Part 25 (2/2)

It was an awful night for the Russians. After dark they had extinguished the fires lighted by the enemy's sh.e.l.ls, and in some cases got collision mats over the leaks. The dead were committed to the sea, the wounded collected and cared for. For more than an hour they were allowed to hold their course uninterrupted, and the lights of the j.a.panese fleet were disappearing far astern. After all, Vladivostock might be reached. But just after eight o'clock the throb of engines, the hurtling beat of propellers, came sounding through the night from all sides. On the sea black, low objects were rus.h.i.+ng along with foaming phosph.o.r.escent wakes trailing behind them. Bugles ran out the alarm; crews rushed to quarters; searchlights blazed out, and the small quick-firers that were still serviceable mingled their sharp ringing reports with the crackle of machine-gun fire. The sea seemed to be swarming with torpedo craft. They appeared and disappeared in the beams of the searchlights, and the surface of the water was marked with the long white ripples raised by the rush of discharged torpedoes. Loud explosions, now here now there, told that some of them had found their target, though in the confusion and the rough sea there were more misses than hits. The ”Sissoi Veliki,” which had been on fire in the action, and pierced below the waterline, had a new and more serious leak torn open in her stern, the rudder was damaged and two propeller blades torn off. But she floated till next day. Several s.h.i.+ps received minor injuries, but kept afloat with one or more compartments flooded. But the effect of the attack was to disperse the fugitive Russians in all directions.

When it began Nebogatoff was at the head of a line of s.h.i.+ps in the old battles.h.i.+p ”Imperator Nikolai I.” In the confusion only three of the line kept up with him, the much-battered ”Orel” and the ”Admiral Apraxin” and ”Admiral Senyavin.” The ”Orel” had no searchlight left intact. The ”Nikolai” and the two others did not switch on their searchlights, and kept all other lights shaded. The remarkable result was that as they moved northwards through the darkness they were never attacked, though more than once between 8 p.m. and midnight they saw the enemy's torpedo craft rus.h.i.+ng past them. The s.h.i.+ps with searchlights drew all the attacks.

Admiral Enquist, with his flag in the ”Oleg,” and followed by the ”Aurora”

and ”Jemschug,” had run in amongst the remains of the transport flotilla at the first alarm, narrowly escaping collision with them. Then he turned south, in the hope of shaking the enemy off, but came upon another flotilla arriving from that direction. He had some narrow escapes. The look-outs of the ”Oleg” counted seventeen torpedoes that just missed the s.h.i.+p. Having got away, he tried more than once to turn back to the northward, but each time he ran in among hostile torpedo-boats, and saw that beyond them were s.h.i.+ps with searchlights working and guns in action, so he steered again south. At last he gave up the attempt and headed for the Tsu-s.h.i.+ma Straits.

He got safely through them, because the main j.a.panese fleet was miles away, steaming steadily north, with tired men sleeping by the guns. Next day he was in the open sea with no enemy in sight, and set his course for Shanghai.

At midnight the defeated Russians thought they had at last shaken off the pursuit of the sea-wolves. But at 2 a.m. the attacks began again. The ”Navarin” and the ”Admiral Nakhimoff,” among the rearmost s.h.i.+ps, were attacked by Commander Suzuki's squadron of destroyers. The ”Navarin” was sunk after being hit by two torpedoes. The ”Nakhimoff” was severely damaged. About the same time the ”Vladimir Monomach” and the ”Dimitri Donskoi” were torpedoed, but managed to keep afloat. The attacking force had a good many casualties. Torpedo-boats Nos. 35 and 65 were sunk by the Russian fire. Their crews were rescued by their consorts. Four destroyers (the ”Harusami,” ”Akatsuki,” ”Izazuchi,” and ”Yugiri”) and two torpedo-boats (Nos. 31 and 68) were so seriously damaged by hostile fire, or by collision in the darkness, that they were put out of action. As the dawn began to whiten the eastern sky the torpedo flotillas drew off.

