell which 
 had been used to get the range, and 
 their bursting cones literally covered 
 the Japanese, who fled in disorder, 
 leaving behind heaps of corpses. This 
 was the first time that I witnessed 
 real excitement on board. Usually 
 everyone remained quietly at his 
 fighting station, whilst on this occasion 
 every one appeared to be struck with 
 a fit of mad rage. The whole of the
 
 NOVEL TARGETS 99 
 
 officers were at the guns ; the stokers 
 off watch carried the ammunition up 
 from below in their arms, and shouts 
 of joy were heard in the midst of the 
 joking. Meanwhile the Japanese ships, 
 who had approached, opened fire on us. 
 But no one wanted to leave off, and we 
 had several times to make the signal 
 to return into port to the little Otvajny, 
 who, quite unconscious of any danger, 
 had stood on without paying any 
 attention to what was going on to 
 seaward. 
 
 On another occasion, when I was 
 working our Barr & Stroud range-finder 
 (the only good instrument we possessed 
 of the kind in Port Arthur), which is 
 fitted with very powerful glasses, I 
 noticed that the slopes of the hills 
 opposite us were covered with small 
 groups of Japanese, who had been 
 overlooked by our ordinary glasses, 
 notwithstanding their nearness, as all
 
 100 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 these men, dressed in khaki, were sitting 
 down and keeping absolutely still, 
 trusting that they had not been dis- 
 covered. A few well-directed projec- 
 tiles produced absolute panic in their 
 ranks. During the night they had 
 attempted to turn our right flank ; the 
 Novik, who turned up in the nick of 
 time to spoil their little game, was the 
 cause of their not risking themselves 
 near the sea for a long time. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the 
 plan of joining up Pigeon Bay with the 
 West Basin of the harbour had not been 
 carried out, for by its means we could 
 have threatened both wings of the be- 
 siegers and thus helped the defence very 
 considerably. 
 
 Several times in June the Viceroy 
 suggested to Admiral Vityeft to take out 
 the whole squadron and attack the 
 enemy, said to be several units short. 
 Our only means of communicating with
 
 SQUADRON WEIGHS 101 
 
 the Viceroy and St. Petersburg were 
 by junks sent to Chifoo, also the de- 
 stroyer Lieut. Burakoff, which several 
 times accomplished the passage across 
 to In-Keu. She was the fastest of our 
 destroyers, and each of these trips was 
 a deed of valour, since the Japanese 
 invariably organised a regular " drive " 
 to catch her on her return journey, 
 from which she managed as regularly 
 to escape, thanks to the activity and 
 intelligence of her captain. 
 
 At last the admiral made up his mind 
 to get his ships under weigh on 23rd 
 June. The day before the channel was 
 swept clean, and at daybreak the battle- 
 ships began to creep out laboriously to 
 the roads. Port Arthur is a port so 
 well chosen that vessels can only go out 
 one at a time. As deep draught vessels 
 can only get through the channel at high 
 water, it is often necessary to use two 
 tides, as on the slightest hitch occurring,
 
 102 SHIPS F. TROOPS 
 
 everyone behind has to await the next 
 high water. It was noon before the 
 squadron was at last outside. On the 
 other hand, the Japanese, who had been 
 kept well informed of our protracted 
 movements, had ample time to make 
 their dispositions, and by three o'clock 
 their entire fleet were assembled about 
 forty miles from Port Arthur. After 
 having counted their ships several times, 
 the admiral judged it to be imprudent 
 to attack superior numbers and decided 
 to return to Port Arthur. In fact, 
 there were over twenty of them, as 
 against exactly eleven on our side. It 
 is impossible to say what the issue of 
 an action under these conditions would 
 have been, but I think we might have 
 risked it, were it merely to prepare for 
 Admiral Rojestvensky's arrival. I feel 
 sure that with a more energetic, and 
 above all more enterprising, chief 
 with Makaroff, for instance we should
 
 SEBASTOPOL DAMAGED 103 
 
 have taken our chance, which would 
 anyway have been better than to allow 
 ourselves to be sunk, quite uselessly, in 
 the harbour. 
 
 By the time we got back to the an- 
 chorage it was quite dark, and we were 
 attacked by destroyers when still several 
 miles from it. The Novik, as rear 
 ship, was ordered to give the alarm by 
 firing guns. At the moment of anchor- 
 ing the Sebastopol struck a mine, which 
 caused an inrush of water ; as the recol- 
 lection of the Petropavlovsk had by no 
 means been effaced, the ship's company 
 lost their heads and made a rush for 
 hammocks and lifebelts, one man actu- 
 ally jumping overboard. It was only 
 thanks to the coolness and energy of Cap- 
 tain von Essen, who commanded her [he 
 had recently been transferred from the 
 Novik]., that order could be re-established 
 and the ship brought into a safe place. 
 
 We had lowered a boat to save the
 
 104 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 man, and soon found ourselves in a 
 critical position : obliged to hoist the 
 boat whilst repelling an attack by de- 
 stroyers who had come quite close when 
 they saw that we were separated from 
 the rest. When we rejoined the ships 
 had all anchored, and as they had for- 
 gotten to give us a billet by signal we 
 dropped an anchor between two battle- 
 ships. In spite of the darkness and 
 the general excitement, the squadron 
 managed to anchor on a very judicious 
 plan drawn up by Lieutenant Azarieff, 
 fleet navigating officer (he was killed 
 a few days later). We formed a large 
 crescent, which filled out the whole 
 anchorage, and against which attack 
 after attack failed, as was proved that 
 night. We were subjected to six of 
 these between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. They 
 none of them produced any effect on 
 us, but the enemy must have lost several 
 destroyers. At any rate, I saw with my
 
 NIGHT ATTACKS 105 
 
 own eyes one of them go down in 
 the beam of our searchlight : already 
 motionless, probably owing to damaged 
 machinery, she was struck by several 
 projectiles and sank slowly by the stern. 
 Nearly all these little vessels betrayed 
 their presence by the flames issuing 
 from their funnels. However, it was 
 just the same with us, directly the speed 
 exceeded 12 knots. I am astonished 
 that our present-day engineers have not 
 yet found some means to remedy a 
 defect which might have such serious 
 consequences. 
 
 A long period of inaction followed on 
 this abortive expedition ; it was hardly 
 disturbed by the battleships occasion- 
 ally indulging in some high-angle firing. 
 The cruisers landed a portion of their 
 guns to strengthen the coast defences, 
 whilst the Novik was attached to the 
 flotilla and gunboats, on whom devolved 
 the task of taking the enemy in reverse.
 
 106 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 As a special measure and at the 
 request of General Smirnoff, who dreaded 
 a general assault, the battleship Poltava, 
 the cruisers Diana, Pallada, and Bayan, 
 and four gunboats were sent out with us 
 one day. After having anchored in 
 suitable positions for taking the enemy 
 in reverse, we opened fire, which was 
 carefully corrected from the shore and 
 produced such brilliant results that the 
 general signalled to us his congratula- 
 tions several times. We were in the 
 thick of it when the well-known funnels 
 of the Nishin and Kasuga appeared 
 over the horizon. Being in superior 
 numbers, we decided to stay where we 
 were, or at least await some further 
 movements on the part of the enemy, 
 whose funnels were only just visible 
 above the horizon, when to our intense 
 astonishment one of his projectiles sent 
 up a huge column of water quite close 
 to the Bayan. The Poltava replied by
 
 OUT-RANGED 107 
 
 a shell which we saw pitch about half- 
 way. The Bayan gave her bow 8-inch 
 gun extreme elevation and fired, but 
 the projectile was a long way from 
 reaching the target. And that is why 
 one Russian battleship, four cruisers, and 
 four gunboats were forced to beat a 
 retreat before two simple Japanese 
 cruisers ! To have continued the en- 
 gagement under these conditions would 
 have been perfectly useless. Had we 
 tried to close with the enemy, he, being 
 faster than we, would, while retiring, 
 have unfailingly kept us under fire, 
 without allowing us to get within range 
 of our guns, whilst the worst solution 
 would have been to remain at anchor. 
 Being out-ranged like this weighed 
 heavily on us throughout the war. Our 
 latest battleships, such as the Retvisan 
 and Tsesarevitch, were still very inferior 
 to the Japanese on this point. 
 
