Banzai! by Parabellum
by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff · English · Gutenberg #19498 · 563,620 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Banzai! by Parabellum
Author: Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
Release date: October 9, 2006 [eBook #19498]
Language: English
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BANZAI!
[Illustration: "That's the Japanese _Satsuma_, Togo's _Satsuma_!"]
BANZAI!
BY
PARABELLUM
LEIPZIG
THEODOR WEICHER, PUBLISHER
NEW YORK
THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., SALES AGENTS
33 EAST 17TH STREET (UNION SQUARE)
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
THEODOR WEICHER
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.
_All rights reserved_
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON
Published, January, 1909
THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD vii
INTRODUCTION ix
CHAPTER
I.--IN MANILA 1
II.--ON THE HIGH SEAS 34
III.--HOW IT BEGAN 49
IV.--ECHOES IN NEW YORK 61
V.--FATHER AND SON 69
VI.--A NIGHT IN NEW YORK 77
VII.--THE RED SUN OVER THE GOLDEN GATE 96
VIII.--IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH 105
IX.---A FORTY-EIGHT-HOUR BALANCE 121
X.--ADMIRAL PERRY'S FATE 142
XI.--CAPTAIN WINSTANLEY 171
XII.--ARE YOU WINSTANLEY? 185
XIII.--THE REVENGE FOR PORTSMOUTH 192
XIV.--ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WHIRLPOOL 206
XV.--A RAY OF LIGHT 211
XVI.--THROUGH FIRE AND SMOKE 217
XVII.--WHAT HAPPENED AT CORPUS CHRISTI 228
XVIII.--THE BATTLE OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 243
XIX.--THE ASSAULT ON HILGARD 272
XX.---A FRIEND IN NEED 286
XXI.--DARK SHADOWS 295
XXII.--REMEMBER HILGARD 306
XXIII.--IN THE WHITE HOUSE 312
FOREWORD
Every American familiar with the modern international political horizon
must have experienced a feeling of solid satisfaction at the news that a
formidable American fleet was to be dispatched to the waters of the
Pacific, and the cruise of our warships has been followed with intense
interest by every loyal citizen of our Republic. The reasons that
rendered the long and dramatic voyage of our fleet most opportune are
identical with the motives that actuated the publication of this
translation from the German of a work which exhibits a remarkable grasp
of facts coupled with a marvelously vivid power of description. It is no
secret that our ships were sent to the Pacific to minimize the danger of
a conflict with our great commercial rival in the Far East, if not to
avert it altogether, and _Banzai_! it seems to me, should perform a
similar mission. The graphic recital, I take it, is not intended to
incite a feeling of animosity between two nations which have every
reason to maintain friendly relations, but rather to call the attention
of the American people to the present woeful lack of preparedness, and
at the same time to assist in developing a spirit of sound patriotism
that prefers silent action to blatant braggadocio. That the Pacific
Ocean may become, in truth, the Peaceful Ocean, and never resound
to the clash of American arms, is the devout wish of one who
believes--implicitly--with Moltke in the old proverb, _Si vis pacem,
para bellum_--If you wish for Peace, prepare for War.
P.
INTRODUCTION
As usual, it had begun quite harmlessly and inconspicuously. It is not
my business to tell how it all came to pass, how the way was prepared.
That may be left to the spinners of yarns and to those on the trail of
the sources of history. I shall leave it to them to ascertain when the
idea that there must be a conflict, and that the fruit must be plucked
before it had time to ripen, first took root in the minds of the
Japanese people.
We Americans realize now that we had been living for years like one who
has a presentiment that something dreadful is hanging over him which
will suddenly descend upon his head, and who carries this feeling of
dread about with him with an uneasy conscience, trying to drown it in
the tumult and restlessness of daily life. We realize the situation now,
because we know where we should have fixed our gaze and understand the
task to the accomplishment of which we should have bent our energies,
but we went about like sleep-walkers and refused to see what thousands
of others knew, what thousands saw in astonishment and concern at our
heedlessness.
We might easily have peeped through the curtain that hid the future from
us, for it had plenty of holes, but we passed them by unnoticed. And,
nevertheless, there were many who did peep through. Some, while reading
their paper, let it fall into their lap and stared into space, letting
their thoughts wander far away to a spot whence the subdued clash of
arms and tumult of war reached their soul like the mysterious roll and
roar of the breakers. Others were struck by a chance word overheard in
the rush of the street, which they would remember until it was driven
out by the strenuous struggle that each day brought with it. But the
word itself had not died; it continued to live in the foundation of the
consciousness where our burning thoughts cannot enter, and sometimes in
the night it would be born afresh in the shape of wild squadrons of
cavalry galloping across the short grass of the prairie with noiseless
hoofs. The thunder of cannon could be heard in the air long before the
guns were loaded.
I saw no more than others, and when the grim horrors of the future first
breathed coldly upon me I, too, soon forgot it. It happened at San
Francisco in the spring of 1907. We were standing before a bar, and from
outside came the sounds of an uproar in the street. Two men were being
thrown out of a Japanese restaurant across the way, and the Japanese
proprietor, who was standing in the doorway, kicked the hat of one of
them across the pavement so that it rolled over the street like a
football.
"Well, what do you think of that," cried my friend, Arthur Wilcox, "the
Jap is attacking the white men."
I held him back by the arm, for a tall Irish policeman had already
seized the Jap, who protested loudly and would not submit to arrest. The
policeman took good hold of him, but before he knew it he lay like a log
on the pavement, the Japanese dwarf apparently having thrown him without
the least trouble. A wild brawl followed. Half an hour later only a few
policemen, taking notes, were walking about in the Japanese restaurant,
which had been completely demolished by a frenzied mob. We remained at
the bar for some time afterwards engaged in earnest conversation.
"Our grandchildren," said Arthur, "will have to answer for that little
affair and fight it out some day or other."
"Not our grandchildren, but we ourselves," I answered, not knowing in
the least why I said it.
"We ourselves?" said Wilcox, laughing at me, "not much; look at me, look
at yourself, look at our people, and then look at those dwarfs."
"The Russians said the same thing: Look at the dwarfs."
They all laughed at me and presently I joined in the laugh, but I could
not forget the Irishman as he lay in the grip of the Jap. And quite
suddenly I remembered something which I had almost forgotten. It
happened at Heidelberg, during my student days in Germany; a professor
was telling us how, after the inglorious retreat of the Prussian army
from Valmy, the officers, with young Goethe in their midst, were sitting
round the camp fires discussing the reasons for the defeat. When they
asked Goethe what he thought about it, he answered, as though gifted
with second sight: "At this spot and at this moment a new epoch in the
world's history will begin, and you will all be able to say that you
were present." And in imagination I could see the red glow of the
bivouac fires and the officers of Frederick the Great's famous army, who
could not understand how anyone could have fled before the ragged
recruits of the Revolution. And near them I saw a man of higher caliber
standing on tiptoe to look through the dark curtain into the future.
At the time I soon forgot all these things; I forgot the apparently
insignificant street affray and the icy breath of premonition which
swept over me then, and not until the disaster had occurred did it again
enter my mind. But then when the swords were clashing I realized, for
the first time, that all the incidents we had observed on the dusty
highway of History, and passed by with indifference, had been sure signs
of the coming catastrophe.
PARABELLUM
BANZAI!
_Chapter I_
IN MANILA
"For God's sake, do leave me in peace with your damned yellow monkeys!"
cried Colonel Webster, banging his fist on the table so hard that the
whisky and soda glasses jumped up in a fright, then came down again
irritably and wagged their heads disapprovingly, so that the
amber-colored fluid spilled over the edge and lay on the table in little
pearly puddles.
"As you like, colonel. I shall give up arguing with you," returned
Lieutenant Commander Harryman curtly. "You won't allow yourself to be
warned."
"Warned--that's not the question. But this desire of yours to scent
Japanese intrigues everywhere, to figure out all politics by the
Japanese common denominator, and to see a Japanese spy in every coolie
is becoming a positive mania. No, I can't agree with you there," added
Webster, who seemed to regret the passionate outburst into which his
temperament had betrayed him.
"Really not?" asked Harryman, turning in his comfortable wicker chair
toward Webster and looking at him half encouragingly with twinkling
eyes.
Such discussions were not at all unusual in the Club at Manila, for they
presented the only antidote to the leaden, soul-killing tedium of the
dull monotony of garrison duty. Since the new insurrection on Mindanao
and in the whole southern portion of the archipelago, the question as to
the actual causes of the uprising, or rather the secret authors thereof,
continually gave rise to heated discussions. And when both parties, of
which one ascribed everything to Japanese intrigue and the other found
an explanation in elementary causes, began to liven up, the debate was
apt to wax pretty warm. If these discussions did nothing else, they at
least produced a sort of mental excitement after the heat of the day
which wore out body and mind alike, not even cooling down toward
evening.
The Chinese boy, passing quickly and quietly between the chairs, removed
the traces of the Webster thunderbolt and placed fresh bottles of soda
water on the table, whereupon the officers carefully prepared new
drinks.
"He's a spy, too, I suppose?" asked Webster of Harryman, pointing with
his thumb over his shoulder at the disappearing boy.
"Of course. Did you ever imagine him to be anything else?"
Webster shrugged his shoulders. A dull silence ensued, during which they
tried to recover the lost threads of their thoughts in the drowsy
twilight. Harryman irritably chewed the ends of his mustache. The smoke
from two dozen shag pipes settled like streaks of mist in the sultry air
of the tropical night, which came in at the open windows. Lazily and
with long pauses, conversation was kept up at the separate tables. The
silence was only broken by the creaking of the wicker chairs and the
gurgling and splashing of the soda water, when one of the officers,
after having put it off as long as possible, at last found sufficient
energy to refill his glass. Motionless as seals on the sandhills in the
heat of midday, the officers lolled in their chairs, waiting for the
moment when they could turn in with some show of decency.
"It's awful!" groaned Colonel McCabe. "This damned hole is enough to
make one childish. I shall go crazy soon." And then he cracked his
standing joke of the evening: "My daily morning prayer is: 'Let it soon
be evening, O God; the morrow will come of itself.'" The jest was
greeted with a dutiful grunt of approval from the occupants of the
various chairs.
Lieutenant Parrington, officer in command of the little gunboat
_Mindoro_, which had been captured from the Spaniards some years ago and
since the departure of the cruiser squadron for Mindanao been put in
commission as substitute guardship in the harbor of Manila, entered the
room and dropped into a chair near Harryman; whereupon the Chinese boy,
almost inaudible in his broad felt shoes, suddenly appeared beside him
and set down the bottle with the pain expeller of the tropics before
him.
"Any cable news, Parrington?" asked Colonel McCabe from the other table.
"Not a word," yawned Parrington; "everything is still smashed. We might
just as well be sitting under the receiver of an air pump."
Harryman noticed that the boy stared at Parrington for a moment as if
startled; but he instantly resumed his Mongolian expression of absolute
innocence, and with his customary grin slipped sinuously through the
door.
Harryman experienced an unpleasant feeling of momentary discomfort, but,
not being able to locate his ideas clearly, he irritably gave up the
attempt to arrive at a solution of this instinctive sensation, mumbling
to himself: "This tropical hell is enough to set one crazy."
"No news of the fleet, either?" began Colonel McCabe again.
"Positively nothing, either by wire or wireless. It seems as though the
rest of the world had sunk into a bottomless pit. Not a single word has
reached us from the outer world for six days."
"Do you believe in the seaquake?" struck in Harryman mockingly.
"Why not?" returned the colonel.
Harryman jumped up, walked over to the window with long strides, threw
out the end of his cigarette and lighted a new one. In the bright light
of the flaming match one could see the commander's features twitching
ironically; he was on the warpath again.
"All the same, it's a queer state of affairs. Our home cable snaps
between Guam and here, the Hong-Kong cable won't work, and even our
island wire has been put out of commission; it must have been a pretty
violent catastrophe--" came from another table.
"--All the more violent considering the fact that we noticed nothing of
it on land," said Harryman, thoughtfully blowing out a cloud of smoke
and swinging himself up backward on the window-sill.
"Exactly," rang out a voice; "but how do you account for that?"
"Account for it!" cried Colonel Webster, in a thundering voice. "Our
comrade of the illustrious navy of the United States of America has only
one explanation for everything: his Japanese logarithms, by means of
which he figures out everything. Now we shall hear that this seaquake
can be traced to Japanese villainy, probably brought about by Japanese
divers, or even submarine boats." And the colonel began to laugh
heartily.
Harryman ignored this attempt to resume their recent dispute, and with
head thrown back continued to blow clouds of smoke nervously into the
air.
"But seriously, Harryman," began the colonel again, "can you give any
explanation?"
"No," answered Harryman curtly; "but perhaps you will remember who was
the first to furnish an explanation of the breakdown of the cable. It
was the captain of the Japanese _Kanga Maru_, which has been anchored
since Tuesday beside the _Monadnock_, which I have the honor to
command."
