Banzai! Part 18

"No, Winstanley, no; think of our country, remember that it is in sore need of men, of men to restore the honor of the Stars and Stripes, of men to drive the enemy from the field and conquer them in the end."

At this moment the door opened and a j.a.panese lieutenant entered, carrying a small note-book in his hand.

At sight of him Winstanley shouted: "Longstreet, hand me a weapon of some sort; that fellow----"

The j.a.p saluted and said: "Gentlemen, I am sorry for the circ.u.mstances which compel me to ask you to give me your names and s.h.i.+ps. Rest a.s.sured that a wounded enemy may safely rely on j.a.panese chivalry. If you will follow the example of all the other officers and give your word of honor not to escape, you will receive all possible care and attention in the hospital at San Francisco without any irksome guard. Will you be so good as to give me your names?"

"Lieutenant Longstreet of the _Nebraska_."

"Thank you."

"Captain Winstanley, commander of the _Georgia_," added Longstreet for Winstanley.

"Will you give me your word of honor?"

Longstreet gave his, but Winstanley shook his head and said: "_You can do what you like with me; I refuse to give my word of honor._"

The j.a.p shrugged his shoulders and disappeared.

"Longstreet, nursed in San Francisco, is that what the j.a.p said? Then San Francisco must be in their hands." At these words the wounded captain of the _Georgia_ burst into bitter tears and sobs shook the body of the poor man, who in his ravings fancied himself back on board his s.h.i.+p giving orders for the big guns to fire at the enemy. Longstreet held his friend's hand and stared in silence at the white ceiling upon which the sunbeams painted myriads of quivering lines and circles.

At one o'clock the _Ontario_ came in sight of the Golden Gate, where the white banner with its crimson sun was seen to be waving above all the fortifications.

While the j.a.panese were attacking San Francisco early on the morning of May seventh, their fleet was stationed off San Diego on the lookout for the two American maneuvering fleets. The intercepted orders from the Navy Department had informed the enemy that Admiral Perry, with his blue squadron of six battles.h.i.+ps of the _Connecticut_ cla.s.s, intended to attack San Francisco and the other ports and naval-stations on the Pacific, and that the yellow fleet, under command of Admiral Crane, was to carry out the defense. The latter had drawn up his squadron in front of San Francisco on May second, and on May fifth Admiral Perry had left Magdalen Bay. From this time on every report sent by wireless was read by harmless looking j.a.panese trading-vessels sailing under the English flag.

The first thing to be done on the morning of the seventh was to render Magdalen Bay useless, in order to prevent all communication with distant s.h.i.+ps. A trick put the station in the enemy's possession. Here, too, there were several j.a.panese shopkeepers who did good business with their stores along the Bay. Early on Sunday morning these busy yellow tradesmen were suddenly transformed into a company of troops who soon overpowered the weak garrison in charge of the signal-station. The j.a.panese cruiser _Yak.u.mo_, approaching from the North, had been painted white like the American cruisers, and this is why she had been taken, as the reader will remember, for the armored cruiser _New York_, which was actually lying off San Francisco a.s.signed to Admiral Crane's yellow fleet. The _Yak.u.mo_ was to prevent the two destroyers _Hull_ and _Hopkins_ from escaping from the Bay, and both boats were literally shot to pieces when they made the attempt. This action hopelessly isolated the maneuvering fleets.

By eight o'clock in the morning Togo's squadron, consisting of the flag-s.h.i.+ps _Satsuma_, the _Aki_, _Katou_, _Kas.h.i.+mi_, _Mikasa_ and _Akahi_, and forming the backbone of the j.a.panese battle-fleet, had succeeded in locating Admiral Perry's squadron, thanks to intercepted wireless dispatches. The j.a.panese refrained from using their wireless apparatus, so as to avoid attracting the attention of the American squadron. The unfinished message sent at nine o'clock from Magdalen Bay told Togo that the surprise there had been successful, and a little later the order to strengthen the American advance, sent in the same way, enabled him to ascertain the exact position of both the main group of cruisers and the scouts and lookout s.h.i.+ps. Similarly it was learned that the latter were extremely weak, and accordingly Togo detached four armored cruisers, the huge new 25-knot _Tokio_ and _Osaka_, and the _Ibuki_ and _Kurama_, to destroy the American van, and this he succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng after a short engagement which took place at the same time as the attack on Perry's armored s.h.i.+ps.