 It was about this time that complaints
 
 108 SHIPS F. TROOPS 
 
 began to be heard about the food. On 
 the other hand, there was vodka in 
 plenty. Small mountains of cases con- 
 taining this poison were stacked up on 
 the wharf of the East Asiatic Company. 
 They were not all used up, as General 
 Stoessel punished drunkards very 
 severely, and had given out that he 
 would try by court martial any officer 
 found to be under the influence of drink. 
 At the same time he personally took steps 
 to ensure that throughout the siege 
 prices did not become exorbitant in the 
 town. The slightest attempt at raising 
 prices was followed by confiscation. Un- 
 fortunately, it was not possible to apply 
 the same treatment to the Chinese, who 
 provided us with vegetables, poultry, 
 and even butcher's meat. Already in 
 June their demands were exorbitant ; 
 they asked 20 shillings for a " picul " 
 of potatoes, 10 to 12 shillings for a 
 chicken. Needless to say that by the
 
 FRESH PROVISIONS 109 
 
 end of the siege these figures had 
 trebled. 
 
 Thanks to our captain's forethought, 
 we had never to worry about fresh pro- 
 visions. One of our officers, who had 
 rented a villa outside the town, gave it up 
 to the ship, and our captain, Schulz, had 
 bought a small herd of cows, which had 
 been placed in charge of one of our blue- 
 jackets. Some of these even calved, and 
 when our neighbours were reduced to 
 salt pork, we were able to offer our 
 friends veal cutlets and other kinds of 
 fresh meat. Our 150 hens never left 
 us without fresh eggs or young chickens. 
 The remainder of our farmyard consisted 
 of pigs, sheep, geese, and duck. On 
 board the Novik we unearthed two for- 
 mer gardeners, who planted every kind 
 of vegetable at the commencement of the 
 siege. Thus by July our table boasted 
 of onions, which were very much ap- 
 preciated, besides numbers of other 
 8*
 
 110 SHIPS V. TROOPS 
 
 good vegetables. The following month, 
 when our brethren of the army were 
 obliged to eat their donkeys, our ship's 
 company drew every morning their 
 ration of fresh meat. We have all re- 
 mained deeply grateful to our good 
 Captain Schulz, thanks to whose care 
 we were not only saved from hunger, 
 but even spared the bad food which was 
 one of the great trials of the siege.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 NAVAL ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 As soon as they had, in the first days of 
 August, mounted on Wolf Hill their 
 4 '7-inch siege guns, the Japanese began 
 to bombard the town and inner anchor- 
 age. They only fired in broad daylight, 
 so as to prevent our locating their 
 gun positions. Notwithstanding all our 
 efforts we never succeeded in doing so. 
 
 Punctually at 7 a.m. the first gun went 
 off, and the fire only ceased at sunset. 
 In the whole of Port Arthur there was 
 not a spot as big as a handkerchief which 
 could not have been searched by their 
 shell. It will be readily understood 
 why, especially during the first days,
 
 112 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 cheerfulness was not the dominating 
 note in the place. 
 
 The principal target appeared to be 
 the East Basin, surrounded by the work- 
 shops, the dockyard, and our coal store. 
 As our usual berth was precisely abreast 
 of the latter (which they would have 
 been delighted to set on fire), we spent our 
 afternoons with our hands folded, sadly 
 awaiting the blows we were unable to 
 return. The projectiles pitched so thick 
 and close to us that the admiral at last 
 made up his mind to shift us. We had 
 hardly moved off, when a shell struck 
 the face of the stone wharf alongside 
 which we had been secured, and made an 
 enormous hole. 
 
 Next day, just as we were sitting down 
 to lunch with a few guests attracted by 
 our sumptuous fare, the signalman of 
 the watch appeared in the mess and 
 reported solemnly to the first lieu- 
 tenant : " The shell are bursting just
 
 BEING BOMBARDED 113 
 
 overhead, sir." Upon which everyone 
 shouted in chorus : " Then it is high 
 time we drank to our health." And 
 everyone voted himself an additional 
 glass of cognac. In truth, what else 
 could we have done ? 
 
 Except for the danger from mines we 
 should have been much better off in the 
 outer anchorage, where moreover our 
 ears would not have been tortured by 
 the terrifying crash of the guns going off, 
 followed by the disagreeable sound of 
 the shell bursting. It was with a sigh 
 of relief that we got under weigh and 
 passed through the narrow entrance to 
 the basin. Still, the few minutes re- 
 quired for the latter were always rather 
 critical ones. I fancy I have already 
 mentioned that the Japanese invariably 
 fired in series of five rounds, preferably 
 at our coal stores. When, therefore, the 
 first hit had been located, it was fairly 
 easy to foretell where the next would
 
 114 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 pitch. Being one day precisely in the 
 entrance, which we just filled from end 
 to end, the first shot of a series fell in 
 the town, the second on the harbour- 
 master's office, the third on the landing- 
 steps. Consequently the fourth would 
 fall into the entrance, and the whole of 
 the after part of the ship was still in 
 this danger zone. The few seconds' 
 suspense appeared terribly long, as 
 everyone was saying to himself that the 
 projectile intended for us was already on 
 its way. At last the stern was clear of 
 the two walls, and four yards from the 
 spot we had just passed over one of 
 these infernal shell burst with a sharp 
 report. The ship's company, in the 
 reaction following on a period of sus- 
 pense, began to jeer at the " Japs " and 
 their peashooters. 
 
 About the end of July the Viceroy's 
 requests to our admiral to go out and 
 drive off the Japanese became more and
 
 MISLEADING REPORTS 115 
 
 more pressing. As to the latter, His 
 Excellency gave us the most fantastic 
 information : that their ships were so 
 knocked about that Japan did not 
 possess enough docks to take them all 
 in, that the rifling of their heavy guns 
 was so corroded that these had lost all 
 accuracy. As to the personnel : the 
 strain of the blockade had so used them 
 up that nothing more was to be expected 
 of them. In fact, according to the 
 Viceroy it would have been sufficient 
 for us to have put our nose outside, and 
 our adversary would have fled. How- 
 ever, as we on our side were making 
 observations on the spot, we knew 
 exactly what to think of the vessels 
 which were actually before our eyes, 
 and which included those which Ad- 
 miral Alexeieff had told us had either 
 been sunk or were under repair in Japan. 
 A few were certainly missing : the battle- 
 ships Yaahima and Hats use, the cruiser
 
 116 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 Myako, and a few gunboats, but this was 
 far from redressing the balance, and the 
 scales could anyhow not have been 
 weighed down on our side, as, with the 
 exception of a few 12-pounders and 
 machine guns, all our light guns had 
 been landed, whilst our best cruiser, the 
 Bay an, was still in dock being repaired, 
 after having struck a mine. 
 
 The Viceroy's orders became more 
 and more pressing. Admiral Vityeft re- 
 presented to him, but without success, 
 in what a lamentable state he (as he 
 pretended) found himself to be, and 
 called a council of war consisting of the 
 senior officers of both services. Of 
 course I was not included in this number, 
 but some of those that were assured me 
 that the finding of the council was 
 summed up in the following formula : 
 
 " The squadron is unable to leave 
 Port Arthur, where its presence is in-
 
 COUNCIL OF WAR 117 
 
 dispensable to the defence of the place, 
 owing to the assistance it gives in guns, 
 provisions, and especially in personnel, 
 of which a naval brigade of 7000 men 
 can be formed." 
 
 It was whispered that at the bare 
 suggestion that the squadron might 
 abandon him, General Stoessel was so 
 terrified that he swore he would consider 
 such an action as shameful flight, and 
 would order the coast batteries to fire 
 on us. 
 
 Everybody present signed the finding 
 except two naval officers, who ob- 
 stinately refused to do so, giving as their 
 reason that the proper part for the 
 squadron to play was to take its chances 
 in blue water. The names of these two 
 officers were : Captain von Essen, at the 
 time in command of the battleship 
 Sebastopol, and before that of the Novik, 
 and Commander Lazareff, his former
 
 118 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 second - in - command, and now com- 
 manding the gunboat Otvajny. Neither 
 of them could ever be got to concur in 
 the generally accepted view, and both 
 preserved their original attitude until 
 the end of the siege. 
 
 In thinking over all that happened 
 later, I have reached some truly sad 
 conclusions : of all the vessels present 
 at Port Arthur at the moment of the 
 capitulation, and which had been sunk 
 by the enemy's heavy siege guns, only 
 two declined to shut themselves up in 
 the harbour, where they were unable 
 to defend themselves. These were the 
 Sevastopol and the Otvajny, whose cap- 
 tains were the only ones to oppose the 
 verdict of the council of war, and who at 
 a critical moment saved their vessels 
 from useless destruction, as they went 
 out and for a long time resisted all 
 torpedo attacks. I cannot help the 
 distressing thought : Was it not possible
 
 DISTRESSING THOUGHTS 119 
 
 to do something to avoid the disgrace of 
 seeing our fighting ships sunk in our own 
 harbour ? Or was this crime, by chance, 
 premeditated ? Were the captains really 
 unable to go to sea, or did they merely 
 prefer to remain hidden behind their 
 armour plates ? 
 