"But, my good Harryman, you have hallucinations," interrupted the
colonel. "The Japanese captain gave the latest Hong-Kong papers to the
Harbor Bureau, and was quite astonished to hear that our cable did not
work----"
"When he was going to send a cablegram to Hong-Kong," added Harryman
sharply.
"To announce his arrival at Manila," remarked Colonel Webster dryly.
"And the Hong-Kong papers had already published descriptions of the
destruction caused by the seaquake, of the tidal waves, and the
accidents to ships," came from another quarter.
"The news being of especial interest to this archipelago, where we have
the misfortune to be and where we noticed nothing of the whole affair,"
returned Harryman.
"You don't mean to imply," broke in the colonel, "that the news of this
catastrophe is a pure invention--an invention of the English papers in
Hong-Kong?"
"Don't know, I'm sure," said Harryman. "Hong-Kong papers are no
criterion for me." And then he added quietly: "Yes, man is great, and
the newspaper is his prophet."
"But you can't dispute the fact that a seaquake may have taken place,
when you consider the striking results as shown by the cable
interruptions which we have been experiencing for the last six days,"
began Webster again.
"Have we really?" said Harryman. "Are you quite sure of it? So far the
only authority we have for this supposed seaquake is a Japanese
captain--whom, by the way, I am having sharply watched--and a bundle of
worthless Hong-Kong newspapers. And as for the rest of my
hallucinations"--he jumped down from the window-sill and, going up to
Webster, held out a sheet of paper toward him--"I'm in the habit of
using other sources of information than the English-Japanese
fingerposts."
Webster glanced at the paper and then looked at Harryman questioningly.
"What is it? Do you understand it?"
"Yes," snapped Harryman. "These little pictures portray our war of
extermination against the red man. They are terribly exaggerated and
distorted, which was not at all necessary, by the way, for the events of
that war do not add to the fame of our nation. Up here," explained
Harryman, while several officers, among them the colonel, stepped up to
the table, "you see the story of the infected blankets from the fever
hospitals which were sent to the Indians; here the butchery of an Indian
tribe; here, for comparison, the fight on the summit of the volcano of
Ilo-Ilo, where the Tagala were finally driven into the open crater; and
here, at the end, the practical application for the Tagala: 'As the
Americans have destroyed the red man, so will you slowly perish under
the American rule. They have hurled your countrymen into the chasm of
the volcano. This crater will devour you all if you do not turn those
weapons which were once broken by Spanish bondage against your
deliverers of 1898, who have since become your oppressors.'"
"Where did you get the scrawl?" asked the colonel excitedly.
"Do you want me to procure hundreds, thousands like it for you?"
returned Harryman coolly.
The colonel pressed down the ashes in his pipe with his thumb, and asked
indifferently: "You understand Japanese?"
"Tagala also," supplemented Harryman simply.
"And you mean to say that thousands----?"
"Millions of these pictures, with Japanese and Malayan text, are being
circulated in the Philippines," said Harryman positively.
"Under our eyes?" asked a lieutenant naïvely.
"Under our eyes," replied Harryman, smiling, "our eyes which carelessly
overlook such things."
Colonel Webster rose and offered Harryman his hand. "I have misjudged
you," he said heartily. "I belong to your party from now on."
"It isn't a question of party," answered Harryman warmly, "or rather
there will soon be only the one party."
"Do you think," asked Colonel McCabe, "that the supposed Japanese plan
of attack on the Philippines, published at the beginning of the year in
the _North China Daily News_, was authentic?"
"That question cannot be answered unless you know who gave the document
to the Shanghai paper, and what object he had in doing so," replied
Harryman.
"How do you mean?"
"Well," continued Harryman, "only two possibilities can exist: the
document was either genuine or false. If genuine, then it was an
indiscretion on the part of a Japanese who betrayed his country to an
English paper--an English paper which no sooner gets possession of this
important document than it immediately proceeds to publish its contents,
thereby getting its ally into a nice pickle. You will at once observe
here three improbabilities: treason, indiscretion, and, finally, England
in the act of tripping her ally. These actions would be incompatible, in
the first place, with the almost hysterical sense of patriotism of the
Japanese; in the second, with their absolute silence and secrecy, and,
in the third place, with the behavior of our English cousin since his
marriage to Madame Chrysanthemum----"
"The document was therefore not genuine?" asked the colonel.
"Think it over. What was it that the supposed plan of attack set forth?
A Japanese invasion of Manila with the fleet and a landing force of
eighty thousand men, and then, following the example of Cuba, an
insurrection of the natives, which would gradually exhaust our troops,
while the Japanese would calmly settle matters at sea, Roschestwenski's
tracks being regarded as a sufficient scare for our admirals."
"That would no doubt be the best course to pursue in an endeavor to
pocket the Philippines," answered the colonel thoughtfully; "and the
plan would be aided by the widespread and growing opposition at home to
keeping the archipelago and putting more and more millions into the
Asiatic branch business."
"Quite so," continued Harryman quickly, "if Japan wanted nothing else
but the Philippines."
"What on earth does she want in addition?" asked Webster.
"The _mastery of the Pacific_," said Harryman in a decided voice.
"Commercial mastery?" asked Parrington, "or----"
"No; political, too, and with solid foundations," answered Harryman.
Colonel McCabe had sat down again, and was studying the pamphlet,
Parrington picked at the label on his whisky bottle, and the others
remained silent, but buried in thought. In the next room a clock struck
ten with a hurried, tinkling sound which seemed to break up the uneasy
silence into so many small pieces.
"And if it was not genuine?" began Colonel McCabe again, hoarsely. He
cleared his throat and repeated the question in a low tone of voice:
"And if it was not genuine?"
Harryman shrugged his shoulders.
"Then it would be a trap for us to have us secure our information from
the wrong quarter," said the colonel, answering his own question.
"A trap into which we are rushing at full speed," continued Webster,
laying stress on each word, though his thoughts seemed to be far in
advance of what he was saying.
Harryman nodded and twisted his mustache.
"What did you say?" asked Parrington, jumping up and looking from
Webster to Harryman, neither of whom, however, volunteered a reply. "We
are stumbling into a trap?"
"Two regiments," said Webster, more to himself than to the others. And
then, turning to Harryman, he asked briskly: "When are the transports
expected to arrive?"
"The steamers with two regiments on board left 'Frisco on April 10th,
therefore--he counted the days on his fingers--they should be here by
now."
"No, they were to go straight to Mindanao," said Parrington.
"Straight to Mindanao?" Colonel McCabe meditated silently. Then, as
though waking up suddenly, he went on: "And the cable has not been
working for six days----"
"Exactly," interrupted Parrington, "we have known nothing, either of
the fleet or of anything else, for the last six days."
"Harryman," said Colonel McCabe seriously, "do you think there is
danger? If it is all a trap, it would be the most stupid thing that we
could do to send our transports unprotected-- But that's all nonsense!
This heat positively dries up your thoughts. No, no, it's impossible;
they're hallucinations bred by the fermented vapors of this God-forsaken
country!" He pressed the electric button, and the boy appeared at the
door behind him. "Some soda, Pailung!"
"Parrington, are you coming? I ordered my boat for ten o'clock," said
Harryman.
"As early as this, Harryman?" remonstrated Webster. "You'll be on board
your boat quite soon enough, or do you want to keep a night watch also
on your Japanese of the-- What sort of a Maru was it?" he broke off,
because Colonel McCabe pointed angrily at the approaching boy.
"Oh, nonsense!" growled Webster ill-humoredly. "A creature like that
doesn't see or hear a thing."
The colonel glared at Webster, and then noisily mixed his drink.
Harryman and Parrington walked along the quay in silence, their steps
resounding loudly in the stillness of the night. On the other side of
the street fleeting shadows showed at the lighted windows of several
harbor dens, over the entrance to which hung murky lamps and from which
loud voices issued, proving that all was still in full swing there.
There were only a few more steps to the spot where the yellow circle of
light from the lanterns rendered the white uniforms of the sailors in
the two boats visible. Parrington stood still. "Harryman," he said,
repeating his former question, "do you believe there is danger----"
"I don't know, I really don't know," said Harryman nervously. Then,
seizing Parrington's hands, he continued hurriedly, but in a low voice:
"For days I have been living as if in a trance. It is as if I were lying
in the delirium of fever; my head burns and my thoughts always return to
the same spot, boring and burrowing; I feel as though a horrible eye
were fixed on me from whose glance I cannot escape. I feel that I may at
any moment awake from the trance, and that the awakening will be still
more dreadful."
"You're feverish, Harryman; you're ill, and you'll infect others. You
must take some quinine." With these words Parrington climbed into his
gig, the sailors gave way with the oars, and the boat rushed through the
water and disappeared into the darkness, where the bow oarsman was
silhouetted against the pale yellow light of the boat's lantern like a
strange phantom.
Harryman looked musingly after the boat of the _Mindoro_ for a few
minutes, and murmured: "He certainly has no fever which quinine will not
cure." Then he got into his own boat, which also soon disappeared into
the sultry summer night, while the dark water splashed and gurgled
against the planks. The high quay wall, with its row of yellow and white
lights, remained behind, and gradually sank down to the water line. They
rowed past the side of a huge English steamer, which sent back the
splash of the oars in a strange hollow echo, and then across to the
_Monadnock_.
Harryman could not sleep, and joined the officer on duty on the bridge,
where the slight breeze which came from the mountains afforded a little
coolness.
* * * * *
On board the _Mindoro_ Parrington had found orders to take the relief
guard for the wireless telegraph station to Mariveles the next morning.
At six o'clock the little gunboat had taken the men on board, and was
now steering across the blue Bay of Manila toward the little rocky
island of Corregidor, which had recently been strongly fortified, and
which lies like a block of stone between gigantic mountain wings in the
very middle of the entrance to the Bay of Manila. Under a gray sail,
which served as a slight protection from the sun, the soldiers squatted
sullenly on their kits. Some were asleep, others stared over the railing
into the blue, transparent water that rippled away in long waves before
the bow of the little vessel. From the open skylight of the engine room
sounded the sharp beat of the engine, and the smell of hot oil spread
over the deck, making the burning heat even more unbearable. Parrington
stood on the bridge and through his glass examined the steep cliffs at
the entrance to the bay, and the bizarre forms of the little volcanic
islands.
Except for a few fishing boats with their brown sails, not a ship was to
be seen on the whole expanse of the water. The gunboat now turned into
the northern entrance, and the long, glistening guns in the
fortifications of Corregidor became visible. Up above, on the batteries
hewn in the rocks, not a living soul could be seen, but below, on the
little platform where the signal-post stood near the northern battery,
an armed sentry marched up and down. Parrington called out to the
signalman near him: "Send this signal across to Corregidor: 'We are
going to relieve the wireless telegraph detachment at Mariveles, and
shall call at Corregidor on our way back.'" The Corregidor battery
answered the signal, and informed Parrington that Colonel Prettyman
expected him for lunch later on. Slowly the _Mindoro_ crept along the
coast to the rocky Bay of Mariveles, where, before the few neglected
houses of the place, the guard of the wireless telegraph station, which
stood on the heights of Sierra de Mariveles, was awaiting the arrival of
the gunboat.
The _Mindoro_ was made fast to the pier. The exchange of men took place
quickly, and the relief guard piled their kits on two mule-carts, in
which they were to be carried up the steep hillside to the top, where a
few flat, white houses showed the position of the wireless station, the
high post of which, with its numerous wires, stood out alone against the
blue sky. The relieved men, who plainly showed their delight at getting
away from this God-forsaken, tedious outpost, made themselves
comfortable in the shade afforded by the sail, and began to chat with
the crew of the _Mindoro_ about the commonplaces of military service. A
shrill screech from the whistle of the _Mindoro_ resounded from the
mountain side as a farewell greeting to the little troop that was
climbing slowly upward, followed by the baggage-carts. The _Mindoro_
cast off from the pier, and, having rounded the neck of land on which
Mariveles stood, was just on the point of starting in the direction of
Corregidor, when the signalman on the bridge called Parrington's
attention to a black steamer which was apparently steaming at full speed
from the sea toward the entrance to the Bay of Manila.
"A ship at last," said Parrington. "Let's wait and see what sort of a
craft it is."
While the _Mindoro_ reduced her speed noticeably, Parrington looked
across at the strange vessel through his glasses. The ship had also
attracted the attention of the crew, who began to conjecture excitedly
as to the nationality of the visitor, for during the past week a strange
vessel had become a rather unusual sight in Manila. The wireless
detachment said that they had seen the steamer two hours ago from the
hill.
Parrington put down his glass and said: "About four thousand tons, but
she has no flag. We can soon remedy that." And turning to the signalman
he added: "Ask her to show her colors." At the same time he pulled the
rope of the whistle in order to attract the stranger's attention.