At sunrise the Russian fleet was scattered far over the Sea of j.a.pan. Some of the s.h.i.+ps for a while steamed alone with neither consort nor enemy in sight within the circle of the horizon. But new dangers came with the day.

Togo's fleet was at hand, flinging out a wide net of which the meshes were squadrons and detached cruisers to sweep the sea northwards, and gather up the remnants of the defeated enemy. The weather was clearing up, and it was a fine, bright day--just the day for the work the j.a.panese had to do.

Steaming steadily through the night, Togo, with the main body of the j.a.panese fleet, had pa.s.sed to eastward of the scattered Russians, and was about twenty miles south of Ullondo. The distances covered in this battle of Tsu-s.h.i.+ma were beyond any that had ever been known in naval war. The running fight during the night had pa.s.sed over more than 150 miles of sea.

At 5.20 a.m. the admiral on board the ”Mikasa” received a wireless message from Kataoka's cruisers, reporting that they were sixty miles away to the southward of him, and that they could see several columns of black smoke on the horizon to the eastward. Shortly after Kataoka sent another wireless message--”Four of the enemy's battles.h.i.+ps and two cruisers are in sight, steering north-west.” Togo at once signalled to his own s.h.i.+ps to head off this detachment of the enemy, and sent wireless orders to Kataoka and Uriu to close in on their rear. It was probably the main fighting division left to the Russians, and would soon be surrounded by an overwhelming j.a.panese force.

The s.h.i.+ps sighted by the cruisers were those that Admiral Nebogatoff had led through the night, and was trying to take to Vladivostock. He had with him the battles.h.i.+ps ”Nikolai I” and ”Orel,” the coast-defence armour-clads ”Admiral Apraxin” and ”Admiral Senyavin,” and the cruisers ”Izumrud” and ”Svietlana.” This last s.h.i.+p was leaking badly and down by the bows. She could not keep up with the others, and at daylight fell far astern and lost sight of them. At 7 a.m. Uriu's division in chase of Nebogatoff came up with her, and the cruisers ”Niitaka” and ”Otowa” were detached to capture her. The Russian captain, Schein, had held a council with his officers. He had only a hundred sh.e.l.ls left in the magazines, and the ”Svietlana” was being kept afloat by her steam pumps. Under the regulations he could have honourably surrendered to a superior force, but it was unanimously resolved to fight to the last shot, and then sink with colours flying. The fight lasted an hour. There were heavy losses. The j.a.panese fire riddled the s.h.i.+p, and first the starboard, then the port engine was disabled. As the hundredth shot rang out from the ”Svietlana's” guns, Captain Schein stopped the pumps and opened the sea-c.o.c.ks, and the s.h.i.+p settled down rapidly in the water. The j.a.panese cruisers went off to join the fleet as the ”Svietlana” disappeared, but an armed j.a.panese liner, the ”America Maru,”

stood by and picked up about a hundred men.

At 10.30 a.m. Nebogatoff was completely surrounded eighteen miles south of the island of Takes.h.i.+ma. The ”Izumrud” had used her superior speed to get away to the south-west. The four battered s.h.i.+ps that remained with him saw more than twenty enemies appear from all points of the compa.s.s, including Togo's battles.h.i.+ps and heavy armoured cruisers, all as fit for work as when the first fighting began. They opened fire at long range with their heavy guns.

The situation was desperate. Nebogatoff consulted his officers, and all those on board the ”Nikolai” agreed that he must surrender. In a memorandum he subsequently wrote he pointed out that, though some ammunition was left, the j.a.panese were using their superior speed to keep a distance at which he could not reply effectively to their overwhelming fire; neither the sh.o.r.e nor other s.h.i.+ps were within reach; most of the boats had been shattered, the rest could not be lowered; even the life-belts had been burned or used to improvise defences in the s.h.i.+ps; continued resistance or the act of sinking the s.h.i.+ps would only mean the useless sacrifice of some 2000 men.