 The officers of the Sebastopol main- 
 tained that every kind of obstacle was 
 placed in their captain's way when he 
 wanted to take his ship out of harbour ; 
 it went even so far that the use of any 
 tug was refused him, and he finally seized 
 one by force. These serious questions 
 have, so far as I know, not been raised 
 before ; they ought surely to form the 
 subject of a thorough inquiry. 
 
 When the decision of the council of 
 war reached the Viceroy he realised 
 that his own influence was insufficient to 
 overcome the admiral's indecision, and 
 he took the extreme step of sending the 
 following telegram to Port Arthur on
 
 120 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 9th August : " His Majesty the Emperor 
 commands the squadron to weigh and 
 proceed to Vladivostok." 
 
 There was nothing for it but to bow 
 and prepare for sea. The ships coaled 
 all night, and at daylight on 10th August 
 the move began. 
 
 As the notes which I took at the time 
 were lost when the Novik was wrecked I 
 am unable to give all the data of the 
 action in detail, still I can rely on my 
 memory sufficiently to give a true 
 account of what happened, and which 
 differs materially from that presented 
 by the tales of the various newspapers 
 and on which the general public has 
 formed its opinion so far. 
 
 Just as on 23rd June, the difficulties 
 and delays in getting the ships out had 
 its evil influence on the result of the 
 day. The Novik was the first to reach 
 the outer anchorage at 4 a.m. She was 
 to convoy the mine sweepers, charged to
 
 OUT ONCE MORE 121 
 
 clear the channel. Notwithstanding all 
 our efforts, the squadron took five hours 
 to get out, and these five hours allowed 
 the Japanese to make their disposition 
 at leisure. Had we all been able to 
 weigh together at 4 a.m., we should have 
 been well away before the enemy could 
 have effected his concentration. 
 
 The destroyers and steam hoppers 
 were still sweeping ahead of the squadron 
 when the hostile flotillas already showed 
 signs of wanting to attack. At the 
 sight of this our captain, without further 
 orders, quitted his station, passed ahead 
 of the sweepers, and drove off the 
 troublesome enemy. 
 
 Our force numbered ten vessels, in- 
 cluding the Novik, whose insignificant 
 armament hardly entitled her to be 
 reckoned as one of the fighting units. 
 The battleships Tsesarevitch, Retvisan, 
 Peresviet, and Pobieda formed a fairly 
 good nucleus of modern, and even fast 
 9
 
 122 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 vessels, but the Sebastopol and Poltava, 
 already aged and unable to do more than 
 12 knots, prevented the squadron from 
 exceeding this speed. Had these two 
 ships been left behind, the rest could 
 have kept up 16, or even 17 knots, amply 
 sufficient for us to escape. It was these 
 12 knots that made the Japanese master 
 of the situation. Of the cruisers there 
 was the Askold, an ordinary protected 
 cruiser, made valuable by its armament 
 and speed ; the sister ships Diana and 
 Pallada, built in Russia, mediocre results 
 of long deliberations, in spite of which 
 they finally found themselves without 
 either an armament of any value, pro- 
 tection, or even speed in fact, just 
 about fit to act as targets. All they 
 possessed of the attributes of a modern 
 cruiser was their being called so. In 
 conclusion, I must state that several of 
 their 6-inch guns had been landed and 
 mounted in coast batteries, and that in
 
 FATAL PRESENTIMENTS 123 
 
 consequence of one of the SebastopoV s 
 12-inch guns having been seriously 
 damaged in the breech, the piece had 
 been landed and replaced by a wooden 
 model as " make belief." As to the 
 Bayan, I have mentioned before that 
 being still laid up in dry dock, she was 
 not able to accompany us. 
 
 Admiral Vityeft was so convinced 
 that he would never reach Vladivostok 
 that he reported this to the Emperor by 
 a telegram he dispatched to Chifoo by a 
 destroyer at the time of our sailing. At 
 the same time he made no secret to his 
 staff of his presentiment that he would 
 be beaten and killed. When the com- 
 mander-in-chief is in such a frame of 
 mind he imparts it to those around him 
 to a fatal extent. Our squadron started 
 with the firm conviction that it was 
 going to meet with disaster, and this 
 could not help having a very bad effect 
 on the captains.
 
 124 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 The Japanese mustered 23 units, not 
 counting 30 destroyers, which number 
 was doubled by sunset. The mere com- 
 parison of numbers on the two sides 
 made our inferiority patent to all eyes. 
 
 At about 12.30 the two squadrons, 
 which had been steering converging 
 courses in single line ahead, mutually 
 opened fire. Except for one short res- 
 pite, no change took place until about 
 three o'clock, and during this time, so 
 far as I was able to make out, none of 
 our ships had been seriously damaged. 
 We made our way slowly to the south- 
 east, frequently obliged to ease down on 
 account of iheSebastopol andPoZtoa, who 
 were unable to keep up. The cruisers 
 had left the line during the second phase 
 and had formed line ahead on the dis- 
 engaged beam of the battle squadron; 
 they really took no part in the action. 
 
 At the commencement of the action 
 the Japanese had only twelve vessels in
 
 ONE FATAL SHELL 125 
 
 the line ; these were joined successively 
 by several divisions of 2nd class cruisers 
 coming up from the south. The old 
 ironclad Chen-Yuen, accompanied by 
 three cruisers, hove in sight at the 
 same time in the north. 
 
 At about 4.30 p.m. the enemy closed, 
 and the action became hot. This time 
 the projectiles got home. We were able 
 to see their effect on our battleships, 
 such as masts shot away, funnels ripped 
 up, etc. As regards their hulls, since 
 we were on the disengaged side, we 
 were unable to see whether they had 
 been hit. 
 
 At about five o'clock the flagship 
 Tsesarevitch turned off sharp to port 
 without any signal. Owing to some 
 serious damage she was no longer under 
 control. The other battleships, thinking 
 that this movement was intended, tried 
 to follow in the flagship's wake. Soon 
 afterwards we were informed that Ad- 
 9*
 
 126 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 miral Vityeft had been killed, and that 
 Rear - Admiral Prince Uktomsky had 
 assumed command. 
 
 Meanwhile the battleships, which had 
 followed the flagship's movements, had 
 formed a compact mass round her. 
 They were in no kind of order and head- 
 ing in every direction. Naturally no- 
 thing had been prearranged to meet 
 such a contingency, in fact there never 
 existed, even in embryo, anything in the 
 shape of battle orders. The Retvisan 
 took the lead in heading for the enemy, 
 who appeared to contemplate ramming. 
 Our other ships then did the same, and 
 covered the flagship by the fire of their 
 bow guns. The Japanese, taking ad- 
 vantage of the general confusion, and 
 especially of the fact that our ships were 
 all clubbed together, increased their 
 rate of fire and poured a hail of pro- 
 jectiles over our distracted ships. 
 
 The Peresviet (the flagship of the new
 
 GALLANT RETVISAN 127 
 
 commander), having lost both her top- 
 masts, managed at last to display on her 
 bridge rails the signal for the squadron 
 to return to Port Arthur. As we had 
 just received positive orders to the con- 
 trary from our immediate chief, the 
 admiral commanding the cruisers, we 
 did not follow the battleships. However, 
 I never knew exactly what happened 
 then. I only remember that at night- 
 fall we were steering a very different 
 course from that of the main body ; also 
 that we were all still quite lost in admira- 
 tion of the heroism of the Retvisan, 
 who had exposed herself to the enemy so 
 as to give the flagship time to pull 
 herself together and had thus been the 
 object of the enemy's concentrated fire. 
 For some time we saw her com- 
 pletely surrounded by smoke, lit up by 
 the flashes of the projectiles which ex- 
 ploded against her side. Then she 
 resumed her station in line.
 
 128 ACTION OF AUGUST 10 
 
 Not knowing what the condition of our 
 battleships then was, I hesitate to say 
 whether this return to Port Arthur was a 
 good or a bad move. What, however, I 
 can say, after having passed through the 
 enemy's lines, so to speak, is that none 
 of his ships showed any signs of serious 
 damage, and that the Japanese had 
 managed very nearly to surround us. 
 I would add, in direct contradiction to 
 all that the newspapers have stated, 
 that their main force blocked the road 
 to Vladivostok, whereas it has been 
 made out that, the Japanese having 
 left the road open for us, we had only to 
 stretch out our hand to pluck the fruits 
 of victory. 
 