In a few seconds the German colors appeared at the stern of the
approaching steamer, and the signal flag, which at the same time was
quickly hoisted at the foretopmast, proclaimed the ship to be the German
steamer _Danzig_, hailing from Hong-Kong. Immediately afterwards a boat
was lowered from the _Danzig_ and the steamer stopped; then the white
cutter put to sea and headed straight for the _Mindoro_.
"It is certainly kind of them to send us a boat," said Parrington. "I
wonder what they want, anyhow." He gave orders to stop the boat and to
clear the gangway, and then, watching the German cutter with interest,
awaited its arrival. Ten minutes later the commander of the _Danzig_
stepped on the bridge of the _Mindoro_, introduced himself to her
commander, and asked for a pilot to take him through the mines in the
roads.
Parrington regarded him with astonishment. "Mines, my dear sir, mines?
There are no mines here."
The German stared at Parrington unbelievingly. "You have no mines?"
"No," said Parrington. "It is not our custom to blockade our harbors
with mines except in time of war."
"In time of war?" said the German, who did not appear to comprehend
Parrington's answer. "But you are at war."
"We, at war?" returned Parrington, utterly disconcerted. "And with whom,
if I may be allowed to ask?"
"It seems to me that the matter is too serious to be a subject for
jesting," answered the German sharply.
At this moment loud voices were heard from the after-deck of the
_Mindoro_, the crew of which were swearing with great gusto. Parrington
hurried to the railing and looked over angrily. A hot dispute was going
on between the crew of the German cutter and the American sailors, but
only the oft-repeated words "damned Japs" could be distinguished. He
turned again to the German officer, and looked at him hesitatingly. The
latter, apparently in a bad temper, looked out to sea, whistling softly
to himself.
Parrington walked toward him and, seizing his hand, said: "It's clear
that we don't understand each other. What's up?"
"I am here to inform you," answered the German sharply and decisively,
"that the steamer _Danzig_ ran the blockade last night, and that its
captain politely requests you to give him a pilot through the mines, in
order that we may reach the harbor of Manila."
"You have run the blockade?" shouted Parrington, in a state of the
greatest excitement. "You have run the blockade, man? What the deuce do
you mean?"
"I mean," answered the German coolly, "that the Government of the United
States of America--a fact, by the way, of which you, as commander of one
of her war vessels, ought to be aware--has been at war with Japan for
the last week, and that a steamer which has succeeded in running the
enemy's blockade and which carries contraband goods for Manila surely
has the right to ask to be guided through the mines."
Parrington felt for the railing behind him and leaned against it for
support. His face became ashen pale, and he seemed so utterly nonplussed
at the German officer's statement that the latter, gradually beginning
to comprehend the extraordinary situation, continued his explanation.
"Yes," he repeated, "for six days your country has been at war with
Japan, and it was only natural we should suppose that you, as one of
those most nearly concerned, would be aware of this fact."
Parrington, regaining his self-control, said: "Then the cable
disturbances--" He stopped, then continued disjointedly: "But this is
terrible; this is a surprise such as we-- I beg your pardon," he went on
in a firm voice to the German, "I am sure I need not assure you that
your communication has taken me completely by surprise. Not a soul in
Manila has any idea of all this. The cable disturbances of the last six
days were explained to us by a Japanese steamer as being the result of a
volcanic outbreak, and since then, through the interruption of all
connections, we have been completely shut off from the outside world. If
Japan, in defiance of all international law, has declared war, we here
in Manila have noticed nothing of it, except, perhaps, for the entire
absence, during the last few days, of the regular steamers and, indeed,
of all trading ships, a circumstance that appeared to some of us rather
suspicious. But excuse me, we must act at once. Please remain on board."
The _Mindoro's_ whistle emitted three shrill screeches, while the
gunboat steamed at full speed toward Corregidor.
Parrington went into his cabin, opened his desk, and searched through it
with nervous haste. "At last!" He seized the war-signal code and ran
upstairs to the bridge, shouting to the signalman: "Signal to
Corregidor: 'War-signal code, important communication.'" Then he
himself, hastily turning over the leaves of the book, called out the
signals and had them hoisted. Then he shouted to the man at the helm:
"Tell them not to spare the engines."
Parrington stood in feverish expectation on the bridge, his hands
clinched round the hot iron bars of the breastwork and his eyes
measuring the rapidly diminishing distance between the _Mindoro_ and
the landing place of Corregidor. As the _Mindoro_ turned into the
northern passage between Corregidor and the mainland, the chain of
mountains, looking like banks of clouds, which surrounded Manila, became
visible in the far distance across the blue, apparently boundless
surface of the Bay, while the town itself, wrapped in the white mist
that veiled the horizon, remained invisible. At this moment Parrington
observed a dark cloud of smoke in the direction of the harbor of Manila
suddenly detaching itself from below and sailing upward like a fumarole
above the summit of a volcano, where it dispersed in bizarre shapes
resembling ragged balls of cotton. Almost immediately a dull report like
a distant thunderclap boomed across the water.
"Can that be another of their devilish tricks?" asked Parrington of the
German, drawing his attention to the rising cloud, the edges of which
glistened white as snow in the bright sunshine.
"Possibly," was the laconic answer.
The wharf of Corregidor was in a state of confused hubbub. The
artillerymen stood shoulder to shoulder, awaiting the arrival of the
_Mindoro_. Suddenly an officer forced his way through the crowd, and,
standing on the very edge of the wharf, called out to the rapidly
approaching _Mindoro_: "Parrington, what's all this about?"
"It's true, every word of it," roared the latter through the megaphone.
"The Japanese are attacking us, and the German steamer over there is the
first to bring us news of it. War broke out six days ago."
The _Mindoro_ stopped and threw a line, which was caught by many willing
hands and made fast to the landing place.
"Here's my witness," shouted Parrington across to Colonel Prettyman,
"the commander of the German steamer _Danzig_."
"I'll join you on board," answered Prettyman. "I've just despatched the
news to Manila by wireless. Of course they won't believe it there."
"Then you've done a very stupid thing," cried Parrington, horrified.
"Look there," he added, pointing to the cloud above the harbor of
Manila; "that has most certainly cost our friend Harryman, of the
_Monadnock_, his life. His presentiments did not deceive him after all!"
"Cost Harryman, on board the _Monadnock_, his life?" asked Prettyman in
astonishment.
"I'm afraid so," answered Parrington. "The Japanese steamer which
brought us the news of the famous seaquake has been anchored beside him
for four days. When you sent your wireless message to Manila, the
Japanese must have intercepted it, for they have a wireless apparatus on
board--I noticed it only this morning."
The _Mindoro_ now lay fast beside the wharf, and Colonel Prettyman
hurried across the gangway to the gunboat and went straight to
Parrington's cabin, where the two shut themselves up with the German
officer.
A few minutes later an excited orderly rushed on board and demanded to
see the colonel at once; he was let into the cabin, and it was found
that he had brought a confirmation of Parrington's suspicions, for a
wireless message from Manila informed them that the _Monadnock_ had been
destroyed in the roads of Manila through some inexplicable explosion.
Parrington sprang from his chair and cried to the colonel: "Won't you at
least pay those cursed Japs back by sending the message, 'We suspect
that the Japanese steamer anchored beside the _Monadnock_ has blown her
up by means of a torpedo?' Otherwise it is just possible that they will
be naïve enough in Manila to let the scoundrel get out of the harbor.
No, no," he shouted, interrupting himself, "we can't wait for that; we
must get to work ourselves at once. Colonel, you go ashore, and I'll
steam toward Manila and cut off the rogue's escape. And you"--turning to
the German--"you can return to your ship and enter the bay; there are
no"--here his voice broke--"no mines here."
Then he rushed up on the bridge again. The hawsers were cast off in
feverish haste, and the _Mindoro_ once more steamed out into the bay at
the fastest speed of which the old craft was capable. Parrington had
regained his self-command in face of the new task that the events just
described, which followed so rapidly upon one another's heels, laid out
for him. An expression of fierce joy came over his features when,
looking through his glass an hour later, he discovered the _Kanga Maru_
holding a straight course for Corregidor.
As calmly as if it were only a question of everyday maneuvers,
Parrington gave his orders. The artillerymen stood on either side of the
small guns, and everything was made ready for action.
The distance between the two ships slowly diminished.
"Yes, it is the Japanese steamer," said Parrington to himself. "And now
to avenge Harryman! There'll be no sentimentality; we'll shoot them
down like pirates! No signal, no warning--nothing, nothing!" he
murmured.
"Stand by with the forward gun," he called down from the bridge to the
men standing at the little 12 pounder on the foredeck of the _Mindoro_.
The _Mindoro_ turned a little to starboard, so as to get at the
broadside of the Japanese, and thus be able to fire on him with both the
forward and after guns.
"Five hundred yards! Aim at the engine room! Number one gun, fire!" The
shot boomed across the sunny, blue expanse of water, driving a white
puff of smoke before it. The shell disappeared in the waves about one
hundred yards ahead of the Japanese steamer. The next shot struck the
ship, leaving in her side a black hole with jagged edges just above the
waterline.
"Splendid!" cried Parrington. "Keep that up and we'll have the villain
in ten shots."
Quickly the 12 pounder was reloaded; the gunners stood quietly beside
their gun, and shot after shot was fired at the Japanese ship, of which
five or six hit her right at the waterline. The stern gun of the
_Mindoro_ devoted itself in the meantime to destroying things on the
enemy's deck. Gaping holes appeared everywhere in the ship's side, and
the funnels received several enormous rents, out of which brown smoke
poured forth. In a quarter of an hour the deck resembled the primeval
chaos, being covered with bent and broken iron rods, iron plates riddled
with shot, and woodwork torn to splinters. Suddenly clouds of white
steam burst out from all the holes in the ship's sides, from the
skylights, and from the remnants of the funnels; the deck in the middle
of the steamer rose slowly, and the exploding boilers tossed broken bits
of engines and deck apparatus high up into the air. The _Kanga Maru_
listed to port and disappeared in the waves, over which a few straggling
American shots swept.
"Cease firing!" commanded Parrington. Then the _Mindoro_ came about and
again steered straight for Manila. The act of retribution had been
accomplished; the treacherous murder of the crew of the _Monadnock_ had
been avenged.
When the _Mindoro_ arrived at the harbor of Manila, the town was in a
tremendous state of excitement. The drums were beating the alarm in the
streets. The spot where only that morning the _Monadnock_ had lain in
idle calm was empty.
* * * * *
The explosion of the _Monadnock_ had at first been regarded as an
accident. In spite of its being the dinner hour, a number of boats
appeared in the roads, all making toward the scene of the accident,
where a broad, thick veil of smoke crept slowly over the surface of the
water. As no one knew what new horrors might be hidden in this cloud,
none of the boats dared go nearer. Only two white naval cutters
belonging to the gunboats lying in the harbor glided into the mist,
driven forward by strong arms; and they actually succeeded in saving a
few of the crew.
One of the rescued men told the following story: About two minutes after
the _Monadnock_ had received a wireless message, which, however, was
never deciphered, a dull concussion was felt throughout the ship,
followed almost immediately by another one. On the starboard side of the
_Monadnock_ two white, bubbling, hissing columns of water had shot up,
which completely flooded the low deck; then a third explosion, possibly
caused by a mine striking the ammunition room and setting it off,
practically tore the ship asunder. There could be no doubt that these
torpedoes came from the Japanese steamer anchored beside the
_Monadnock_, for the _Kanga Maru_ had suddenly slipped her anchor and
hurried off as fast as she could. It was now remembered that the
Japanese ship had had steam up constantly for the last few days,
ostensibly because they were daily expecting their cargo in lighters,
from which they intended to load without delay. It was therefore pretty
certain that the _Kanga Maru_ had entered the harbor merely for the
purpose of destroying the _Monadnock_, the only monitor in Manila.
Torpedo tubes had probably been built in the Japanese merchant steamer
under water, and this made it possible to blow up the _Monadnock_ the
moment there was the least suspicion that the Americans in Manila were
aware of the fact that war had broken out. Thus the wireless message
from Corregidor had indeed sealed the fate of the _Monadnock_. The
_Kanga Maru_ had launched her torpedoes, and then tried to escape. The
meeting with the _Mindoro_ the Japanese had not reckoned with, for they
had counted on getting away during the confusion which the destruction
of the _Monadnock_ would naturally cause in Manila.
As a result of these occurrences the few ships in the roads of Manila
soon stopped loading and discharging; most of the steamers weighed
anchor, and, as soon as they could get up steam, went farther out into
the roads, for a rumor had spread that the _Kanga Maru_ had laid mines.
The report turned out to be entirely unfounded, but it succeeded in
causing a regular panic on some of the ships. From the town came the
noise of the beating of drums and the shrill call to arms to alarm the
garrison; one could see the quays being cleared by detachments of
soldiers, and sentries were posted before all the public buildings.
