Part 5 (1/2)
”Yes,” agreed Ito, his voice tense with excitement; ”she has seen and intends to speak us. See, she has stopped her engines, and is hailing the _Asas.h.i.+o_! What a jolly, bloomin' chance,” (Ito was very proud of his command of English slang, and availed himself of every possible opportunity to air it) ”to honourably torpedo her! Will the honourable Swinburne augustly grant the humblest of his servants permission to do so?”
”Heavens! no, man,” I exclaimed, ”not for worlds. And I pray that Matsunaga may also have the sense to refrain from doing so.”
”But why, my honourable friend; why?” demanded Ito, literally dancing with eagerness and impatience.
”Because, don't you see, my honourable duffer, that if we did so the explosion would put all Port Arthur, and the fleet too, on the _qui vive_ long before we could get at them, and thus spoil our chances of bagging the battles.h.i.+ps?” I replied. ”No, certainly not. Let the cruiser go; it is the battles.h.i.+ps we want. There go the _Asas.h.i.+o's_ lanterns. Hoist away, quartermaster!”
”Yes, yes; I see,” replied Ito in crestfallen tones; ”you are honourably right, of course. Aha! there goes the cruiser. The honourable Captain Matsunaga has evidently honourably satisfied her. He honourably speaks Russian like a native.”
It was an exciting moment; but, tense as it was, I could not help being amused at the pertinacity with which Ito, like all the j.a.panese, dragged in the word ”honourable” upon every possible and impossible occasion.
It arises, of course, out of the desire, drilled into them, generation after generation, to be extremely polite; and doubtless when speaking in their own tongue, the word is never unsuitably used; but when they undertake to talk English, it is frequently pitchforked into the conversation in the most incongruous and even ludicrous fas.h.i.+on, and I decided that it would only be kind to give Ito a lesson upon the absurdity of employing it inappropriately. The opportunity came a few minutes later.
The _Askold_, apparently satisfied with Captain Matsunaga's explanation, put her helm hard a-starboard and swept on, presently vanis.h.i.+ng in the darkness; and a minute or two later the _Asas.h.i.+o_ made the signal for the Divisions to separate as arranged, starboarding her helm as she did so and leading Number 1 Division to the westward, while Divisions 2 and 3 ported and swerved sharply away to the eastward.
”The critical moment is at hand,” said I. ”Be so good, Mr Ito, as to go down on the main deck and a.s.sure yourself that everything is ready, and that the men are standing by the tubes and guns.”
Then Ito turned upon me and poured out an impa.s.sioned entreaty that he might be ”honourably” permitted to take charge of and fire the torpedoes himself. I considered for a moment. The man who might chance to score a hit in the coming attempt would gain immense kudos, I knew, and, in all probability, promotion also. By rights, of course, Ito's station should be by me, to take my place should I chance to be hit; but he was just as liable to be hit on the bridge as anywhere else; also it would be doing him a kindness to grant his request. So:
”Now, look here, Ito,” I said, ”it is of paramount importance that the men in charge of the tubes to-night should be first-rate shots, and as cool as cuc.u.mbers; for, hit or miss, I do not suppose we shall be afforded a chance to discharge more than the two torpedoes already in our tubes; therefore they must both hit. Now, are you a good shot with the torpedo?”
Ito solemnly a.s.sured me that there was not a better torpedo shot than himself in the whole j.a.panese fleet.
”And is your nerve all right? I mean, are you perfectly cool?” I demanded.
”As cool as the honourable cuc.u.mber,” he a.s.serted. ”Feel my unworthy hand.”
I could not help laughing. Here was the inevitable ”honourable” being dragged in again. I seized his hand and held it loosely in mine for a few seconds. It was firm and steady as a rock.
”Good!” I said. ”You will do, Ito. Go down and work the tubes, my boy, and see that you excel yourself to-night. And, Ito, if you love me, do not, for heaven's sake, forget to withdraw the honourable safety pin from the honourable fan before you honourably fire the honourable torpedo, or you will make no honourable hits this honourable night. Do you honourably take me?”