 Once more : the exact opposite was the 
 case. Already hemmed in by our ad- 
 versary in superior numbers, we saw his 
 flotillas swarming up from every point 
 of the horizon. Possibly another com- 
 mander, more brave or better pre-
 
 THE NEW ADMIRAL 129 
 
 pared, would have attempted to continue 
 on his road in the face of all risks, but 
 Prince Uktomsky had always been con- 
 sidered a second-rate man, and no one 
 expected him to display such determina- 
 tion. It is quite clear that he ought 
 never to have been made a flag officer, 
 but having been made it, one was bound 
 to take him as he was. Perhaps one 
 ought to be grateful to him for having 
 preferred a retreat to Port Arthur to 
 surrender a la Nebogatoff . 
 
 One cannot order anyone to be a hero, 
 at the most one can express the wish that 
 he be one.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE " NOVIK " 
 UNDER THE RUSSIAN FLAG 
 
 AT the moment when the battleships 
 broke off the engagement and headed for 
 Port Arthur, the Askold (cruiser flag- 
 ship) hoisted the signal to her ships : 
 " Follow me." We did not know what 
 was intended, but being under her orders 
 we at once took station astern of her. 
 Our admiral began by describing a circle 
 round the battle squadron, and then he 
 went full speed at the enemy's destroyers, 
 which were beginning to close in on the 
 battlefield like birds of prey attracted by 
 the smell of a carcass. At our approach 
 they scattered, but their places were 
 
 130
 
 VALUE OF SPEED 131 
 
 taken by their cruisers. If I remember 
 aright, we had to starboard of us as we 
 were following the Askold a 1st class 
 cruiser, and to port five or six others of 
 different types. 
 
 The sun was nearing the horizon and 
 the approaching darkness would favour 
 our getting through a gap, but in all 
 conscience the disproportion was too 
 glaring for us to entertain a glimmer of 
 hope. 
 
 The Diana and Pallada at first at- 
 tempted to follow us, but gave it up 
 almost at once owing to their want 
 of speed. A lucky salvo of the Askold 
 rid us of the cruiser on the starboard 
 hand, who gave up the chase. So long 
 as they were able to see, the others con- 
 tinued to send projectiles at random in 
 our direction. As our usual luck had 
 not yet deserted us, we got off without 
 any serious damage, although the range 
 was short. All the same, one shell
 
 132 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 which burst on board killed two men and 
 wounded our doctor, who, as ill luck 
 would have it, had just come up on the 
 bridge merely to have a look round. 
 He said he would have been greatly dis- 
 appointed if he had missed the chance of 
 witnessing so fine a trial of speed as had 
 been going on for over an hour. 
 
 The tension on our nerves did not 
 really relax until we felt certain that the 
 Japanese cruisers were unable to catch 
 us up. We saw them gradually drawing 
 farther astern, until the darkness hid 
 us completely from their view. Alas ! 
 this episode was to be the " song of the 
 swan " for the Novik. 
 
 Modern boilers are very complicated 
 and require to be tended with the 
 greatest care. They have to be con- 
 stantly swept. The life of their tubes 
 is very short, and very soon the day 
 arrives when they have to be changed 
 by the thousand. At the commence-
 
 OVER-TAXED BOILERS 133 
 
 ment of the war the Novik's boilers 
 had just about reached their limit, and 
 required to be completely re-tubed ; 
 and yet during the seven months of the 
 siege of Port Arthur it was as much as 
 we were able, after repeated requests, 
 to snatch at long intervals a few days' 
 rest to carry out the most urgent repairs. 
 When we were not actually under steam 
 we had to be ready to light up at a 
 moment's notice. I am quite prepared 
 to admit that the circumstances de- 
 manded this, but the result was that the 
 condition of our boilers was becoming 
 every day more precarious. The last 
 supreme effort we demanded of them, so 
 as to break through the circle of fire 
 which was strangling us, proved to be 
 their coup de grace, and marked the 
 beginning of that long-drawn-out death- 
 agony of the Novik, for whom speed was 
 everything. 
 
 Night had come on at the most
 
 134 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 opportune moment for us : no sooner 
 had it become completely dark than we 
 had to stop engines, on account of salt 
 water having got into the condensers. 
 We then lost sight of the Askold, who 
 left us to our fate, although we signalled 
 to her asking her to stand by us. Her 
 officers afterwards stated that they had 
 never taken in any signal from us. 
 
 To reach Vladivostok it was absolutely 
 necessary for us to coal somewhere. 
 This has astonished many people, and I 
 have often been asked how it was that, 
 barely outside Port Arthur, we already 
 found ourselves short of coal. Our 
 captain was even generally accused of 
 having shown want of forethought, 
 although the explanation is extremely 
 simple : before weighing we had filled 
 our bunkers to full stowage, about 
 500 tons, which gave us, at a liberal 
 estimate, twenty-four hours steaming at 
 full speed. We had now been steaming
 
 SHORT OF COAL 135 
 
 for fifteen hours, seven of which were at 
 full speed, and that was why we had 
 not enough coal left to reach Vladivostok. 
 Possibly we might have got there at 
 economical speed, but there was always 
 the chance of our coming across one of 
 the enemy, and in such a case we should 
 have to go ahead at full speed at once. 
 
 In face of this necessity to fill up with 
 coal, the captain decided to make for 
 the nearestport, to the Germans, on whose 
 welcome we could count. We arrived, 
 therefore, the same evening at Kiao- 
 Chao, and as soon as we had got through 
 the necessary formalities, commenced 
 our operations. Although we worked 
 throughout the night our bunkers were 
 by no means full at daylight, but the 
 rules 1 obliged us to weigh before sun- 
 rise. 
 
 1 [This statement appears to be based on a mis- 
 apprehension. Twenty-four hours is the shortest 
 period allowed by the most stringent interpretation
 
 136 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 The morning sun thus found us once 
 more outside and on our way to Vladi- 
 vostok. We had decided to go outside 
 Japan, as the Straits of Tsu-Shima were 
 infested with hostile warships, whose 
 wireless messages our apparatus recorded. 
 
 Of all my recollections of the war, the 
 one of this passage is certainly the most 
 painful. Ten long days of impatience 
 and anxiety, always standing by to 
 fight, haunted by the fear that our coal 
 might run out before we could reach our 
 goal, leaving us the choice of drifting 
 about like a log at sea, or running 
 aground on the enemy's shores. 
 
 At first sight such an uncertainty 
 appears odd ; it would seem that in a 
 man-of-war the daily expenditure of 
 fuel must be accurately known, hence 
 the amount remaining in the bunkers, 
 and consequently it should be easy from 
 
 of the rule. Presumably the Novik left so early to 
 avoid being blockaded in port by the enemy.]
 
 COAL EXPENDITURE 137 
 
 these figures to calculate the distance 
 which the ship could still steam. In 
 ordinary times this is perfectly true, but 
 after the seven months of overwork to 
 which engines and boilers had been 
 subjected all official data had become 
 unreliable, and it would have taken a 
 very clever man to tell us exactly how 
 we stood. Let me give an example. 
 As the result of the Novik's trials 30 
 tons a day had been accepted as her 
 most economical consumption. Based 
 on that, we could easily reach Vladi- 
 vostok at 10 knots. However, a very 
 disagreeable surprise was sprung upon 
 us : we burnt 50 tons the first day, 
 55 the second, and 58 the third. At 
 this rate we should run out of coal by 
 the time we had got to the Northern 
 straits. Not being able to understand 
 this phenomenon, I asked the chief 
 engineer, who explained to me that the 
 expenditure of coal rises in proportion 
 
 10
 
 138 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 to that of the steam, which in turn 
 depends on the proper working of the 
 propelling and evaporating machinery, 
 which however cannot be seen to in the 
 open sea. So that for eight days we 
 had this sword of Damocles hanging 
 over our heads. Should we get there or 
 not ? Every possible thing was done 
 to reduce our coal expenditure. All 
 auxiliary machinery, such as ventilators, 
 dynamos, etc., was stopped. We burnt 
 waste mixed with paint, oakum soaked 
 in oil, wood, etc. In short, every effort 
 was made to reach the Russian shores. 
 One of us even suggested we should stop 
 at Mater Island and procure a load of 
 wood. 
 
 The irritated agitation of the first 
 days was succeeded by a period of 
 complete apathy : we wandered about 
 the ship like souls in purgatory resigned 
 to their fate. The engineers alone had 
 something to attend to.
 
 MEETING THE DIANA 139 
 
 So as to reduce the distance, we hugged 
 the coast as close as possible, and even 
 passed in full view of Yokohama, so 
 that we quite expected to be reported 
 by the signal stations and be chased. 
 At one time we had thought of stopping 
 one of the colliers we met and requisi- 
 tioning some of their cargo. This, how- 
 ever, would have been too risky in sight 
 of the Japanese coast, but once through 
 the Tsugaru Straits we never came 
 across another. 
 