American troops hurried on the double-quick through the streets of the
European quarter, and the sight of the soldiers furnished the first
element of reassurance to the white population, whose excitement had
been tremendous ever since the alarm of the garrison. The old Spanish
batteries, or rather what was still left of them, were occupied by
artillerymen, while one battalion went on sentry duty on the ramparts of
the section of the town called _Intra muros_, and five other battalions
left the town at once in order to help garrison the redoubts and forts
in the line of defense on the land side.
The town of Manila and the arsenal at Cavite, where measures for defense
were also taken, thus gave no cause for apprehension; but, on the other
hand, it was noticeable that the natives showed signs of insubordination
toward the American military authorities, and that they did not attempt
to conceal the fact that they had been better informed as to the
political situation than the Americans. These were the first indications
as to how the land lay, and gradually it began to be remembered that
similar observations had been made within the last few days: for
example, a number of revolutionary flags had had to be removed in the
town.
The Americans were in a very precarious position, and at the council of
war held by the governor in the afternoon it was decided that should the
Filipinos show the slightest signs of insurrection, the whole military
strength would be concentrated to defend Manila, Cavite, and the single
railway running north, while all the other garrisons were to be
withdrawn and the rest of the archipelago left to its own devices. In
this way the Americans might at least hope, with some chance of success,
to remain masters of Manila and vicinity. The island was, of course,
proclaimed to be in a state of siege, and a strong military patrol was
put in charge of the night watch.
A serious encounter took place in the afternoon before the Government
building. As soon as it became known that proclamation of martial law
had been made the population streamed in great crowds toward the
Government buildings; and when the American flag was suddenly hauled
down--it has never been ascertained by whom--and the Catipunàn flag,
formerly the standard of the rebels--the tri-color with the sun in a
triangular field--appeared in its place, a moment of wild enthusiasm
ensued, so wild that it required an American company with fixed bayonets
to clear the square of the fanatics. The sudden appearance of this huge
Catipunàn flag seemed mysterious enough, but the next few days were to
demonstrate clearly how carefully the rebellion among the natives had
been prepared.
When the officers of the garrison assembled at the customary place on
the evening of the same day, they were depressed and uneasy, as men who
find themselves confronted by an invisible enemy. There was no longer
any difference of opinion as to the danger that threatened from the
Mongolians, and those officers who had been exonerated from the charge
of being too suspicious by the rapid developments of the last few hours
were considerate enough not to make their less far-sighted comrades feel
that they had undervalued their adversaries. No one had expected a
catastrophe to occur quite so suddenly, and the uncertainty as to what
was going on elsewhere had a paralyzing effect on all decisions. What
one could do in the way of defense had been or was being done, but there
were absolutely no indications as to the side from which the enemy might
be expected.
The chief cause for anxiety at the moment was furnished by the question
whether the squadron which had started for Mindanao was already aware of
the outbreak of war. In any case, it was necessary to warn both it and
the transports expected from San Francisco before they arrived at
Mindanao. The only ships available for this purpose were the few little
gunboats taken from the Spaniards in 1898; these had been made fit for
service in all haste to be used in the harbor when the cruiser squadron
left. Although they left much to be desired in the way of speed--a
handicap of six days could, however, hardly have been made up even by
the swiftest turbine--there was nevertheless a fair chance that these
insignificant-looking little vessels, which could hardly be
distinguished from the merchant type, might be able to slip past the
Japanese blockading ships, which were probably cruising outside of
Manila. This, however, would only be possible in case the Japanese had
thus far ignored the squadron near Mindanao as they had Manila, for the
purpose of concentrating their strength somewhere else. But where? At
any rate, it was worth while taking even such a faint chance of being
able to warn the squadron, for the destruction of the _Monadnock_ could
have had no other reason than to prevent communications between Manila
and the squadron. The enemy had evidently not given a thought to the
rickety little gunboats. Or could it be that all was already at an end
out at Mindanao? At all events, the attempt had to be made.
Two gunboats coaled and slipped out of the harbor the same evening,
heading in a southeasterly direction among the little islands straight
through the archipelago in order to reach the eastern coast of Mindanao
and there intercept the transport steamers, and eventually accompany
them to Manila. Neither of these vessels was ever heard from again; it
is supposed that they went down after bravely defending themselves
against a Japanese cruiser. Their mission had meanwhile been rendered
useless, for the five mail-steamers had encountered the Japanese
torpedo-boats east of Mindanao three days before, and upon their
indignant refusal to haul down their flags and surrender, had been sunk
by several torpedoes. Only a few members of the crew had been fished up
by the Japanese.
As a reward for his decisive action in destroying the _Kanga Maru_, the
commander of the _Mindoro_ was ordered to try, with the assistance of
three other gunboats, to locate the commander of the cruiser squadron
somewhere in the neighborhood of Mindanao, probably to the southwest of
that island, in order to notify him of the outbreak of the war and to
hand him the order to return to Manila.
The gunboats started on their voyage at dawn. In order to conceal the
real reason for the expedition from the natives, it was openly declared
that they were only going to do sentry duty at the entrance to the Bay
of Manila. Each of the four vessels had been provided with a wireless
apparatus, which, however, was not to be installed until the ships were
under way, so that the four commanders might always be in touch with one
another, and with the cruiser squadron as well, even should the latter
be some distance away.
The next morning the gunboats found themselves in the Strait of Mindoro.
They must have passed the enemy's line of blockade unnoticed, under the
cover of darkness. At all events, they had seen nothing of the Japanese,
and concluded that the blockade before Manila must be pretty slack. On
leaving the Strait of Mindoro, the gunboats, proceeding abreast at small
distances from one another, sighted a steamer--apparently an
Englishman--crossing their course. They tried to signal to it, but no
sooner did the English vessel observe this, than she began to increase
her speed. It became clear at once that she was faster than the
gunboats, and unless, therefore, the latter wished to engage in a
useless chase, the hope of receiving news from the English captain had
to be abandoned. So the gunboats continued on their course--the only
ships to be seen on the wide expanse of inland sea.
In the afternoon a white steamer, going in the opposite direction, was
sighted. Opinions clashed as to whether it was a warship or a
merchant-vessel. In order to make certain the commander of the _Mindoro_
ordered a turn to starboard, whereupon it was discovered that the
strange ship was an ocean-steamer of about three thousand tons, whose
nationality could not be distinguished at that distance. Still it might
be an auxiliary cruiser from the Japanese merchant service. The
commander of the _Mindoro_ therefore ordered his vessels to clear for
action.
The actions of the strange steamer were followed with eager attention,
and it was seen that she continued her direct northward course. When she
was about five hundred yards to port of the _Mindoro_, the latter
requested the stranger to show her flag, whereupon the English flag
appeared at the stern. Eager for battle, the Americans had hoped she
would turn out to be a Japanese ship, for which, being four against one,
they would have been more than a match; the English colors therefore
produced universal disappointment. Suddenly one of the officers of the
_Mindoro_ drew Parrington's attention to the fact that the whole build
of the strange steamer characterized her as one of the ships of the
"Nippon Yusen Kaisha" with which he had become acquainted during his
service at Shanghai; he begged Parrington not to be deceived by the
English flag. The latter at once ordered a blank shot to be fired for
the purpose of stopping the strange vessel, but when the latter calmly
continued on her course, a ball was sent after her from the bow of the
_Mindoro_, the shell splashing into the water just ahead of the steamer.
The stranger now appeared to stop, but it was only to make a sharp turn
to starboard, whereupon he tried to escape at full speed. At the same
time the English flag disappeared from the stern, and was replaced by
the red sun banner of Nippon.
Parrington at once opened fire on the hostile ship, and in a few minutes
the latter had to pay heavily for her carelessness. Her commander had
evidently reckoned upon the fact that the Americans were not yet aware
of the outbreak of war, and had hoped to pass the gunboats under cover
of a neutral flag. It also seemed unlikely that four little gunboats
should have run the blockade before Manila; it was far more natural to
suppose that these ships, still ignorant of the true state of affairs,
were bound on some expedition in connection with the rising of the
natives. The firing had scarcely lasted ten minutes before the Japanese
auxiliary cruiser, which had answered with a few shots from two light
guns cleverly concealed behind the deck-house near the stern of the
boat, sank stern first. It was at any rate a slight victory which
greatly raised the spirits of the crews of the gunboats.
Within the next few hours the Americans caught up with a few Malayan
sailing ships, to which they paid no attention; later on a little black
freight steamer, apparently on the way from Borneo to Manila, came in
sight. The little vessel worked its way heavily through the water,
tossed about by the ever increasing swell. About three o'clock the
strange ship was near enough for its flag--that of Holland--to be
recognized. Signals were made asking her to bring to, whereupon an
officer from the _Mindoro_ was pulled over to her in a gig. Half an hour
later he left the _Rotterdam_, and the latter turned and steamed away in
the direction from which she had come. The American officer had informed
the captain of the _Rotterdam_ of the blockade of Manila, and the latter
had at once abandoned the idea of touching at that port.
The news which he had to impart gave cause for considerable anxiety. The
_Rotterdam_ came from the harbor of Labuan, where pretty definite news
had been received concerning a battle between some Japanese ships and
the American cruiser squadron stationed at Mindanao. It was reported
that the battle had taken place about five days ago, immediately after
war had been declared, that the American ships had fallen a prey to the
superior forces of the enemy, and that the entire American squadron had
been destroyed.
At all events, it was quite clear that the squadron no longer needed to
be informed of the outbreak of hostilities, so Parrington decided to
carry out his orders and return to Manila with his four ships. As the
flotilla toward evening, just before sunset, was again passing through
the Strait of Mindoro, the last gunboat reported that a big white ship,
apparently a war vessel, had been sighted coming from the southeast, and
that it was heading for the flotilla at full speed. It was soon possible
to distinguish a white steamer, standing high out of the water, whose
fighting tops left no room for doubt as to its warlike character. It was
soon ascertained that the steamer was making about fifteen knots, and
that escape was therefore impossible.
Parrington ordered his gunboats to form in a line and to get up full
steam, as it was just possible that they might be able to elude the
enemy under cover of darkness, although there was still a whole hour to
that time.
Slowly the hull of the hostile ship rose above the horizon, and when she
was still at a distance of about four thousand yards there was a flash
at her bows, and the thunder of a shot boomed across the waters, echoed
faintly from the mountains of Mindoro.
"They're too far away," said Parrington, as the enemy's shell splashed
into the waves far ahead of the line of gunboats. A second shot followed
a few minutes later, and whizzed between the _Mindoro_ and her neighbor,
throwing up white sprays of water whose drops, in the rays of the
setting sun, fell back into the sea like golden mist. And now came shot
after shot, while the Americans were unable to answer with their small
guns at that great distance.
Suddenly a shell swept the whole length of the _Mindoro's_ deck, on the
port side, tearing up the planks of the foredeck as it burst. Things
were getting serious! Slowly the sun sank in the west, turning the sky
into one huge red flame, streaked with yellow lights and deep green
patches. The clouds, which looked like spots of black velvet floating
above the semicircle of the sun, had jagged edges of gleaming white and
unearthly ruby red. Fiery red, yellow, and green reflections played
tremblingly over the water, while in the east the deep blue shadows of
night slowly overspread the sky.
The whole formed a picture of rare coloring: the four little American
ships, pushing forward with all the strength of their puffing engines
and throwing up a white line of foam before them with their sharp bows;
on the bridges the weather-beaten forms of their commanders, and beside
the dull-brown gun muzzles the gun crews, waiting impatiently for the
moment when the decreasing distance would at last allow them to use
their weapons; far away in the blue shadows of the departing day, like a
spirit of the sea, the white steamer, from whose sides poured
unceasingly the yellow flashes from the mouths of the cannon. Several
shots had caused a good deal of damage among the rigging of the
gunboats. The _Callao_ had only half a funnel left, from which
gray-brown smoke and red sparks poured forth.
Suddenly there was a loud explosion, and the _Callao_ listed to port. A
six-inch shell had hit her squarely in the stern, passing through the
middle of the ship, and exploded in the upper part of the engine-room.
The little gunboat was eliminated from the contest before it could fire
a single shot, and now it lay broadside to the enemy, and utterly at the
latter's mercy. In a few minutes the _Callao_ sank, her flags waving.
Almost directly afterwards another boat shared her fate. The other two
gunboats continued on their course, the quickly descending darkness
making them a more difficult target for the enemy. Suddenly a lantern
signal informed the commander of the _Mindoro_ that the third ship had
become disabled through some damage to the engines. Parrington at once
ordered the gunboat to be run ashore on the island of Mindoro and blown
up during the night. Then he was compelled to leave the last of his
comrades to its fate. His wireless apparatus had felt disturbances,
evidently caused by the enemy's warning to the ships blockading Manila,
so that his chances of entering the harbor unmolested appeared
exceedingly slim.