There! I had fired off my little joke on Ito; ill.u.s.trated to him, I fondly thought, the absurdity of indiscriminately dragging in the word ”honourable” in and out of season. How would he take it, I wondered.
”The august captain may honourably rely upon his unworthy lieutenant to do his honourable best,” he gravely answered; and the next moment was ”honourably” descending the bridge ladder to the deck. My miserable attempt at jocularity had absolutely missed fire; the dear, innocent fellow had accepted my speech as uttered in all seriousness.
It was at this moment that I first caught the loom of the Russian s.h.i.+ps, showing up a deeper black against the black shadow of the frowning cliffs away to starboard; and a second or two later a long, brilliant beam of intensely white light shot out from one of the black shapes and slowly swept hither and thither, now striking the heaving surface of the black water, and anon vividly illumining one of her sisters. Our orders had been not to discharge at a higher range than five hundred metres.
Slowly, the beam swept round toward us until it halted and rested steadily upon a great lump of a craft that towered out of the water like a castle, almost immediately between itself and us. Luckily, the dazzling light itself was hidden from our eyes by the bulk of the s.h.i.+p upon which it rested, but it invested her with a sort of halo of radiance against which she stood out black and grim, a perfect silhouette. She was a big craft, evidently a battles.h.i.+p, with a lofty superstructure, three big funnels cased half-way up, a long overhanging bridge, and two stout military masts with fighting tops, and two yards across each. She was just within range, and, seizing a megaphone, I was in the act of raising it to my lips to order Ito to let fly at her, when I saw a long, silvery shape flash out from our after-deck, and a few seconds later a great cone of water leaped into the air and fell like a deluge upon the great s.h.i.+p, which seemed to lift half out of the water, as though hove up by a giant. A heavy _boom_ followed, and I had the extreme gratification of knowing that the little _Kasanumi's_ first Whitehead had got home.
The explosion was quickly followed by several others; and in the midst of them a sudden transformation took place. The pitchy darkness gave way to the glare of a perfect network of searchlight beams streaming out from s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p and from the cliffs above, sweeping here, there, and everywhere, lighting up the fleet, the cliffs, the channel leading to the harbour, the lighthouse, everything, in fact, except our destroyers, which they all seemed to miss in the most miraculous way.
Excited shouts came pealing across the water to us from the decks of the various s.h.i.+ps, boatswains' whistles shrilled, order after order was hoa.r.s.ely bellowed, and with a rattling crash of gun-fire a perfect tempest of projectiles was sent hurtling out to sea from the now thoroughly awakened and panic-stricken Russians, not a solitary shot of which came anywhere near us; for the enemy seemed to have not the slightest idea of our actual whereabouts. And then, to add to the turmoil and confusion, the forts on the cliffs above opened fire with their heavy guns, and we heard the sh.e.l.ls go muttering angrily far overhead, as the gunners ash.o.r.e also fired into the offing.
The fleet as a whole now lay broad on our starboard beam, and we in the _Kasanumi_ were crossing the bows of a two-funnelled battles.h.i.+p which, from her position as the outermost s.h.i.+p of the fleet, I knew must be the _Tzarevich_, when, out of the tail of my eye, so to speak, I again caught the flash of one of our Whiteheads as it leapt outward and plunged into the sea. Breathlessly I awaited the result, and presently, to my delight, I saw that our second torpedo had got home!
”Good old Ito!” I exclaimed aloud; and, as I spoke, the man himself stood beside me.
”Two hits!” he gasped, almost inarticulate with excitement and delight.
”The _Kasanumi_ has done her duty to-night.”
”She has,” I agreed; ”and so have you, splendidly, old chap. This means immediate promotion for you, Ito; for you may rest a.s.sured that, if we get out of this alive, I will not fail to report to the Admiral what you have done. I don't see--”