 I observe that I was on the point of 
 omitting to say how we met the Diana 
 accompanied by one of our destroyers. 1 
 Having sighted two columns of smoke 
 on the horizon, we beat to quarters ; 
 then, having made out the destroyer to 
 be one of ours, we closed the two vessels. 
 Our captain signalled to the Diana that 
 we were on our way to Vladivostok and 
 suggested our going there in company. 
 
 1 [Compare Rasplata, p. 238 et seq.]
 
 140 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 We are still waiting for her reply ! 
 The Diana and her destroyer calmly 
 continued their southerly course. 
 
 In connection with this incident I 
 should like to refer to the articles of 
 the journalist Parfenoff, who had the 
 impudence to blame our captain for 
 having dared to steam to Vladivostok 
 with so small a vessel, instead of pro- 
 ceeding to a neutral port to be disarmed 
 as the other vessels had done. Nothing 
 would have been easier for us than to 
 remain at Kiao-Chao under the German 
 flag, but I hasten to add that no one, 
 from the captain down to the youngest 
 bluejacket, ever thought of doing so. 
 It would have appeared to us an act of 
 cowardice thus to hide from the enemy, 
 like chickens who crawl under the 
 protecting wings of the mother hen at 
 sight of the hawk. We might just 
 as well have surrendered at once, for 
 one can only strike the flag when one
 
 DISARM OR SURRENDER 141 
 
 feels convinced that the enemy's superi- 
 ority is such as to make any further 
 struggle impossible. Does not the act 
 of disarming one's vessel in a neutral 
 port really express the same confession 
 of impotence ? To strike the flag comes 
 to the same thing, with this material 
 difference : that in the latter case one is 
 in the open sea and under the guns of 
 the enemy, and not in the safe waters 
 of a neutral port. 
 
 Admiral Nebogatoff is about to be put 
 on his trial for surrendering his squadron, 
 but in my opinion those cowards should 
 be tried first who saved their skins by 
 deserting the field of battle for the safe 
 refuge of Manila. 
 
 These attacks by Parfenoff made 
 me furious : he committed the infamy 
 of putting our captain in the pillory 
 because he, scorning such a compromise, 
 loyally carried out the Emperor's orders 
 
 to go to Vladivostok. We did not 
 10*
 
 142 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 reach our goal, as the good fortune 
 which had up to then stood by the Novik 
 had deserted her. The consciences of 
 the captain and all her crew can be 
 perfectly calm : everything that was 
 humanly possible had been done. 
 
 As we neared the Kurile Islands it 
 became clear that the small amount of 
 coal remaining would only just enable 
 us to reach Korsakoff (at the southern 
 extremity of Saghalien Island), where 
 we would be able to fill up. Our course 
 took us close to a lighthouse the Japan- 
 ese have erected in the Kuriles. We had 
 to pass it in daylight, which was very 
 dangerous, for it was certainly joined up 
 with the mainland by cable. On the 
 other hand, we could not stop and wait 
 for darkness to set in, as we had not 
 enough coal for this delay. At all costs 
 we had to go on. It turned out that 
 the lighthouse was completely enveloped 
 in fog, but at the very moment when
 
 DIFFICULT COALING 143 
 
 we were rounding it the fog lifted 
 momentarily, and the people in charge 
 had us before them as if they held 
 us in the hollow of the hand. As we 
 feared, the keeper rushed to his tele- 
 graph instrument, and in the shortest 
 time our chase was taken up by the 
 enemy. 
 
 The moment we arrived at Korsakoff 
 we started off coaling. Needless to say 
 that nothing had been prepared, which 
 in truth was natural enough, seeing that 
 we were not expected. We therefore 
 had first to load the trucks, push them 
 along the rails to the wharf, tip them 
 into lighters and tow these to the ship. 
 This job happened to fall to my share. 
 I cannot find words to express that 
 sense of well-being which permeated my 
 whole body on setting foot on shore. 
 After eight harassing days at sea to 
 tread once more Russian soil with the 
 knowledge that a part of the problem
 
 144 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 at least was now solved, that only a few 
 hours separated us from Vladivostok, 
 whence the Novik could no longer be 
 hunted out like a wild beast : was not 
 all this enough to make one's heart over- 
 flow with childlike joy ? The luxurious 
 vegetation of the south of Saghalien 
 added to this feeling. My men, who 
 clearly shared this feeling, undertook 
 this dirty job with keenness, even with 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 Our task was nearing its completion : 
 there only remained two lighters to tow 
 off, when the ship suddenly made the 
 signal to stop everything and to 
 return on board with all hands, as our 
 wireless apparatus was recording Japan- 
 ese messages. I felt as if something 
 had given way in my interior. In a 
 flash it was clear to me that all was lost, 
 and my joy instantly turned into bitter 
 despair. How hard it was to leave this 
 charming little spot, so pleasing to the
 
 UNWELCOME INTERRUPTION 145 
 
 eye, to face so hazardous an under- 
 taking as this meeting with an unknown 
 enemy ! From the moment the Japan- 
 ese were sending wireless messages it 
 showed that there was more than one 
 of them : one does not usually converse 
 with oneself by wireless. How many 
 were they ? Each Japanese cruiser 
 was by herself superior to the Novik, 
 which moreover had lost some of her 
 speed, owing to the bursting of tubes. 
 
 Korsakoff lies at the bottom of Benibo 
 Bay a regular cul-de-sac, out of which 
 it would be extremely difficult to get 
 away. The hour of the final issue was 
 very near ! 
 
 Whilst these sad thoughts were chas- 
 ing one another in my brain, my men 
 had manned the boats. A few minutes 
 later we were alongside the Novik, who 
 got under weigh at once and headed 
 for some smoke we saw on the horizon. 
 It was very evident that everyone
 
 146 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 realised how critical the situation was : 
 there was none of the usual chaffing 
 and joking. Everybody was absorbed 
 in the preparation for action, all the 
 while keeping an anxious eye in the 
 direction of the enemy to try and 
 make out which of his ships it was we 
 had to face. Our uncertainty did not 
 last long. The ship now in sight could 
 only be either the Niitaka or the 
 Tsushima, both of which carried six 
 6-inch guns and ten 12-pounders, where- 
 as we only had six 4-7-inch guns to meet 
 them with. Our situation, already dis- 
 advantageous, was made worse by the 
 fact that we felt that another ship was 
 coming from the direction of the Straits 
 of La Perouse. Though we were steam- 
 ing for all we were worth, the distance 
 rapidly decreased, and the enemy's hull 
 was soon visible above the horizon. 
 She could be made out clearly with the 
 naked eye ; with glasses one could see the
 
 THE LAST ACTION 147 
 
 men on the upper deck. She suddenly 
 altered course, and a small flame jutted 
 out from her side. We instantly re- 
 plied with every gun that could bear. 
 The die was cast ! 
 
 As usual, the first rounds went over, 
 but the range was soon found, and the 
 first report came up from below : " Shell 
 burst in the first lieutenant's cabin." 
 No sooner had the boatswain's party 
 rushed to the spot, when a second report 
 came, " Shell burst on the lower deck," 
 followed almost at once by " Shell burst 
 in the ward-room." As we did not 
 cease fire, the boatswain's party had to 
 attend at three different places at the 
 same time. To our great satisfaction, 
 we observed our shell falling pretty 
 regularly on the target. There were a 
 few more hits in our upper works, but 
 nothing below water, and no one had 
 so far been hurt. We plucked up cour- 
 age, when the ominous news came up
 
 148 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 from the engine-room that in two of 
 the boilers tubes had burst, and our 
 speed dropped at once. Rage at our 
 impotence strangled me. I began to 
 swear horribly. I had no idea at whom 
 my anger was directed. I wished I 
 could have concentrated it only on the 
 enemy. 
 
 A small projectile passed over the 
 poop, cut the gunlayer at one of the stern 
 guns literally in half, and badly wounded 
 two of his gun's crew. I said to myself, 
 "It is getting hot. When will my turn 
 come ? " but by force of habit I continued 
 in a mechanical way to give my orders. 
 The gunlayer of the disengaged gun took 
 the place of the one who had been killed, 
 and without even taking the trouble to 
 move the body away, he calmly fired off 
 round after round, to avenge his ship- 
 mate. 
 