The Japanese cruiser ceased firing as it grew darker, but curiously
enough had made no use whatever of her searchlights. Only the flying
sparks from her funnel enabled the _Mindoro_ to follow the course of the
hostile vessel, which soon passed the gunboat. Either the enemy thought
that all four American ships had been destroyed or else they didn't
think it worth while to worry about a disabled little gunboat. At all
events, this carelessness or mistake on the part of the enemy proved the
salvation of the _Mindoro_. During the night she struck a northwesterly
course, so as to try to gain an entrance to the Bay of Manila from the
north at daybreak, depending on the batteries of Corregidor to assist
her in the attempt. Once during the night the _Mindoro_ almost collided
with one of the enemy's blockading ships, which was traveling with
shaded lights, but she passed by unnoticed and gained an entrance at the
north of the bay at dawn, while the batteries on the high, rocky
terraces of Corregidor, with their long-range guns, kept the enemy at a
distance. It was now ascertained that the Japanese blockading fleet
consisted only of ships belonging to the merchant service, armed with a
few guns, and of the old, unprotected cruiser _Takatshio_, which had had
the encounter with the gunboats. The bold expedition of the latter had
cleared up the situation in so far that it was now pretty certain that
the entire American cruiser squadron had been destroyed or disabled, and
that Manila was therefore entirely cut off from the sea.
The batteries at Corregidor now expected an attack from the enemy's
ships, but none came. The Japanese contented themselves with an
extraordinarily slack blockade--so much so that at times one could
scarcely distinguish the outlines of the ships on the horizon. As all
commerce had stopped and only a few gunboats comprised the entire naval
strength of Manila, Japan could well afford to regard this mockery of a
blockade as perfectly sufficient. Day by day the Americans stood at
their guns, day by day they expected the appearance of a hostile ship;
but the horizon remained undisturbed and an uncanny silence lay over the
town and harbor. Of what use were the best of guns, and what was the
good of possessing heroic courage and a burning desire for battle, if
the enemy did not put in an appearance? And he never did.
When Parrington appeared at the Club on the evening after his scouting
expedition he was hailed as a hero, and the officers stayed together a
long time discussing the naval engagement. In the early hours of the
morning he accompanied his friend, Colonel Hawkins of the Twelfth
Infantry Regiment, through the quiet streets of the northern suburbs of
Manila to the latter's barracks. As they reached the gate they saw,
standing before it in the pale light of dawn, a mule cart, on which lay
an enormous barrel. The colonel called the sentry, and learned that the
cart had been standing before the gate since the preceding evening. The
colonel went into the guard-room while Parrington remained in the
street. He was suddenly struck by a label affixed to the cask, which
contained the words, "From Colonel Pemberton to his friend Colonel
Hawkins." Parrington followed the colonel into the guard-room and drew
his attention to the scrap of paper. Hawkins ordered some soldiers to
take the barrel down from the car and break open one end of it. The
colonel had strong nerves, and was apt to boast of them to the novices
in the colonial service, but what he saw now was too much even for such
an old veteran. He stepped back and seized the wall for support, while
his eyes grew moist.
In the cask lay the corpse of his friend Colonel Pemberton, formerly
commander of the military station of San José, with his skull smashed
in. The Filipinos had surprised the station of San José and slaughtered
the whole garrison after a short battle. Pemberton's corpse--his love
for whisky was well known--they had put into a cask and driven to the
infantry barracks at Manila. Parrington, deeply touched, pressed his
comrade's hand. The insurrection of the Filipinos! In Manila the bells
of the Dominican church of _Intra muros_ rang out their monotonous call
to early mass.
_Chapter II_
ON THE HIGH SEAS
The _Tacoma_ was expected to arrive at Yokohama early the next morning;
the gong had already sounded, calling the passengers to the farewell
meal in the dining-saloon, which looked quite festive with its colored
flags and lanterns.
There was a deafening noise of voices in the handsome room, which was
beginning to be overpoweringly hot in spite of the ever-revolving
electric fans. As the sea was quite smooth, there was scarcely an empty
place at the tables. A spirit of parting and farewell pervaded the
conversation; the passengers were assembled for the last time, for on
the morrow the merry party, which chance had brought together for two
weeks, would be scattered to the four winds. Naturally the conversation
turned upon the country whose celebrated wonders they were to behold on
the following day. The old globe-trotters and several merchants who had
settled in East Asia were besieged with questions, occasionally very
naïve ones, about Japan and the best way for foreigners to get along
there. With calm superiority they paraded their knowledge, and eager
ladies made note on the backs of their menus of all the hotels, temples,
and mountains recommended to them. Some groups were making arrangements
for joint excursions in the Island Kingdom of Tenno; others discussed
questions of finance and commerce, each one trying to impress his
companions by a display of superior knowledge.
Here and there politics formed the subject of conversation; one lady in
particular, the wife of a Baltimore merchant, sitting opposite the
secretary of a small European legation who was on his way to Pekin to
take up his duties there, plied him with questions and did her level
best to get at the secrets of international politics. The secretary, who
had no wonderful secrets to disclose, had recourse to the ordinary
political topics of the day, and entertained his fair listener with a
discussion of the problems that would arise in case of hostilities
between America and Japan. "Of course," he declared, vaunting his
diplomatic knowledge, "in case of war the Japanese would first surprise
Manila and try to effect a landing, and in this they would very likely
be successful. It is true that Manila with her strong defenses is pretty
well protected against a sudden raid, and the Japanese gunners would
have no easy task in an encounter with the American coast batteries.
Even though Manila may not turn out to be a second Port Arthur, the
Americans should experience no difficulty in repelling all Japanese
attacks for at least six months; meanwhile America could send
reinforcements to Manila under the protection of her fleet, and then
there would probably be a decisive battle somewhere in the Malayan
archipelago between the Japanese and American fleets, the results of
which----"
"I thought," interrupted a wealthy young lady from Chicago, "I thought
we had some ships in the Philippines." The diplomat waved his hand
deprecatingly, and smiled knowingly at this interruption. He was master
of the situation and well qualified to cast the horoscope of the
future--and so he was left in possession of the field.
The lady opposite him was, however, not yet satisfied; with the new
wisdom just obtained she now besieged the German major sitting beside
her, who was on his way to Kiao-chau via San Francisco. He had not been
paying much attention to the conversation, but the subject broached to
him for discussion was such a familiar one, that he was at once posted
when his neighbor asked him his opinion as to the outcome of such a war.
Nevertheless it was an awkward question, and the German, out of
consideration for his environment on board the American steamer, did not
allow himself to be drawn out of his usual reserve. He simply inquired
what basis they had for the supposition that, in case of war, Japan
would occupy herself exclusively with the Philippines.
The secretary of legation had gradually descended from the clouds of
diplomatic self-conceit to the level of the ordinary mortal and,
overhearing the major's question through the confusion of voices and
clatter of plates, shook his head disapprovingly and asked the major:
"Don't you think it's likely that Japan will try first of all to get
possession of the prize she has been longing for ever since the Peace of
Paris?"
"I know as little as anyone else not in diplomatic circles what the
plans and hopes of the Japanese Government are, but I do think there is
not the slightest prospect of an outbreak of hostilities in the near
future; there is, accordingly, not much sense in trying to imagine what
might happen in case of a war," answered the German coolly.
"There are only two possibilities," said the English merchant from
Shanghai, one of the chief stockholders of the line, who sat next to the
captain. "According to my experience"--and here he paused in order to
draw the attention of his listeners to this experience--"according to my
experience," he repeated, "there are only two possibilities. Japan is
overpeopled and is compelled to send her surplus population out of the
country. The Manchuria experiment turned cut to be a failure, for the
teeming Chinese population leaves no room now for more Japanese
emigrants and small tradesmen than there were before the war with
Russia; besides, there was no capital at hand for large enterprises.
Japan requires a strong foothold for her emigrants where"--and here he
threw an encouraging glance at the captain--"she can keep her people
together economically and politically, as in Hawaii. The emigration to
the States has for years been severely restricted by law."
"And at the same time they are pouring into our country in droves by way
of the Mexican frontier," mumbled the American colonel, who was on his
way back to his post, from his seat beside the captain.
"That leaves only the islands of the Pacific, the Philippines, and
perhaps Australia," continued the Shanghai merchant undisturbed. "In any
such endeavors Japan would of course have to reckon with the States and
with England. The other possibility, that of providing employment and
support for the ever-increasing population within the borders of their
own country, would be to organize large Japanese manufacturing
interests. Many efforts have already been made in this direction, but,
owing to the enormous sums swallowed up by the army and navy, the
requisite capital seems to be lacking."
"In my opinion," interposed the captain at this juncture, "there is a
third possibility--namely, to render additional land available for the
cultivation of crops. As you are all no doubt aware, not more than one
third of Japan is under cultivation; the second third, consisting of
stone deserts among the mountains, must of necessity be excluded, but
the remaining third, properly cultivated, would provide a livelihood
for millions of Japanese peasants. But right here we encounter a
peculiar Japanese trait; they are dead set on the growth of rice, and
where, in the higher districts, no rice will grow, they refuse to engage
in agriculture altogether and prefer to leave the land idle. If they
would grow wheat, corn, and grass in such sections, Japan would not only
become independent of other countries with respect to her importation of
provisions, but, as I said before, it would also provide for the
settlement of millions of Japanese peasants; and, furthermore, we should
then get some decent bread to eat in Japan."
This conception of the Japanese problem seemed to open new vistas to the
secretary of legation. He listened attentively to the captain's words
and threw inquiring glances toward the Shanghai merchant. The latter,
however, was completely absorbed in the dissection of a fish, whose
numerous bones continually presented fresh anatomical riddles. In his
stead the thread of the conversation was taken up by Dr. Morris, of
Brighton, an unusually cadaverous-looking individual, who sometimes
maintained absolute silence for days at a time, and who was supposed to
possess Japanese bronzes of untold value and to be on his way to
Hokkaido to complete his collection.
"You must not believe everything you see in the papers," he said. "If
the Japanese were only better farmers, nobody in Japan need go hungry;
there is no question of her being overpeopled, and this mania for
emigration is nothing but a disease, a fashion, of which the government
at Tokio, to be sure, makes very good use for political purposes.
Whoever speaks in all seriousness of Japan's being overpeopled is merely
quoting newspaper editorials, and is not acquainted with the conditions
of the country."
Dr. Morris had scarcely said as much as this during the whole of his
two weeks' stay on board the _Tacoma_. It is true that he had got to
know Japan very thoroughly during his many years' sojourn in the
interior in search of old bronzes, and he knew what he was talking
about. His views, however, were not in accord with those current at the
moment, and consequently, although his words were listened to
attentively, they did not produce much effect.
The conversation continued along the same lines, and the possibility of
a war again came up for discussion. The German officer was the only one
to whom they could put military questions, and it was no light task for
him to find satisfactory answers. He could only repeat again and again
that such a war would offer such endless possibilities of attack and
defense, that it was absolutely impossible to forecast the probable
course of events. The Shanghai merchant conversed with the captain in a
low tone of voice about the system of Japanese spies in America, and
related a few anecdotes of his experiences in China in this connection.
"But one can distinguish between a Jap and a Chinaman at a glance,"
interrupted the son of a New York multi-millionaire sitting opposite
him. "I could never understand why the Japanese spies are so overrated."
"If you can tell one from the other, you are more observant than the
ordinary mortal," remarked the Englishman dryly. "I can't for one, and
if you'll look me up in Shanghai, I'll give myself the pleasure of
putting you to the test. I'll invite a party of Chinamen and ask you to
pick out from among them a Japanese naval officer who has been in
Shanghai for a year and a half on a secret, I had better say, a
perfectly open mission."
"You'll lose your bet," said the captain to the New Yorker, "for I've
lost a similar wager under the same circumstances."
"But the Japanese don't wear pigtails," said the New Yorker, somewhat
abashed.
"Those Japanese do wear pigtails," said the Englishman with a grin.
"What's up?" said the captain, looking involuntarily towards the
entrance to the dining-saloon. "What's up? We're only going at half
speed."
The dull throbbing of the engine had indeed stopped, and any one who
noticed the vibration of the ship could tell that the propeller was
revolving only slightly.
The captain got up quietly to go on deck, but as he was making his way
out between the long rows of chairs, he met one of the crew, who
whispered to him that the first mate begged him to come on the bridge.
"We're not moving," said some one near the center of the table. "We
can't have arrived this soon."
"Perhaps we have met a disabled ship," said a young French girl; "that
would be awfully interesting."
The captain remained away, while the dinner continued to be served.