After the s.h.i.+ps had been only a short time in action, during which time they received further severe damage, he hauled down his colours. Togo allowed the Russian officers to retain their swords, as a proof of his opinion that they had acted as befitted brave and honourable men.

While the brief action with Nebogatoff's squadron was in progress, the third of the Russian coast-defence battles.h.i.+ps, the ”Admiral Ushakoff,”

hove in sight. She turned off to the westward pursued by the armoured cruisers ”Iwate” and ”Yak.u.mo.” They soon overhauled her, and signalled a summons to surrender, adding that Nebogatoff had already done so. The ”Ushakoff” replied with her 9-inch guns. The cruisers sank her in an hour, and then rescued some three-fourths of her crew of 400 men.

The ”Sissoi Veliki,” badly injured in the action of the day before, and torpedoed during the night, was in a sinking condition when the sun rose on 28 May. No s.h.i.+ps were in sight, all the boats had been destroyed, and while the pumps were still kept going the crew was set to work to construct rafts. While this was being done with very scanty materials, the ”Vladimir Monomach” hove in sight, accompanied by the destroyer ”Iromki.” In reply to a signal for help, the ”Monomach” answered that she could do nothing, as she was herself expecting to sink soon. The ”Iromki” offered to take a few men, but the captain of the ”Sissoi” generously refused to deprive the ”Monomach” of her help. The two s.h.i.+ps then steamed away. An hour later the ”Sissoi” was just settling down in the water, when three j.a.panese armed merchant steamers appeared and took off her crew. At half-past ten the ”Sissoi” heeled over to starboard and sank.

Soon after she lost sight of the ”Sissoi,” the ”Monomach” came upon the armoured cruiser ”Admiral Nakhimoff,” which also signalled that she was in a sinking condition. Presently there was smoke on the horizon, and then the armed steamer ”Sadu Maru” and the j.a.panese destroyer ”s.h.i.+ranui” appeared.

In such conditions the enemy proved a friend. The crews of the two unfortunate s.h.i.+ps were transferred to the ”Sadu,” which stood by till, about ten o'clock, both the ”Nakhimoff” and the ”Monomach” went to the bottom.

The ”Navarin” was comparatively little injured in the battle, but was torpedoed during the night. Leaking badly, she struggled northward at a slow rate till two in the afternoon of the 28th, when she was found and attacked by a j.a.panese destroyer flotilla. She still made a fight with her lighter guns, and was. .h.i.t by two torpedoes. The crew were all at their battle stations when she began suddenly to sink. The order, ”All hands on deck,” came too late, and very few lives were saved.

The armoured cruiser ”Dimitri Donskoi,” last survivor of Rojdestvensky's fourteen battles.h.i.+ps and armoured cruisers, escaped the torpedo attacks in the night, and eluded pursuit all through the morning of the 28th. At 4 p.m., when she was near the island of Ullondo, she sighted some j.a.panese s.h.i.+ps in the distance, Uriu's cruiser division and some destroyers. They closed slowly on her, and it was not till six o'clock that she was attacked by the cruisers ”Niitaka” and ”Otowa,” and three destroyers. The ”Donskoi”

made a gallant fight for two hours, beating off the torpedo-boats, losing sixty killed and twice as many wounded, and finally disengaging herself in the darkness about eight o'clock. The water-line armour was intact, but one boiler was penetrated and ammunition was nearly exhausted. In the night, the captain, who was himself slightly wounded, decided to land his men on Ullondo Island and sink the s.h.i.+p. All the boats had been shattered and the cutter that was left had to be hastily repaired before it could be lowered.

With the one boat the disembarkation went on slowly during the night. At dawn the enemy's torpedo-boats were sighted. The rest of the crew jumped overboard and swam ash.o.r.e, leaving a few men with the second-in-command on the s.h.i.+p. They ran the ”Donskoi” out into a hundred fathoms of water, opened the sea-c.o.c.ks, embarked in their one boat, and saw their s.h.i.+p go down as they pulled ash.o.r.e. The j.a.panese sent a couple of steamers to take the crew off the island.