 An awful explosion took place behind 
 me. At the same instant I felt a blow
 
 WOUNDED 149 
 
 on my head and a sharp pain in my side. 
 My breath failed me, and feeling sure 
 that I was nearly cut in half, my eyes 
 instinctively looked about for a good 
 place to fall. By degrees my breath 
 returned, and I realised that my head 
 alone was badly hurt, and that I had 
 only a simple contusion in my side. 
 Killed and wounded were lying around 
 me. I heard groans, and the drummer, 
 full of sympathy, came up and whispered 
 in my ear, " You are losing your brains, 
 sir," which under any other circumstances 
 would have made me smile. How in- 
 deed could I keep myself upright with- 
 out brains ? I felt my head all over, and 
 my hand met something warm and soft, 
 which must have been a large clot of 
 blood. I felt no pain, and tied up my 
 face with my handkerchief. Then I 
 began to lift up the wounded. A single 
 projectile had been sufficient to kill 
 ten men.
 
 150 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 I heard that a very bad inrush of 
 water had taken place in the tiller com- 
 partment. The ship was now down by 
 the stern and had a heel at the same 
 time. An engineer came up to say that 
 two more boilers had to be shut off. 
 That made six altogether, and our speed 
 was reduced by one-half. We were just 
 beginning to feel that soon it would 
 be impossible to go on, when a report 
 came up from below that the water was 
 rising so fast aft that the steering engine 
 was no longer working. Without a 
 rudder it was impossible to fight, at the 
 most we could merely move ahead. 
 
 The poop had, so to speak, ceased to 
 exist. Only the two guns remained, not 
 having been touched, by some miracle, 
 and kept up a hot fire. Except for two 
 or three men, the crews had all been 
 swept away. Anyone at hand had been 
 taken to replace them. 
 
 It was then that to our intense as-
 
 ENEMY SHEERS OFF 151 
 
 tonishment we saw our adversary, who 
 no doubt was well aware of our sad 
 plight, instead of increasing his fire, 
 cease it altogether and make off at top 
 speed. After having saluted his retreat 
 with a few shell, we dragged ourselves 
 with one engine only back to Korsakoff, 
 to bind up our wounds. 
 
 The tiller compartment being now 
 completely flooded, the water began to 
 invade the ward-room. No longer sure 
 of reaching port, we hugged the coast as 
 close as possible, so as to be able at least 
 to save the ship's company if things 
 came to their worst. However, we 
 managed to reach Korsakoff, and after 
 dropping an anchor, at once started 
 examining the damage done. Alas ! there 
 was not the slightest chance of saving 
 the Novik ; the holes under water were 
 too many and too big for us to attempt 
 to repair them in one night, as we were 
 not even able to get rid of the water :
 
 152 LAST DAYS OF THE NOVIK 
 
 Korsakoff not possessing any means for 
 such a purpose, and our own being all 
 destroyed or drowned. 
 
 I remembered that one hit by a big shell 
 on 9th February had kept us ten days 
 in dry dock at Port Arthur, and Heaven 
 only knows how the workmen had been 
 hustled to get the work finished. 
 
 To have faced another action in these 
 conditions would have amounted to sheer 
 folly. It was even impossible to move 
 the ship, as the Japanese had reappeared 
 with fresh forces to oppose us. We had 
 seen the beams of their searchlights all 
 night. All that was left for us to do was 
 to sink the ship, or, to be accurate, the 
 bows, as the stern was already immersed. 
 We therefore scuttled our poor Novik in 
 shallow water, being simple enough to 
 imagine that assistance would presently 
 be sent from Vladivostok to refloat and 
 tow into a place of safety this unhappy 
 vessel, abandoned in Russian territory.
 
 SHIP SCUTTLED 153 
 
 How could we know that the Treaty of 
 Portsmouth would cede to the Japan- 
 ese, together with the southern part of 
 Saghalien, our glorious wreck ? 
 
 The crew was disembarked the next 
 morning. All that remained to be seen 
 of our poor ship were the funnels and the 
 superstructures. What bitter grief to 
 abandon her in such a state ! Alas ! she 
 died in pain. Uninterrupted work had 
 done for her in the end and reduced her 
 to a state of immobility. " The pitcher 
 goes once too often to the well and is 
 broken at last." 
 
 ii
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 OUR men were billeted in part on the 
 inhabitants, in part in the barracks. 
 The officers established themselves in a 
 private house. The wounded had been 
 taken to the hospital : two of them, 
 who had undergone severe operations, 
 died of gangrene, in spite of the utmost 
 care lavished upon them by the civilian 
 doctor, Vladimiroff. It was really due 
 to the very obsolete fittings of the 
 hospital. There certainly was a military 
 surgeon in the place, but he was a 
 charming young man, who devoted more 
 attention to music than to his medical 
 charges. As to our own doctor, Livitzin, 
 
 154
 
 ORDERS FROM VLADIVOSTOK 155 
 
 we have seen how he was wounded in 
 the hand when we were steaming away 
 from Port Arthur. Although incapaci- 
 tated from performing any operation 
 himself, this did not prevent him ren- 
 dering assistance to Dr. Vladimiroff 
 when the latter had to amputate, first 
 an arm, then a leg ; he did it, too, 
 so simply, whilst awaiting his own 
 turn to be bandaged, and apparently 
 without hearing the complaints and 
 even the howls of some of the other 
 patients. 
 
 If my memory is correct, Admiral 
 Skridloff telegraphed to our captain the 
 very morning after our grounding, to 
 proceed at once to Vladivostok, where 
 he was keeping the command of the 
 armoured cruiser Gramoboy open for 
 him. The officers and men of the Novik 
 were to proceed to Vladivostok overland. 
 This journey would be long and weari- 
 some. We were quite 400 miles from
 
 156 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 Alexandroff, and the mere question of 
 victualling the party was no light task. 
 Our road led in turn across deserts and 
 immense tracts of marshy forests, called 
 Taiga, where the post road very soon 
 degenerates into a mere path, hardly 
 recognisable, and where one only meets 
 an occasional escaped convict. 
 
 If I were not afraid of hurting the 
 feelings of those kind people who put 
 themselves out so much on our account, 
 I might tell some interesting things of 
 Saghalien and its inhabitants. With- 
 out, however, giving any names, I must 
 say that in Saghalien, even more than 
 elsewhere, the Tchinovnik [Government 
 employee] snaps his fingers both at the 
 interest of the State and the development 
 of the country he is called upon to ad- 
 minister. The question of the fisheries 
 is quite typical : the Japanese had no 
 right whatever to set up fishing stations 
 in our island. Still, they had done so,
 
 THE " TCHINOVNIK ' ; 157 
 
 and this is the way they set to work. 
 They bought from a Tchinovnik a 
 temporary licence to fish. The latter 
 pocketed the fee and then shut his eyes, 
 without troubling himself any more 
 about the fish which was leaving for 
 Japan. And this is how the Russian 
 State, without getting anything in re- 
 turn, fed the whole of the northern part 
 of the Japanese islands. Everything 
 else being conducted in the same way, 
 the colony was fast marching to its ruin. 
 No one could be found in Russia to work 
 these fisheries, the richest in the world, 
 properly and on the spot, except a 
 certain Kramarenko, who while accept- 
 ing a subsidy from the Government, had 
 found it more simple, and above all 
 more remunerative, to hand the concern 
 over to the Japanese. But he had an- 
 other string to his bow : his agents 
 bought from the natives, for a few packets 
 of tobacco or bottles of vodka, sable 
 
 TT*
 
 158 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 skins, which he sold for heavy gold to 
 the dealers in fur. 
 
 We had been on shore twenty-four 
 hours when the second Japanese cruiser 
 appeared, probably the one who was 
 watching the La Perouse Straits during 
 our action. She indulged in the luxury 
 of riddling the Novik with projectiles, 
 completing thus the destruction of the 
 little that remained of the funnels and 
 superstructure. Then, merely raising 
 their sights without altering the train- 
 ing, they bombarded a small harmless 
 village. Finally, before departing, they 
 sent a few shot at some of our men who 
 were strolling along the beach. 
 
 The preparations for our journey kept 
 us at Korsakoff for some ten days, 
 during which time we collected all pack 
 animals, pack-saddles and bags we could 
 lay our hands on, as well as all biscuit 
 and preserves. On 30th August our 
 caravan, numbering 8 officers and 270
 
 MARCHING OFF 159 
 
 men, started along the post road, headed 
 by the band. From this time on our 
 bandsmen never parted with their in- 
 struments even for an hour. Forty-five 
 men, nearly all specialists, were left 
 behind at Korsakoff, first to remove the 
 guns from the wreck, then anything else 
 worth taking, and above all to destroy 
 the hull, in case of an alarm, which was 
 actually done later on, when the Japanese 
 landed on the island. 
 