Suddenly all conversation was stopped by the dull howl of the steam
whistle, and when two more calls followed the first, an old globe
trotter thought he had discovered the reason for the ship's slowing
down, and declared with certainty: "This is the third time on my way to
Japan that we have run into a fog just before entering the harbor; the
last time it made us a day and a half late. I tell you it was no joke to
sit in that gray mist with nothing to do but wait for the fog to
lift----" and then he narrated a few anecdotes about that particular
voyage, which at once introduced the subject of fog at his table, a
subject that was greedily pounced upon by all. London fog and other fogs
were discussed, and no one noticed that the ship had come to a full stop
and was gradually beginning to pitch heavily, a motion that soon had
the effect of causing several of the ladies to abandon the conversation
and play nervously with their coffee-spoons, as the nightmare of
seasickness forced itself every moment more disagreeably on their
memories.
A few of the men got up and went on deck. A merchant from San Francisco
came down and told his wife that a strange ship not far from the
_Tacoma_ had its searchlights turned on her. No reason for this
extraordinary proceeding could be given, as the officers seemed to know
as little about it as the passengers.
The fourth officer, whose place was at the head of one of the long
tables, now appeared in the dining-saloon, and was at once besieged with
questions from all sides. In a loud voice he announced that the captain
wished him to say that there was no cause for alarm. A strange ship had
its searchlights turned on the _Tacoma_, probably a man-of-war that had
some communication to make. The captain begged the passengers not to
allow themselves to be disturbed in their dinner. The next course was
served immediately afterwards, the reason for the interruption was soon
forgotten, and conversation continued as before.
"But we're not moving yet," said a young woman about ten minutes later
to her husband, with whom she was taking a honeymoon trip round the
world, "we're not moving yet."
The fourth officer gave an evasive answer in order to reassure his
neighbor, but, as a matter of fact, the ship had not yet got under way
again. To complicate the situation, another member of the crew came in
at this moment and whispered something to the officer, who at once
hurried on deck.
It was a positive relief to him to escape from the smell of food and the
loud voices into the fresh air. It seemed like another world on deck.
The stars twinkled in the silent sky, and the soft night air refreshed
the nerves that had been exhausted by the heat of the day. The fourth
officer mounted quickly to the bridge and reported to the captain.
The latter gave him the following brief order: "Mr. Warren, I shall ask
you to see that the passengers are not unnecessarily alarmed; let the
band play a few pieces, and see that the dinner proceeds quietly. Make a
short speech in my stead, tell the passengers what a pleasant time we
have all had on this voyage, and say a few words of farewell to them for
me. We've been signaled by a Japanese warship," he continued, "and asked
to stop and wait for a Japanese boat. I haven't the slightest idea what
the fellows want, but we must obey orders; the matter will no doubt be
settled in a few minutes as soon as the boat has arrived."
The officer disappeared, and the captain, standing by the port yardarm
on the bridge, waited anxiously for the cutter which was approaching at
full speed. The gangway had already been lowered. The cutter, after
describing a sharp curve, came alongside, and two marines armed with
rifles immediately jumped on the gangway.
"Halloo," said the captain, "a double guard! I wonder what that means?"
The Japanese officer got out of the cutter and came up the gangway,
followed by four more soldiers, two of whom were posted at the upper
entrance to the gangway. The other two followed the officer to the
bridge. A seventh man got out of the boat and carried a square box on
the bridge, while finally two soldiers brought a long heavy object up
the gangway and set it down against the wall of the cabin in the stern.
The Japanese officer ordered the two marines to take up their stand at
the foot of the steps leading to the bridge, and with a wave of his hand
ordered the third to station himself with his square box at the port
railing. At the same time he gave him an order in Japanese, and the
rattling noise which followed made it clear that the apparatus was a
lantern which was signaling across to the man-of-war.
"This is carrying the joke a little too far. What does it all mean?"
cried the captain of the _Tacoma_, starting to pull the man with the
lantern back from the railing. But the Japanese officer laid his hand
firmly on his right arm and said in a decisive tone: "Captain, in the
name of the Japanese Government I declare the American steamer _Tacoma_
a lawful prize and her whole crew prisoners of war."
The captain shook off the grasp of the Japanese, and stepping back a
pace shouted: "You must be crazy; we have nothing to do with the
Japanese naval maneuvers, and I shall have to ask you not to carry your
maneuver game too far. If you must have naval maneuvers, please practice
on your own merchant vessels and leave neutral ships alone."
The Japanese saluted and said: "I am very sorry, captain, to have to
correct your impression that this is part of our maneuvers. Japan is at
war with the United States of America, and every merchantman flying the
American flag is from now on a lawful prize."
The captain, a strapping fellow, seized the little Japanese, and pushed
him toward the railing, evidently with the intention of throwing the
impertinent fellow overboard. But in the same instant he noticed two
Japanese rifles pointed at him, whereupon he let his arms drop with an
oath and stared at the two Japanese marines in utter astonishment. The
lantern signal continued to rattle behind him, and suddenly the pale
blue searchlight from the man-of-war was thrown on the bridge of the
_Tacoma_, lighting up the strange scene as if by moonlight. At the same
time the shot from a gun boomed across the quiet surface of the water.
Things really seemed to be getting serious.
From below, through the open skylights of the dining-saloon came the
cheers of the passengers for the captain at the close of the fourth
officer's speech, and the band at once struck up the "Star Spangled
Banner." Everybody seemed to be cheerful and happy in the dining-saloon,
and one and all seemed to have forgotten that the _Tacoma_ was not
moving.
And while from below the inspiring strains of the "Star Spangled Banner"
passed out into the night, twenty Japanese marines came alongside in a
second cutter and, climbing up the gangway, occupied all the entrances
leading from below to the deck--a double guard with loaded guns being
stationed at each door.
"I must ask you," said the Japanese officer to the captain, "to continue
to direct the ship's course under my supervision. You will take the
_Tacoma_, according to your original plans, into the harbor of Yokohama;
there the passengers will leave the ship, without any explanations being
offered, and you and the crew will be prisoners of the Japanese
Government. The prize-court will decide what is to be done with your
cargo. The baggage of the passengers, the captain, and the crew will, of
course, remain in their possession. There are now twenty of our marines
on board the _Tacoma_, but in case you should imagine that they would be
unable to command the situation in the event of any resistance being
offered by you or your crew, I consider it advisable to inform you that
for the last ten minutes there has been a powerful bomb in the stern of
the _Tacoma_, guarded by two men, who have orders to turn on the current
and blow up your ship at the first signs of serious resistance. It is
entirely to the advantage of the passengers in your care to bow to the
inevitable and avoid all insubordination--_à la guerre comme à la
guerre_."
The Japanese saluted and continued: "You will remain in command on the
bridge for the next four hours, when you will be relieved by the first
mate. Meanwhile the latter can acquaint the passengers with the altered
circumstances." And, waving his hand toward the first mate, who had
listened in silent rage, he added: "Please, sir!"
The officer addressed looked inquiringly across to the captain, who
hesitated a moment and then said in suppressed emotion: "Hardy, go down
and tell the passengers that the _Tacoma_, through an unheard-of,
treacherous surprise, has fallen into the hands of a Japanese cruiser,
but that the passengers, on whose account we are obliged to submit to
this treatment, need not be startled, for they and all their possessions
will be landed safely at Yokohama to-morrow morning."
Hardy's soles seemed positively to stick to the steps as he went down,
and he was almost overcome by the warm air at the entrance to the
dining-saloon, where the noise of boisterous laughter and lively
conversation greeted him.
"Halloo, when are we going on?" he was asked from all sides.
Mr. Hardy shook his head silently and went to the captain's place.
"We must drink your health," called several, holding their glasses
towards him. "Where's the captain?"
Hardy was silent, but remained standing and the words seemed to choke
him.
"Be quiet! Listen! Mr. Hardy is going to speak----"
"It's high time we heard something from the captain," called out a stout
German brewer from Milwaukee over the heads of the others. "Three
cheers for Mr. Hardy!" came from one corner of the room. "Three cheers
for Mr. Hardy!" shouted the passengers on the other side, and all joined
in the chorus: "For he is a jolly good fellow." "Do let Mr. Hardy
speak," said the Secretary of Legation, turning to the passengers
reprovingly.
"Silence!" came from the other side. The hum of voices ceased gradually
and silence ensued.
"First give Mr. Hardy something to drink!" said some one, while another
passenger laughed out loud.
Hardy wiped the perspiration from his brow with the captain's napkin,
which the latter had left on his plate.
"Shocking!" said an English lady quite distinctly; "seamen haven't any
manners."
Hardy had not yet found words, but finally began in a low, stammering
voice: "The captain wishes me to tell you that the _Tacoma_ has just
been captured by a Japanese cruiser. The United States of America are
said to be at war with Japan. There is a Japanese guard on board, which
has occupied all the companionways. The captain requests the passengers
to submit quietly to the inevitable. You will all be landed safely at
Yokohama early to-morrow and--" Hardy tried to continue, but the words
would not come and he sank back exhausted into his chair.
"Three cheers for the captain!" came the ringing shout from one of the
end tables, to be repeated in different parts of the room. The German
brewer shook with laughter and exclaimed: "That's a splendid joke of the
captain's; he ought to have a medal for it."
"Stop your nonsense," said some one to the brewer.
"No, but really, that's a famous joke," persisted the latter. "I've
never enjoyed myself so much on a trip before."
"Be quiet, man; it's a serious matter."
"Ha! ha! You've been taken in, too, have you?" was the answer,
accompanied by a roar of laughter.
An American jumped up, crying: "I'm going to get my revolver; I guess we
can handle those chaps," and several others joined in with "Yes, yes,
we'll get our revolvers and chuck the yellow monkeys overboard!"
At this point the German major jumped up from his seat and called out to
the excited company in a sharp tone of command: "Really, gentlemen, the
affair is serious; it's not a joke, as some of you gentlemen seem to
think; you may take my word for it that it is no laughing matter."
Hardy still sat silent in his chair. The Englishman from Shanghai
overwhelmed him with questions and even the Secretary of Legation
emerged from his diplomatic reserve.
The six men who had gone to get their revolvers now returned to the
dining-saloon with their spirits considerably damped, and one of them
called out: "It's not a joke at all; the Japanese are stationed up there
with loaded rifles."
Some of the ladies screamed hysterically and asked complete strangers to
take them to their cabins. All of the passengers had jumped up from
their chairs, and a number were busily engaged looking after those
ladies who had shown sufficient discretion to withdraw at once from the
general excitement by the simple expedient of fainting. In the meantime
Hardy had regained control of himself and of the situation, and standing
behind his chair as though he were on the captain's bridge declared
simply and decisively: "On the captain's behalf I must beg the
passengers not to attempt any resistance. Your life and safety are
guaranteed by the word of the captain and the bearing of our crew, who
have also been forced to submit to the inevitable. I beg you all to
remain here and to await the further orders of the captain. There is no
danger so long as no resistance is offered; we are in the hands of the
Japanese navy, and must accustom ourselves to the altered
circumstances."
It was long after midnight before all grew quiet on board the _Tacoma_;
the passengers were busy packing their trunks, and it was quite late
before the cabin lights were extinguished on both sides of the ship,
which continued her voyage quietly and majestically in the direction of
Yokohama. The deck, generally a scene of cheerful life and gaiety until
a late hour, was empty, and only the subdued steps of the Japanese
marines echoed through the still night.
Twice more the searchlights were thrown on the _Tacoma_, but a
clattering answer from the signal lantern at once conveyed the
information that all was in order, whereupon the glaring ball of light
disappeared silently, and there was nothing on the whole expanse of dark
water to indicate that invisible eyes were on the lookout for every ship
whose keel was ploughing the deep.
The _Tacoma_ arrived at Yokohama the next morning, the passengers were
sent ashore, and the steamer herself was added as an auxiliary cruiser
to the Japanese fleet.
_Chapter III_
HOW IT BEGAN
Ding-ding-ding-ding--Ding-ding-ding-ding--went the bell of the railway
telegraph--Ding-ding-ding-ding----
Tom Gardner looked up from his work and leaned his ax against the wall
of the low tin-roofed shanty which represented both his home and the
station Swallowtown on the Oregon Railway. "Nine o'clock already," he
mumbled, and refilling his pipe from a greasy paper-bag, he lighted it
and puffed out clouds of bluish smoke into the clear air of the hot May
morning. Then he looked at the position of the sun and verified the fact
that his nickel watch had stopped again. The shaky little house hung
like a chance knot in an endless wire in the middle of the glittering
double row of rails that stretched from east to west across the flowery
prairie. It looked like a ridiculous freak in the midst of the wide
desert, for nowhere, so far as the eye could reach, was it possible to
discover a plausible excuse for the washed-out inscription "Swallowtown"
on the old box-lid which was nailed up over the door. Only a broad band
of golden-yellow flowers crossing the tracks not far from the shanty and
disappearing in the distance in both directions showed where heavy
cart-wheels and horses' hoofs had torn up the ground.