The torpedo destroyer that conveyed the wounded Admiral Rojdestvensky, Captain s.e.m.e.noff, and a few other officers and men away from the fight was found and captured by a j.a.panese flotilla during the afternoon of the 28th.

The cruiser ”Izumrud,” one of the few fast s.h.i.+ps the Russians had with them, escaped the torpedo attacks in the night. In the morning she was chased by several of the enemy's cruisers. She kept up a good speed, and one by one they abandoned the chase, the ”Chitose” being the last to give it up. By 2 p.m. all pursuit was left behind, and she reduced speed. In the battle and the chase she had burned so much coal that she had not enough left to make for Vladivostock, so she steered for Vladimir Bay, in the Russian Coast Province of Siberia, north of Korea. She was off the entrance of the Bay at midnight with only ten tons of coal left in her bunkers. Unfortunately, in trying to go in in the dark on the flood-tide she drove hard on a reef. Next day unsuccessful efforts were made to get his s.h.i.+p off and in the afternoon, as her captain expected the enemy's s.h.i.+ps might arrive to secure the ”Izumrud” and refloat her, he landed his crew on Russian ground, destroyed his guns one by one with blasting charges, and then blew up the s.h.i.+p.

The destroyer ”Groki” was chased and captured by the j.a.panese destroyer ”s.h.i.+ranui” and a torpedo-boat, and after a sharp fight close to Tsu-s.h.i.+ma Island surrendered at 11.30 a.m. She was so injured that she sank within an hour of her capture. Admiral Enquist, with the three protected cruisers ”Oleg,” ”Aurora,” and ”Jemschug,” had, after turning south for the last time during the night of torpedo attacks, got through the Tsu-s.h.i.+ma Straits in the darkness. Next day no enemy was in sight, and he steered for Shanghai under easy steam, repairing damages on the way. He intended to lie off the port, bring a couple of colliers out of the Woosung River, fill his bunkers at sea, and try to reach Vladivostock by the Pacific and the La Perouse Straits. On the morning of the 29th he was overtaken by the repairing s.h.i.+p and tug ”Svir,” and from her learned the full extent of the disaster. Fearing that if he approached Shanghai he would be driven into the port and blockaded by the enemy, he changed his course for Manila, where he arrived on 3 June. The ”Svir,” after communicating with him, had gone on to the Woosung River. She was joined on her way there by the transport ”Anadir,” which had got successfully south through the Tsu-s.h.i.+ma Straits. The transport ”Korea,” which had escaped in the same way, and had a cargo of coal, did not go to Woosung, but crossed the Indian Ocean and appeared unexpectedly in the French port of Diego Suarez in Madagascar. Of the nine torpedo destroyers with the Russian fleet seven were hunted down and sunk or taken by the j.a.panese.

The only s.h.i.+ps of all the Russian armada that finally reached Vladivostock were the two destroyers ”Brawy” and ”Gresny,” and the small swift cruiser ”Almaz.” She had been with Enquist's cruiser division in the first hours of the night after the battle. During the torpedo attacks she had become separated from her consorts. Escaping from the destroyers, she headed at full speed first towards the coast of j.a.pan, then northward. At sunrise on the 28th she was well on her way and many miles north-east of Togo's fleet.

Next day she reached Vladivostock with 160 tons of coal still on board.

A hundred years after Trafalgar Togo had won a victory as complete and as decisive. The Russian power had been swept from the Eastern Seas, and the grey-haired admiral who had secured this triumph for his native land--”Father Togo,” as the j.a.panese affectionately call him--had lived through the whole evolution of the Imperial Navy, had shared in its first successes, and for years had been training it for the great struggle that was to decide who was to be master in the seas of the Far East.

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