 At the small village of Solovieff, five or 
 six miles from Korsakoff, we took leave 
 of the inhabitants who had accompanied 
 us so far. Our first halting-place for the 
 night plunged us in despair. There are 
 such myriads of bugs in all the villages 
 that it passes one's imagination. One 
 can literally call Saghalien one huge nest 
 of bugs, and I generally preferred to 
 spend the night al fresco. 
 
 Vladimiroff was the first large village 
 we came across. A triumphal reception
 
 160 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 awaited us. Having been duly warned, 
 we halted about half a mile off, so as to 
 put the best marchers at the head of 
 the column ; these were followed by the 
 carts and the main body, the latter 
 with their rifles on the shoulder. Our 
 little column looked very well as it 
 passed, headed by the band, under a 
 triumphal arch, made of green boughs 
 and adorned with an enormous placard 
 labelled " Hurrah for the Heroes of 
 the Novik ! " After speeches had been 
 delivered and responded to, the men 
 were led to the village square, where a 
 regular feast had been prepared. The 
 officers were the guests of the village 
 elders, who offered them every kind of 
 entertainment. There were a good 
 many " bad heads " in the morning, 
 when we resumed the march, which took 
 us farther and farther from civilisation. 
 
 The stages succeeded one another in 
 the most monotonous fashion. We used
 
 CHILD-MURDER 161 
 
 to start at daybreak, and if our day's 
 march did not exceed fifteen miles we used 
 to cover it in one stretch. Otherwise 
 the march was divided in two parts, of 
 which the second was taken towards 
 evening. I generally preferred to start 
 before the others in the night with the 
 cooks, who had to have a meal ready 
 for the column when it arrived in camp. 
 
 The second night we halted at a mill 
 built at the bottom of a little valley, 
 on the banks of a small torrent, which 
 tumbles out of the woods in a cascade. 
 The day before, a murder had been com- 
 mitted there : a workman had killed a 
 wretched girl of thirteen from jealousy ! 
 We had the pleasure of passing the night 
 alongside the little corpse, as no one 
 dared touch it until the police arrived. 
 
 Next morning, Z., the civilian head of 
 the district of Korsakoff, arrived at the 
 mill. He made out that he was on a 
 tour of inspection in his district, whereas
 
 162 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 the truth was that he had fled from the 
 Japanese cruisers. 
 
 From this point the post road merely 
 becomes a track, until it strikes the 
 beach and is lost in the sand. When we 
 left the pretty mill, called Great Tokoy, I 
 had started as usual in the night. It 
 was raining cats and dogs throughout 
 the eighteen-mile march and we were 
 wet to the skin when we reached the 
 village of Galkin Vrasky. No one would 
 open his door to us, and eventually the 
 keeper of the jail took us in. 
 
 Next morning we were able to procure 
 a couple of Kungasses (large Japanese 
 fishing-boats), which we loaded up with 
 some of our provisions, putting in charge 
 such men as were footsore. These were 
 ordered to establish depots at several of 
 our future halting-places. In marching 
 along the beach we repeatedly came 
 across quicksands, which were most 
 uncanny and dangerous things. A coin
 
 CONVICT-GUIDES 163 
 
 thrown down was quickly swallowed up. 
 We had to cross many streams, and when 
 they were not fordable, much delay was 
 caused by having to procure small boats 
 or make rafts. The few carts we still 
 had were a source of much trouble. 
 They constantly stuck in the mud, and if 
 the horse was taken out of the shafts it 
 would run away into the forest, and 
 when finally recaptured found to be 
 minus its harness, which had to be 
 replaced somehow. 
 
 The three Caucasian convicts, at the 
 same time militiamen of Korsakoff, who 
 had been told off as guides, carried out 
 their task with much intelligence. 
 
 We spent one night in an Aino village 
 and were very agreeably surprised to 
 find the hut which had been prepared for 
 us (our captain had spent the night there 
 a few days before) to be not only nearly 
 clean, but actually clear of vermin. The 
 explanation was that the owner did not
 
 164 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 use it himself but rented it to Japanese 
 fishermen. In the same village we saw 
 a number of bears being fattened up for 
 an impending festivity. On these oc- 
 casions the people of the surrounding 
 districts assemble in large numbers ; the 
 bears are let out of their wooden cages 
 one at a time, and are then attacked by 
 the braves, who wrestle with them, throw 
 them, and after having tied them up with 
 rope, kill them with arrows, while the 
 rest of the company dances around and 
 sings. Wounds received in these en- 
 counters are highly prized. 
 
 A few days later we reached the village 
 of Seraroko, from where there was not 
 even a path for us. I only remember one 
 incident there : the evening before our 
 arrival, the chere amie of the non- 
 commissioned officer in charge of the 
 military post had shot dead a soldier 
 with a gun loaded with buck-shot. 
 Murders c.rc, however, an everyday
 
 A PEACEFUL SETTLER 165 
 
 occurrence in Saghalien. Eight of our 
 halting-places had been quite recently 
 the scenes of such. We once came upon 
 a solitary settler, in a burnt-out and 
 deserted village, who told us that when 
 he was short of money he simply killed 
 somebody. As leader of a band he had 
 committed numbers of crimes in the 
 south of Russia. In his present abode 
 he had often been attacked by escaped 
 convicts, the traces of whose bullets 
 were to be seen all round his hut, but 
 the powerfully built man, despite his 
 sixty years, had always got the best 
 of them. 
 
 From Seraroko we had to cut straight 
 across the Taiga, so we rested for twenty- 
 four hours in anticipation of a trying 
 march. Our next stoppage was the 
 Aino village of Tchoko Poronay, from 
 where two tracks led out : one through 
 the forest, the other, shorter, along the 
 beach, but so blocked with rocks and
 
 166 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 other obstacles that it was impassable 
 for horses and carts. My detachment 
 went by the latter ; it poured the whole 
 way, and I was very glad to accept 
 the loan of an old convict suit from 
 a former convict, who had joined up 
 with us. 
 
 The next stage was twenty miles 
 through the forest, and to give an idea 
 what the country was like I may mention 
 that in this distance we forded 147streams, 
 big and small. Their steep and slippery 
 banks were very troublesome, especially 
 for the pack animals. The scenery was 
 most depressing : immense trees with- 
 out branches rising out of a marsh in 
 which not a blade of grass grew. To- 
 wards the end of the day I pushed on 
 and reached the banks of a river called 
 Magoon - Katan. The opposite bank 
 looked quite inviting, with its telegraph 
 station, round which a number of huts 
 had sprung up like mushrooms.
 
 THE HOSPITABLE MAJOR 167 
 
 There were a good many stragglers 
 when the main column at last arrived, 
 some of these only rejoining in the 
 small hours of the night. The horses, 
 too, were in a sad plight after their many 
 falls. 
 
 Before starting for Naiero, twenty-five 
 miles off, we put those who were footsore 
 into the Kungasses, which had rejoined. 
 The route lay along the beach, and at 
 low water we generally had firm sand 
 underfoot. The frequent Japanese 
 fishing stations made convenient halting- 
 places and gave us occasional shelter 
 from the ceaseless downpour. 
 
 Naiero was the headquarters of the 
 Major commanding the district. He met 
 us in full uniform with impeccable white 
 gloves and offered to put up the officers 
 at his house. The rooms looked well 
 kept, and the prospect of getting once 
 more into a bed were delightful. My 
 feelings can therefore be imagined when
 
 168 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 I found my bed literally swarming with 
 bugs. There was nothing for it but to 
 join our convict-guides in the hayloft 
 over the stables. 
 
 Before leaving, the amiable Major 
 presented us with a formidable bill for 
 all we were supposed to have consumed. 
 We threw the money at him, together 
 with an expression of our opinion of 
 him : he was the last of the brigands of 
 the Korsakoff District with whom we 
 had any dealings. Henceforth we only 
 met with kindness and civility from 
 everyone. 
 
 Whilst the main column traversed the 
 great clearing of Onor, through which 
 our route lay, I was charged to transport 
 the arms and baggage in the Kungasses 
 by the river Poronay, with the prospect 
 of not coming across a single human 
 habitation for over 100 miles. The pack- 
 horses were only to carry provisions. 
 
 My eyes therefore never rested on the
 
 RIVER TRANSPORT 169 
 
 famous clearing in the forest. Natives 
 told me that Khanoff, the engineer who 
 made it, saw all but ten of the 800 
 convicts under his orders die on the spot : 
 quite a number he had shot with his 
 revolver for petty cases of disobedience, 
 but the bulk simply succumbed to the 
 overwork and privations. The affair 
 caused a stir, and Khanoff was tried, 
 but got off. The work never progressed 
 beyond the cutting down the trees, and 
 the road has still to be made. We 
 lost a number of horses in this 
 swamp. 
 