By following this curious yellow track, which testified to the existence
of human intercourse even in the great lonely prairie, in a southerly
direction, one could notice about a mile from the station a slight
rising of the ground covered with low shrubs and a tangled mass of
thistles and creepers: This was Swallowtown No. 1, the spot where once
upon a time a dozen people or more, thrown together by chance, had
founded a homestead, but whose traces had been utterly obliterated
since. The little waves of the great national migration to this virgin
soil had after a few years washed everything away and had carried the
inhabitants of the huts with them on their backs several miles farther
south, where by another mere chance they had located on the banks of the
river. The only permanent sign of this ebb and flow was the tin-roofed
shanty near the tracks of the Oregon Railway, and the proud name of
Swallowtown, fast disappearing under the ravages of storm and rain, on
the box-lid over Tom Gardner's door.
Tom Gardner regarded his morning's work complacently. With the aid of
his ax he had transformed the tree-stump that had lain behind the
station for years into a hitching-post, which he was going to set up for
the farmers, so that they could tie their horses to it when they came to
the station. Tom had had enough of fastening the iron ring into the
outer wall of his shanty, for it had been torn out four times by the
shying of the wild horses harnessed to the vehicles sent from
Swallowtown to meet passengers. And the day before yesterday Bob
Cratchit's horses had added insult to injury by running off with a board
out of the back wall. Tom was sick and tired of it; the day before he
had temporarily stopped up the hole with a tin advertisement, which
notified the inhabitants of Swallowtown who wanted to take the train
that Millner's pills were the best remedy for indigestion. Tom decided
to set up his post at midday.
He stopped work for the present in order to be ready for station-duty
when the express from Pendleton passed through in half an hour. From
force of habit and half unconsciously, he glanced along the yellow road
running south, wondering whether in spite of its being Sunday there
might not be some traveler from Swallowtown coming to catch the local
train which stopped at the station an hour later. He shaded his eyes
with his right hand and after a careful search did discover a cart with
two persons in it approaching slowly over the waving expanse of the
flower-bedecked prairie. Tom muttered something to himself and traipsed
through the station house, being joined as usual by his dog, who had
been sleeping outside in the sun. Then he walked a little way along the
tracks and finally turned back to his dwelling, the trampled-down
flowers and grass before the entrance being the only signs that the foot
of man ever disturbed its solitary peace. The dog now seemed suddenly to
become aware of the rapidly approaching cart and barked in that
direction. Tom sent him into the house and shut the door behind him,
whereupon the dog grew frantic. The cart approached almost noiselessly
over the flowery carpet, but soon the creaking and squeaking of the
leather harness and the snorting of the horses became clearly audible.
"Halloo, Tom!" called out one of the men.
"Halloo, Winston!" was the answer; "where are you off to?"
"Going over to Pendleton."
"You're early; the express hasn't passed yet," answered Tom.
Winston jumped down from the cart, swung a sack over his shoulder, and
stepped toward the shanty.
"Who's that with you?" asked Tom, pointing with his thumb over his right
shoulder.
"Nelly's brother-in-law, Bill Parker," said the other shortly.
Nelly's brother-in-law was in the act of turning the cart round to drive
back to Swallowtown when Tom, making a megaphone of his hands, shouted
across: "Won't the gentleman do me the honor of having a drink on me?"
"All right," rang out the answer, and Nelly's brother-in-law drove the
horses to the rear of the station.
"Yes, the ring's gone," said Tom. "Bob Cratchit's horses walked off with
it yesterday. You can hunt for it out there somewhere if you want to."
Bill jumped down and fastened the horses with a rope which he tied to
Tom's old tree-stump.
"Come on, fellows!" said Tom, going toward the house. Scarcely had he
opened the door when his dog rushed madly past him out into the open,
barking with all his might at something about a hundred yards behind the
station.
"I guess he's found a gopher," said Tom, and then the three entered the
hut, and Tom, taking a half-empty whisky bottle out of a cupboard,
poured some into a cup without a handle, a shaving-cup, and an old tin
cup.
"The express ought to pass in about ten minutes," said Tom, and then
began the usual chat about the commonplaces of farm life, about the
crops, and the price of cattle, while hunting anecdotes followed. Now
and then Tom listened through the open door for sounds of the express,
which was long overdue, till suddenly the back door was slammed shut by
the wind.
It was Bill Parker's turn to treat, and he then told of how he had sold
his foals at a good profit, and Bob launched out into all sorts of vague
hints as to a big deal that he expected to pull off at Pendleton the
next day. Bill kept an eye on his two horses, which he could just see
through the window in the rear wall of the shanty.
"Don't let them run away from you," warned Tom; "horses as fresh as
those generally skip off when the express passes by."
"Nothing like that!" said Bill Parker, glancing again through the open
window, "but they are unusually restless just the same."
... "He was willing to give twenty dollars, was he?" asked Tom, resuming
the former conversation.
But Bill gave no answer and continued to stare out of the window.
"Here's how, gentlemen!" cried Tom encouragingly, touching Bill's tin
cup with his shaving-cup.
"Excuse me a minute," answered the latter; "I want to look after my--"
He had got up and was moving toward the door, but stopped halfway,
staring fixedly at the open window with a glassy expression in his eyes.
The other two regarded him with unfeigned astonishment, but when they
followed the direction of his glance, they also started with fright as
they looked through the window.
Yes, it was the same window as before, and beyond it stood the same team
of stamping, snorting horses before the same cart; but on the ledge of
the window there rested two objects like black, bristling hedgehogs, and
under their prickly skins glistened two pairs of hostile eyes, and
slowly and cautiously two gun-barrels were pushed over the ledge of the
window into the room. At the same moment the door-knob moved, the door
was pushed open, and in the blinding sunlight which suddenly poured into
the room appeared two more men in khaki clothes and also armed with
guns. "Hands up, gentlemen!" cried one of them threateningly.
The three obeyed the order mechanically, Tom unconsciously holding up
his shaving-cup as well, so that the good whisky flowed down his arm
into his coat. He looked utterly foolish. Bill was the first to
recover, and inquired with apparent nonchalance: "What are you gentlemen
after?" In the meantime he had noticed that the two men at the door wore
soldiers' caps with broad peaks, and he construed this as a new holdup
trick.
The men outside were conversing in an unintelligible lingo, and their
leader, who was armed only with a Browning pistol, looked into the hut
and asked: "Which of you gentlemen is the station-master?" Tom lowered
his shaving-cup and took a step forward, whereupon he was at once halted
by the sharp command: "Hands up!"
But this one step toward the door had enabled Tom to see that there were
at least a dozen of these brown fellows standing behind the wall of his
shanty. At the same time he saw his dog slinking about outside with his
tail between his legs and choking over something. He called the dog, and
the poor creature crept along the ground toward him, evidently making
vain attempts to bark.
"The damned gang," growled Tom to himself; "they have evidently given
the poor beast something to eat which prevents his barking."
The man with the Browning pistol now turned to Tom and said: "Has the
express passed yet?"
"No."
"No? I thought it was due at 9.30." The highwayman looked at his watch.
"Past ten already," he said to himself. "And when is the local train
from Umatilla expected?"
"It ought to be here at 10.30."
"The express goes through without stopping, doesn't it?" began the other
again. "Good! Now you go out as if nothing had happened and let the
express pass! The other two will remain here in the meantime and my men
will see that they don't stir. One move and you can arrange your funeral
for to-morrow."
The two bristly-headed chaps at the window remained motionless, and
followed the proceedings with a broad grin. The two men from Swallowtown
were compelled to stand with uplifted hands against the wall opposite
the window, so that the gun-barrels on the window-sill were pointing
straight at them. Winston had had sufficient time to study the two
highwaymen at the window and it gradually dawned upon him what sort of
robbers they were; in a low tone of voice he said to Tom: "They're
Japs."
The man with the Browning overheard the remark; he turned around quickly
and repeated in a determined voice: "If you move you'll die on the
spot."
Then he allowed Tom to leave the station, and showed him how two of his
men opened the shutters of the windows that looked out on the tracks and
cut two oblong holes in them down on the side, through which they stuck
the barrels of their guns. Then Bill's cart was pushed forward, so that
only the horses were hidden by the station. One of the men held the
horses to prevent their running away when the train came, and two armed
men climbed into the cart and kneeled ready to shoot, concealing
themselves from the railroad side behind two large bags of corn.
Thereupon the leader told Tom once more that he was to stand in front of
the station as usual when the train approached. If he attempted to make
any sign which might cause the train to stop, or if he merely opened his
mouth, not only he, but also the occupants of the train, would have to
pay for it with their lives.
Ding--ding--ding--ding went the railway telegraph,
ding--ding--ding--ding. The man with the Browning consulted his
note-book and asked Tom: "What signal is that? Where is the express
now?"
Tom did not answer.
"Go out on the platform!" commanded the other. With a hasty glance along
the tracks, Tom assured himself that the spot back there, where the two
tracks, which glittered like silver in the sun, crossed, was still
empty. So there was still a little more time to think. Then he began to
stroll slowly up and down. Fifteen steps forward, fifteen back, eighteen
forward, twenty back. Suppose he ran to meet the train----
"Halloo! Where are you going?" shouted the leader to him. "Don't you
dare go five steps beyond the station house!"
Fifteen steps forward, fifteen back. And suppose now that he did jump
across and run along the tracks? What would it matter--he, one among
millions, without wife or child? Yes, he would warn the engineer; and if
they shot at him, perhaps the people on the train also had revolvers.
The express must come soon--it must be nearly half past ten.
Mechanically, he read the name Swallowtown on the old box-lid.
Not a sound from the interior of the station. Would they hit him or miss
him when the train came? He examined the rickety old shutters. Yes,
there was a white incision in the wood near the bottom, and above it the
tin was bent back almost imperceptibly, while below it there was a
small, blackish-brown ring. On the other side there was another little
hole, and here the tin was bent back rather more, showing a second
small, blackish-brown ring. And suppose he did call out as the train
rushed by? He would call out!--A burst of flame from the two
blackish-brown rings--If he could only first explain everything to the
engineer--then they could shoot all they wanted to.
Horrid to be wounded in the back! Long ago at school there had often
been talk about wounds in the back and in the chest--the former were
disgraceful, because they were a sign of running away. But this was not
running away--this was an effort to save others.
Were the rails vibrating? Four steps more, then a quiet turn, one look
into the air, one far away over the prairie. He knew that the eyes
behind the dark-brown rings were following his every movement. Now along
the tracks--is there anything coming way back there? No, not yet. He
walked past the station, then along the tracks again, and looked to the
left across the prairie.
Now his glance rested on the cart. It stood perfectly still. Sure
enough, there, between the sacks, was another one of those bristly
heads! Where on earth had the fellows come from, and what in the world
did they want? Winston had said they were Japs.
Could this be war? Nonsense! How could the fellows have come so far
across country? A short time ago some one had said that a troop of Japs
had been seen far away, down in Nevada, but that they had all
disappeared in the mountains. That was two months ago. Could these be
the same?
But it couldn't be a war. War begins at the borders of a country, not
right in the middle. It is true that the Japanese immigrants were all
said to be drilled soldiers. Had they brought arms along? These
certainly had!
Now the turn again. Ah! there was the train at last. Far away along the
tracks a black square rose and quite slowly became wider and higher.
Good God! if the next ten minutes were only over--if one could only wipe
such a span as this out of one's life! Only ten minutes older! If one
could only look back on those ten minutes from the other side! But no;
one must go through the horror, second by second, taste every moment of
it. What would happen to the two inside? This didn't matter much after
all--they couldn't, in any case, overpower the others without weapons. A
thousand yards more perhaps and then the train would be there! And then
a thousand yards more, and he would either be nothing but an unconscious
mass of flesh and bones, or----
Now the rails were reverberating--from far away he heard the rumble of
the approaching mass of iron and steel. And now, very low but distinct,
the ringing of the bell could be distinguished--gang, gang, gang, gang,
gang, gang-- He threw a hasty glance at the two blackish-brown rings;
four steps further and he could again see the cart. The next time----
"Stand straight in front of the station and let the train pass!" sounded
close behind him. He obeyed mechanically.
"Nearer to the house--right against the wall!" He obeyed.
All his muscles tightened. If he could now take a leap forward and
manage to get hold of something--a railing or something--as the train
rushed by, then they could shoot as much as they liked. A rumbling and
roaring noise reached his ears, and he could hear the increasing thunder
of the wheels on the rails, the noise of the bell--gang, gang,
gang--growing more and more distinct. The engine, with its long row of
clattering cars behind, assumed gigantic dimensions before his wide-open
eyes.
Not a sound came from the house; now the rails trembled; now he heard
the hissing of the steam and the rattle of the rods; he saw the little
curls of steam playing above the dome of the boiler. Like a black wall,
the express came nearer, rushing, rumbling, hammering along the tracks.
Yes, he would jump now--now that the engine was almost in front of him!
The rush of air almost took his breath away. Now!