The _Denver_ and _Chattanooga_ were soon put out of business by a few sh.e.l.ls which entered their unprotected hulls, and the five destroyers, which were unable to use their torpedoes in such a heavy sea, were likewise soon done for.

Under cover of a torrent of rain, Togo came in sight of the American s.h.i.+ps when the distance between the two squadrons was only 5,500 yards.

At the moment when Admiral Perry's s.h.i.+ps emerged out of the rain, Admiral Togo opened the battle by sending the following signal from the _Satsuma_:

"To-day must avenge Kanagawa. As Commodore Perry then knocked with his sword at the gate of Nippon, so will we to-day burst open San Francisco's Golden Gate."[1]

The signal was greeted with enthusiasm and loud cries of "_Banzai_!" on board all the s.h.i.+ps. Then the battle began, and by the time the sun had reached its zenith, Admiral Perry's squadron had disappeared in the waves of the Pacific. The first eleven minutes, before the Americans could bring their guns into action, had determined the outcome of the battle. The ultimate outcome of the battle had, of course, been accelerated by the fact that the first sh.e.l.ls had created such fearful havoc in the fore-parts of three of the American s.h.i.+ps, quant.i.ties of water pouring in which caused the s.h.i.+ps to list and made it necessary to fill the compartments on the opposite side in order to restore the equilibrium.

Admiral Kamimura was less fortunate at first with the second squadron.

He was led astray by the wrong interpretation of a wireless signal and did not sight Admiral Crane's fleet till towards evening, and then it was not advisable to begin the attack at once, lest the Americans should escape under cover of darkness. Kamimura, therefore, decided to wait until shortly after midnight, and then to commence operations with his eight destroyers and apply the finis.h.i.+ng touches with his heavy guns.

Admiral Crane's squadron consisted of six battles.h.i.+ps--the three new battles.h.i.+ps _Virginia_, _Nebraska_ and _Georgia_, the two older vessels _Kearsage_ and _Kentucky_, and, lastly, the _Iowa_. Then there were the two armored cruisers _St. Louis_ and _Milwaukee_, and the unprotected cruisers _Tacoma_ and _Des Moines_, which, on account of their speed of 16.5 knots and their lack of any armor, were as useless as cruisers as were their sister s.h.i.+ps in Admiral Perry's squadron. One single well-aimed sh.e.l.l would suffice to put them out of action.

It was a terrible surprise when the j.a.panese destroyers began the attack under cover of the night. Not until dawn did the Americans actually catch sight of their enemy, and that was when Kamimura left the field of battle, which was strewn with sinking American s.h.i.+ps, with his six practically unharmed battles.h.i.+ps headed in a southwesterly direction to join Togo's fleet, who had already been informed of the victory. The work of cleaning up was left to the destroyers, who sank the badly damaged American s.h.i.+ps with their torpedoes. The hospital s.h.i.+p _Ontario_, attached to the yellow fleet, and a torpedo boat fished up the survivors of this short battle. Then the _Ontario_ started for San Francisco, while the leaking _Farragut_ remained behind.

The Americans had been able to distinguish, with a fair degree of certainty, that Kamimura's squadron consisted of the _s.h.i.+kis.h.i.+ma_, the battles.h.i.+ps _Iwami_ (ex _Orel_), the _Sagami_ (ex _Peresvjet_), and _Tumo_ (ex _Pobjeda_), all three old Russian s.h.i.+ps, and of the two new armored cruisers _Ikoma_ and _Tsukuba_. Then there were the two enormous battles.h.i.+ps which were not included in the j.a.panese Navy List at all, and the two huge cruisers _Yokohama_ and _s.h.i.+monoseki_ which, according to j.a.panese reports, were still building, while in reality they had been finished and added to the fleet long ago.

The circ.u.mstances connected with these two battles.h.i.+ps were rather peculiar. The report was spread in 1906 that China was going to build a new fleet and that she had ordered two big battles.h.i.+ps from the docks at Yokosuka. This rumor was contradicted both at Pekin and at Tokio. The Americans and everybody in Europe wondered who was going to pay for the s.h.i.+ps. The trouble is, we ask altogether too many questions, instead of investigating for ourselves. As a matter of fact, the s.h.i.+ps were laid down in 1908, though everybody outside the walls of the j.a.panese s.h.i.+pyard was made to believe that only gunboats were being built. We have probably forgotten how, at the time, a German newspaper called our attention to the fact that not only these two battles.h.i.+ps--of the English _Dreadnought_ type--but also the two armored cruisers building at Kure ostensibly for China, would probably never sail under the yellow dragon banner, but in case of war, would either be added directly to j.a.pan's fleet or be bought back from China.