 I thus parted from my travelling 
 companions at Naiero with forty-five 
 bluejackets and reached the sea at the 
 village of Tikomenieff, where I requisi- 
 tioned from Kramarenko's fishing estab- 
 lishment seven large Kungasses, with 
 which I reached the mouth of the 
 Poronay by 20th September. The sick- 
 berth steward, who had volunteered to 
 
 12
 
 170 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 take charge of one of the boats, managed 
 to capsize her in the mouth of the river, 
 and all her cargo went to the bottom. 
 
 I spent several days at Tikomenieff 
 to prepare for my journey of 125 miles 
 up the river, my chief difficulty being 
 in getting sufficient bread baked to last 
 the whole trip. 
 
 We made our start on 23rd September, 
 pulling up stream in the grey dawn. 
 The sun came out later on and made 
 the unattractive scenery look quite 
 cheerful. Our river navigation was 
 favoured by almost constant fine 
 weather, but the temperature fell con- 
 siderably, which we felt very much, as 
 we were in our summer kits, without 
 great-coats. 
 
 The three Ainos I had engaged as 
 pilots took three different branches of 
 the river the first day, and it was dark 
 before we managed to join up again. 
 We discovered that the salt barrel had
 
 A SOLITARY SETTLER 171 
 
 been left behind. Luckily we had a 
 cask of salt meat, at the bottom of 
 which we found a good sediment of 
 salt. We spent our first night on the 
 driest spot we could find on the bank, 
 where we built a hut with boughs. The 
 night was so cold that the men, who had 
 no blankets, had to lie huddled together 
 close round the fire, where they were 
 roasted on one side and frozen on the 
 other by an icy wind, aggravated by a 
 plentiful dew. 
 
 Soon the stream became too strong 
 for pulling, and we had to take to the 
 poles. Whenever the nature of the 
 banks permitted this, we landed half 
 the crew and made them tow the boats, 
 which however frequently grounded on 
 the sandbanks, and this used to give rise 
 to much chaff. 
 
 About half-way we were astonished to 
 come upon a hut, out of which appeared 
 a man who offered us bread and salt [the
 
 172 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 Russian welcome], and me personally a 
 partridge he had just shot. I offered 
 him the choice between some money and 
 a bottle of vodka, but he declined both, 
 saying he preferred a handful of powder, 
 which is worth its weight in gold in 
 Saghalien, where its sale is prohibited. 
 This, however, does not prevent the 
 settlers from living entirely by their 
 guns. But they don't get rich like the 
 man who gives them a shilling's worth 
 of bad tobacco for a sable skin he can 
 sell for twenty or thirty sh illings . Thanks 
 to our fatal example, alcohol is now 
 beloved by all, and it is hard to say 
 who is the worst drunkard : the native 
 or the settler. 
 
 These natives are remarkable : in a 
 very small region one can find types 
 differing in habits, language, and religion, 
 such as the Ainos, Orochenes, Juliaks, 
 and Tunguses. Of these the Ainos 
 alone inhabit Saghalien, where they
 
 AINO HABITS 173 
 
 live like true nomads, without fixed 
 abode and wandering about the Taiga, 
 living on the game they kill and the fish 
 they sell to the Japanese, so that the 
 war has nearly ruined them. One of 
 my Aino pilots told me some interest- 
 ing details about them. Writing is un- 
 known to them, and each generation 
 teaches the next one verbally the 
 usages and rites of their religion. Theft, 
 which is extremely rare, is dealt with 
 by a jury nominated on the spot, which 
 always pronounces the same sentence : 
 loss of the culprit's right hand. To 
 my question what the punishment for 
 murder was, since theft was already so 
 severely dealt with, I received the reply 
 that since the world began no Aino had 
 ever killed another, so they had never 
 to consider the contingency. 
 
 The farther we got the more the river 
 narrowed and became torrential, and 
 
 the towing of our clumsy craft through 
 12*
 
 174 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 these rapids was a wearisome and difficult 
 job ; sometimes they broke adrift and 
 had to be chased down stream for some 
 distance. In the belief that this river 
 journey merely meant sitting on a 
 thwart and pulling an oar, I was given 
 all those who were footsore, besides the 
 sick. In reality these poor devils spent 
 all their time wading along the bank 
 up to the waist in icy water. 
 
 The men's boots were by now pretty 
 well worn out, as regarded the soles, 
 and many of them made themselves 
 sandals out of the hides of freshly 
 slaughtered bullocks, of which we had 
 a number embarked in the boats. There 
 was much chaff about the cure for 
 sore feet by means of continuous foot- 
 baths. 
 
 The farther we proceeded the more 
 frequent were the tracks of bears, but 
 what with laughter and songs, my 
 cheerful men made always so much
 
 THE BARRAGE 175 
 
 noise that we seemed to frighten 
 these animals away and we never saw 
 any. 
 
 Before reaching the halting-place we 
 used to send on ahead a small native 
 boat with the cooks. A little later the 
 big boats started to race in ; I generally 
 led in my boat, but if any accident, 
 such as grounding, delayed me, the 
 band insisted on receiving me with a 
 serenade, the echo of which resounded 
 through the Taiga, and must have 
 alarmed the natives, to whom a brass 
 band was unknown. 
 
 On 30th September we found our- 
 selves at the famous barrage, of which 
 we had heard such bad accounts. For 
 about a third of a mile the river was 
 completely covered by tree trunks, 
 brought down by the spring floods. The 
 first layers had grounded, and succeeding 
 ones had piled up on these, so that now 
 it formed a dam through which the
 
 176 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 water only penetrated with difficulty. 
 The boats would have to be transported 
 overland past this obstruction, and this 
 proved a long and difficult job. A path 
 had been cut through the forest for the 
 purpose, but it proved to be too narrow 
 for our big boats, and had to be widened, 
 whilst the ground was too much cut up 
 for the proper working of the rollers 
 we had to place under the keels. With 
 song and laughter my splendid fellows 
 managed it all right, but it took the 
 whole day. 
 
 On the evening of 2nd October we 
 saw at last the first indication of human 
 habitation : a woman fishing in the 
 stream. She was greeted with joy and 
 much chaff, and before dark we found 
 ourselves at the village of Grodekoff, 
 where we found ample means of pro- 
 visioning ourselves. 
 
 The last stage, though the shortest, 
 proved the hardest, owing to frequent
 
 rapids, through which the Kungasses 
 had to be towed. Two of them parted 
 their towropes, went down stream, and 
 in the end one of these was capsized ; 
 eventually both were retrieved. 
 
 The goal of the river detachment was 
 Abramoff, where the authorities had 
 made every preparation in the way of 
 wheeled transport to convey us without 
 loss of time to Rykoff, where the main 
 column was awaiting us. 
 
 From there the entire column once 
 more marched off in proper style, and 
 evoked much sympathy and interest 
 on its passage. We marched into 
 Alexandroff on 14th October, and were 
 received with bread and salt on a 
 magnificent engraved dish. A banquet 
 had been prepared for us, followed by a 
 ball in the brilliantly decorated town 
 hall. 
 
 Winter arrived at Alexandroff at the 
 same time as we. Snow fell, and a keen
 
 178 ACROSS SAGHALIEN 
 
 wind met the stragglers. A delay of a 
 few days would have hit us hard. The 
 steamer Tunguse, which was to transport 
 us to the mainland, was anxiously 
 awaiting us, as her anchorage in 
 the narrow straits was an insecure 
 one. 
 
 A few days later we disembarked at 
 Nikolaieff, twenty -five miles up the 
 Amur, which we ascended as far as 
 Kabaroff in the Tsesarevitch. From 
 there we proceeded to Vladivostok by 
 rail. We arrived there on 23rd October, 
 having covered just 400 miles across 
 Saghalien in forty-five days. This is a 
 record for men so little accustomed 
 to marching as sailors, and moreover 
 we did not leave a single straggler or 
 sick behind. 
 
 So fine an achievement was no doubt 
 due to that feeling of comradeship and 
 the pulling together which obtained 
 throughout the campaign between the
 
 ESSEN AND SCHULZ 179 
 
 officers and men of the Novik. But all 
 honour is due to the remarkable impulse 
 given by the two peerless captains under 
 whom we served and who are called 
 von Essen and Schulz.
 
 Printed by 
 
 MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED 
 Edinburgh
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 JAN231 
 AU6l 4 199fl 
 
 TIT 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY C7 CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGEfcES
 
 
 DS 
 
 517.9 
 
 S81n