And so it turned out. Just before the outbreak of the war, the Sun Banner was hoisted quietly on the two battles.h.i.+ps and they were given the names of _Nippon_ and _Hokkaido_, respectively; but they were omitted from the official j.a.panese Navy List and left out of our calculations. How Pekin and Tokio came to terms with regard to these two s.h.i.+ps remains one of the many secrets of east Asiatic politics. The generally accepted political belief that China was not financially strong enough to build a new fleet and that j.a.pan, supposedly on the very verge of bankruptcy, could not possibly carry out her _postbellum_ programme, was found to have rested on empty phrases employed by the press on both sides of the ocean merely for the sake of running a story.

There has never yet been a time in the history of the world when war was prevented by a lack of funds. How could Prussia, absolutely devoid of resources, have carried on the war it did against Napoleon a hundred years ago, unless this were so?

In the redistribution of our war vessels in the Atlantic and the Pacific after the return of the fleet from its journey round the world, the Navy Department had calculated as follows: j.a.pan had fifteen battles.h.i.+ps, six large new ones and nine older ones; in addition she had six large new and eight older armored cruisers. We have one armored cruiser and three cruisers in Manila, and these can take care of at least five j.a.panese armored cruisers. j.a.pan therefore has fifteen battles.h.i.+ps and nine armored cruisers left for making an attack. Now if we keep two squadrons, each consisting of six battles.h.i.+ps--the _Texas_ among them--off the Pacific coast and add to these the coast-batteries, the mines and the submarines, we shall possess a naval force which the enemy will never dare attack.

j.a.pan, on the other hand, figured as follows: We have two squadrons, each consisting of six battles.h.i.+ps, among which there are six that are superior to any American fighting s.h.i.+p; these with the nine armored cruisers and the advantage of a complete surprise, give us such a handicap that we have nothing to fear. As a reserve, lying off San Francisco, are the ironclads _Hizen_ (ex _Retvisan_), _Tango_ (ex _Poltawa_), _Iki_ (ex _Nicolai_), and the armored cruisers _Azuma_, _Idzumo_, _Asama_, _Tokiwa_, and _Yak.u.mo_. Besides these there are the two mortar-boat divisions and the cruisers sent to Seattle, while the armored cruiser _Iwate_ and two destroyers were sent to Magdalen Bay.

All that remained in home waters were the fourth squadron, consisting of former Russian s.h.i.+ps, and the cruisers which would soon be relieved at the Philippines.

The enemy had figured correctly and we had not. The two battles of the seventh and eighth of May were decided in the first ten minutes, before we had fired a single shot. And would the j.a.panese calculation have been correct also if Perry had beaten Togo or Crane Kamimura? Most decidedly so, for not a single naval harbor or coaling-station, or repairing-dock on the Pacific coast would have been ready to receive Perry or Crane with their badly damaged squadrons. On the other hand, the remnants of our fleet would have had all the j.a.panese battles.h.i.+ps, all the armored cruisers and a large collection of torpedo-boats continually on their heels, and would thus have been forced to another battle in which, being entirely without a base of operations, they would without a doubt have suffered a complete defeat.

Our mines in the various a.r.s.enals and our three submarines at the Mare Island Wharf in San Francisco fell into the enemy's hands like ripe plums. It was quite superfluous for the j.a.panese to take their steamer for transporting submarines, which had been built for them in England, to San Francisco.

Nothing remained to us but the glory that not one of our s.h.i.+ps had surrendered to the enemy--all had sunk with their flags flying. After all, it was one thing to fight against the demoralized fleet of the Czar and quite another to fight against the Stars and Stripes. Our blue-jackets had saved the honor of the white race in the eyes of the yellow race on the waves of the Pacific, even if they had thus far shown them only how brave American sailors die. But the loss of more than half our officers and trained men was even a more severe blow than the sinking of our s.h.i.+ps. These could not be replaced at a moment's notice, but months and months of hard work would be required and new squadrons must be found. But from where were they to come?

Only a single vessel of the Pacific fleet escaped from the battle and the pursuing j.a.panese cruisers: this was the torpedo-destroyer _Barry_, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Dayton, who had been in command of the torpedo flotilla attached to Admiral Perry's squadron. He had attempted twice, advancing boldly into the teeth of the gale, to launch a torpedo in the direction of the _Satsuma_, but the sea was too rough and each time took the torpedo out of its course.

The badly damaged destroyer entered the harbor of Buenaventura on the coast of Colombia on May eleventh, followed closely by the j.a.panese steamer _Iwate_, which had been lying off the coast of Panama. Grinding his teeth with rage, Dayton had to look on while a Colombian officer in ragged uniform, plentifully supplied with gilt, who was in the habit of commanding his tiny antediluvian gunboat from the door of a harbor saloon, came on board the _Barry_ and ordered the breeches of the guns and the engine-valves to be removed, at the same time depriving the crew of their arms. The j.a.panese waiting outside the harbor had categorically demanded this action of the government in Bogota. This humiliating degradation before all the harbor loafers and criminals, before the crowds of exulting Chinese and j.a.panese coolies, who were only too delighted to see the white man compelled to submit to a handful of marines the entire batch of whom were not worth one American sailor, was far harder to bear than all the days of battle put together. And even now, when Admiral Dayton's fame reaches beyond the seas and the name of James Dayton is in every sailor's mouth as the savior of his people, yes, even now, he will tell you how at the moment when, outside the Straits of Magellan, he crushed the j.a.panese cruisers with his cruiser-squadron, thereby once again restoring the Star Spangled Banner to its place of honor, the vision of that grinning row of faces exulting in the degradation of a severely damaged American torpedo-boat appeared before him. It is only such men as he, men who experienced the horrors of our downfall to the bitter end, who could lead us to victory--such men as Dayton and Winstanley.

[Footnote 1: Perry, the American commodore, with a fleet of only eight s.h.i.+ps, forced j.a.pan to sign the agreement of Kanagawa, opening the chief harbors in j.a.pan to American trading-vessels, in the year 1854.]

_Chapter XII_

ARE YOU WINSTANLEY?

The bow of the English freighter _Port Elizabeth_ was plowing its way through the broad waves of the Pacific on the evening of the fourteenth of September. The captain and the first mate were keeping a sharp lookout on the bridge, for they were approaching San Francisco. The steamer had taken a cargo of machinery and rails on board at Esquimault for San Francisco, as was duly set forth in the s.h.i.+p's papers. In Esquimault, too, the second mate enlisted, though the captain was not particularly eager to take a man who carried his arm in a sling. Since, however, he could find no one else to take the place of the former second mate, who had gone astray in the harbor saloons of Victoria, the captain engaged the volunteer, who called himself Henry Wilson, and thus far he had had no cause to regret his choice, as Wilson turned out to be a quiet, sober man, thoroughly familiar with the waters along the Pacific coast.

Wilson was in the chart-room, carefully examining the entrance to San Francisco; suddenly he turned and called through the open door to the captain on the bridge: "Captain, we are now eight miles from the Golden Gate; it's a wonder the j.a.ps haven't discovered us yet."

"I should think they would station their cruisers as far out as this,"

answered the captain.

"After all, why should they?" asked Wilson, "there's nothing more to be done here, and the allies of our ill.u.s.trious government can scarcely be asked to show much interest in an English steamer with a harmless cargo."

Wilson joined the captain and the first mate on the bridge, and all three leaned against the railing and tried through their gla.s.ses to discover the fires of the Golden Gate through the darkness; but not a gleam of light was to be seen.

"I don't believe we'll be allowed to enter the harbor at night," began the first mate again, "more especially as our instructions are to reach the Golden Gate at noon."

"Yes, but if the engines won't work properly, how the devil can they expect us to be punctual!" grumbled the captain.

"Look," cried Wilson, pointing to the blinding flash of a searchlight in front of them, "they've got us at last!" A few minutes later the brilliant bluish white beam of a searchlight was fixed on the _Port Elizabeth_.

"We'll keep right on our course," said the captain rather hurriedly to the man at the helm, "they'll soon let us know what they want. Wilson, you might get the s.h.i.+p's papers ready, we'll have visitors in a minute."