The engineer popped his head out of the little cab-window. Now! Tom bent
double, and, with one tremendous leap he was across the narrow platform
in front of his shanty, and flew like a ball against the line of rushing
cars, of railings and steps and wheels. He felt his hand touching
something--nothing but flat, smooth surfaces. At last! He had caught
hold of something! With a tremendous swing, Tom's body was torn to the
left, and his back banged against something. Something in his body
seemed to give way. As in a dream, he heard two shots ring out above the
fearful noise of the roaring train.
Too late! Tom was clinging to a railing between two cars and being
dragged relentlessly along. He was almost unconscious, but could hear
the wheels squeaking under the pressure of the brakes as he was hurled
to and fro. But his hand held fast as in a vise. The wheels scraped,
squeaked, and groaned. The train began to slow down! He had won! The
train stood still.
Tom's body fell on the rail between two cars, almost lifeless; he heard
a lot of steps all about him; people spoke to him and asked him
questions. But his jaws were shut as if paralyzed; he couldn't speak a
word. He felt the neck of a bottle being pushed between his lips, and
the liquid running down his throat. It was something strong and
invigorating, and he drank greedily. And then he suddenly shouted out
loud, so that all the people stepped back horrified: "The station has
been attacked by Japs."
Excited questions poured in from all sides. "Where from? What for?" Tom
only cried: "Save the two others; they're shut up in the station!" More
people collected round him. "Quick, quick!" he cried. "Run the train
back and try to save them!"
Tom was lifted into a car and stretched out on a soft end-seat. Some of
the passengers stood round him with their revolvers: "Tell us where it
is! Tell us where they are!" Slowly the train moved back, slowly the
telegraph poles slipped past the windows in the opposite direction.
Now they were there, and Tom heard wild cries on the platform. Then a
door was pulled open and some one asked: "Where are the robbers?" Tom
was lifted out, for his right shin-bone had been smashed and he couldn't
stand. A stretcher was improvised, and he was carried out. Dozens of
people were standing round the station. The wagon was gone, and so were
the horses. Where to? The wide, deserted prairie gave no answer. A great
many footprints in the sand showed at least that Tom had spoken the
truth. He pointed out the holes made in the shutters by the bandits, and
told the whole story a dozen times, until at last he fainted away again.
When he came to half an hour later it all seemed like a horrible
dream--like a scene from a robber's tale. He found himself in a
comfortable Pullman car on the way to Umatilla, where he had to tell his
story all over again, in order that the fairly hopeless pursuit of the
highwaymen might be begun from there.
_Chapter IV_
ECHOES IN NEW YORK
WALLA WALLA, May 7.
"This morning, at ten o'clock, the station Swallowtown, on the Oregon
line, was surprised by bandits. They captured the station in order to
hold up the express train to Umatilla. The plot was frustrated by the
decisive action of the station official, who jumped on the passing
train and warned the passengers. Unfortunately, the robbers succeeded
in escaping, but the Umatilla police have started in pursuit. The
majority of the bandits are said to have been Japanese."
In these words the attack on Swallowtown was wired to New York, and when
John Halifax went to the office of the _New York Daily Telegraph_ at
midnight, to work up the telegrams which had come in during Sunday for
the morning paper, his chief drew his attention in particular to the
remark at the end of the message, and asked him to make some reference
in his article to the dangers of the Japanese immigration, which seemed
to be going on unhindered over the Mexican and Canadian frontiers. John
Halifax would have preferred to comment editorially on the necessity of
night rest for newspaper men, but settled down in smothered wrath to
write up the highwaymen who had committed the double crime of
desecrating the Sabbath and robbing the train.
But scarcely had he begun his article under the large headlines
"Japanese Bandits--A Danger no longer Confined to the Frontier, but
Stalking about in the Heart of the Country,"--he was just on the point
of setting off Tom's brave deed against the rascality of the bandits,
when another package of telegrams was laid on the table. He was going to
push them irritably aside when his glance fell on the top telegram,
which began with the words, "This morning at ten o'clock the station at
Connell, Wash., was attacked by robbers, who----"
"Hm!" said John Halifax, "there seems to be some connection here, for
they probably meant to hold up the express at Connell, too." He turned
over a few more telegrams; the next message began: "This morning at
eleven o'clock--" and the two following ones: "This morning at twelve
o'clock--" They all reported the holding up of trains, which had in
almost every instance been successful. John Halifax got up, and with the
bundle of telegrams went over to the map hanging on the wall and marked
with a pencil the places where the various attacks had taken place. The
result was an irregular line through the State of Washington running
from north to south, along which the train robbers, apparently working
in unison, had begun their operations at the same time. Nowhere had it
been possible to capture them.
John Halifax threw his article into the waste basket and began again
with the headlines, "A Gang of Train-Robbers at Work in Washington," and
then gave a list of the places where the gang had held up the trains. He
wrote a spirited article, which closed with a warning to the police in
Washington and Oregon to put an end to this state of affairs as soon as
possible, and if necessary to call upon the militia for aid in catching
the bandits. While Halifax was writing, the news was communicated from
the electric bulletin-board to the people hurrying through the streets
at that late hour.
John Halifax read the whole story through once more with considerable
satisfaction, and was pleased to think that the _New York Daily
Telegraph_ would treat its readers Monday morning to a thoroughly
sensational bit of news. When he had finished, it struck him that all
these attacks had been directed against trains running from west to
east, and that the train held up at Swallowtown was the only one going
in the opposite direction. He intended in conclusion to add a suggestive
remark about this fact, but it slipped out of his mind somehow, and,
yawning loudly, he threw his article as it was into the box near his
writing table, touched a button, and saw the result of his labors
swallowed noiselessly by a small lift. Then the author yawned again,
and, going over to his chief, reported that he had finished, wished him
a gruff "good morning," and started on his way home.
As he left the newspaper offices he observed the same sight that had met
his eyes night after night for many years--a crowd of people standing on
the opposite side of the street, with their heads thrown back, staring
up at the white board upon which, in enormous letters, appeared the
story of how Tom, with his bold leap, had saved the train. The last
sentence, explaining that the robbers had been recognized as Japanese,
elicited vigorous curses against the "damned Japs."
High up in the air the apparatus noiselessly and untiringly flashed
forth one message after the other in big, black letters on the white
ground--telling of one train attack after another. But of that living
machine in the far West, working with clocklike regularity and slowly
adding one link after the other to the chain, that machine which at this
very moment had already separated three of the States by an impenetrable
wall from the others and had thus blotted out three of the stars on the
blue field of the Union flag--of that uncanny machine neither John
Halifax nor the people loitering opposite the newspaper building in
order to take a last sensation home with them, had the remotest idea.
Not till the next morning was the meaning of these first flaming signs
to be made clear.
* * * * *
At ten o'clock the telephone bell rang noisily beside John Halifax's
bed. He seized the receiver and swore under his breath on learning that
important telegrams required his presence at the office. "There isn't
any reason why Harry Springley shouldn't go on with those old
train-robbers," he grumbled; "I don't see what they want of me, but I
suppose the stupid fellow doesn't know what to do, as usual."
An hour later, when he entered the editorial rooms of the _New York
Daily Telegraph_, he found his colleagues in a great state of
excitement. Judging by the loud talk going on in the conference room, he
concluded at once that something out of the common must have happened.
The editor-in-chief quickly explained to him that an hour ago the news,
already disseminated through an "extra," had arrived, that not only were
all messages from the Pacific coast, especially from San Francisco, held
up, but the Canadian wire had furnished the news that a foreign strange
squadron had been observed on Sunday at Port Townsend, and that it had
continued its voyage through Puget Sound toward Seattle. In addition the
news came from Walla Walla that since Sunday noon all telegraphic
communication between Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland had been broken off.
Attempts to reach Seattle and Tacoma over the Canadian wire had also
proved vain while, on the other hand, the report came from Ogden that
no trains from the west, from the direction of San Francisco, had
arrived since Sunday noon, and that the noon express had been attacked
this side of Reno by bandits, some of whom had been distinctly
recognized as Japanese.
John Halifax recalled the first message of the evening before, in which
there was a mention of the Japanese. He quickly put the separate news
items together, and, after having glanced hurriedly at the messages in
the extra, turned to the managing editor and in a low voice, which
sounded strange and hard even to himself, said: "I believe this means
war!"
The latter slapped him on the back in his brusque fashion, crying: "John
Halifax, we're not making war on Japan."
"But they're making war on us," answered Halifax.
"Do you mean to imply that the Japanese are surprising us?" asked the
editor, staring at Halifax.
"Exactly, and it makes no difference whether you believe it or not," was
the reply.
"The Japanese fleet is lying off the Pacific coast, there's no doubt
about that," remarked a reporter.
"And, what's more, they're right in our country," said Halifax, looking
up.
"Who? The fleet?" inquired Harry Springley in a lame effort to be funny.
"No, the enemy," answered Halifax coldly; "the so-called bandits," he
added sarcastically.
"But if you really mean it," began the editor again, "then it must be a
gigantic plot. If you think that the bandits--the Japanese----" he said,
correcting himself.
"The Japanese outposts," interposed Halifax.
"Well, yes, the Japanese outposts, if you wish; if they have succeeded
in destroying all railway connections with the West, then the enemy is
no longer off our coast, but----"
A stenographer now rushed into the room with a new message. The editor
glanced over it and then handed it to Halifax, who took the paper in
both hands, and, while all listened attentively, read aloud the
following telegram from Denver:
"According to uncertain dispatches, Sunday's attacks on trains were not
made by gangs of robbers, but by detachments of Japanese troops, who
have suddenly and in the most incomprehensible manner sprung up all over
the country. Not only have single stations on the Union Pacific line
been seized, but whole towns have been occupied by hostile regiments,
the inhabitants having been taken so completely by surprise, that no
resistance could be offered. The rumor of a battle between the Japanese
ships and the coast defences at San Francisco has gained considerable
currency. The concerted attacks on the various trans-continental lines
have cut off the western States entirely from telegraphic communication
and in addition interrupted all railway traffic."
The telegram shook in John Halifax's hands; he ran his fingers through
his hair and looked at the editor, who could only repeat the words
spoken by Halifax a few minutes before: "Gentlemen, I fear this means
war."
Halifax collected the telegrams and went silently into his room, where
he dropped into the chair before his desk, and sat staring in front of
him with his head, full of confused thoughts, resting on his hands.
"This means war," he repeated softly. Mechanically he took up his pen
with the intention of putting his thoughts on paper, but not a line, not
a word could he produce under the stress of these whirling sensations.
Unable to construct a single sentence, he drew circles and meaningless
figures on the white paper, scribbled insignificant words, only to cross
them out immediately afterwards, and repeated again and again: "This
means war."
Outside in the halls people hurried past; some one seized the door-knob,
so he got up and locked himself in. Then he sat down again. The fresh,
mild air blew in through the wide open windows, and the dull roar of the
immense crowds in the street, now swelling and now retreating, floated
up to him. His thoughts flew to the far West, and everywhere he could
see the eager, industrious Asiatics pouring like a yellow flood over his
country. He saw Togo's gray ships, with the sun-banner of Nippon,
ploughing the waves of the Pacific; he saw the tremendous many-hued
picture of a great international struggle; he saw regiments rush upon
each other and clash on the vast prairies; he saw bayonets flashing in
the sun; and he saw glittering troops of cavalry galloping over the
bleak plains. High up in the air, over the two great opposing hosts, he
saw the white smoke of bursting shells. He saw this gigantic drama of a
racial war, which caused the very axis of the earth to quiver, unraveled
before his eyes, and with ardent enthusiasm he seized his pen, at last
master of himself once more.
Suddenly his mood of exaltation vanished; it seemed as though the sun
had been extinguished, and cold, dark shadows fell across the brilliant
picture of his imagination, subduing its colors with an ashy light. He
began slowly to realize that this did not only mean war, but that it was
his war, his country's war--a bitter struggle for which they were but
poorly prepared. At this thought he shivered, and the man who had
weathered many a storm laid his head down on both arms and cried
bitterly. The mental shock had been too great, and it was in vain that
they knocked at and shook his door. It was some time before John
Halifax recovered his self-possession. Then he lifted his head bravely
and proudly, and going to the door with a firm step, gave directions to
the staff with the calmness of a veteran general.
_Chapter V_
FATHER AND SON
Mr. Horace Hanbury paced restlessly up and down his study, and presently
stopped before a huge map on the wall and carefully traced the long
lines of the trans-continental railroads across the Rocky Mountains.
"Will Harriman sell? No, he'll buy, of course he'll buy; he'd be an
idiot if he didn't. Of course he'll buy, and Gould and Stillman will
buy, too. Well, there'll be a fine tussle in Wall Street to-day." Thus
he soliloquized, puffing thoughtfully at his short pipe. Then he picked
up the heap of narrow tape on his desk containing the latest news from
the West, and read the reports once more as the paper slipped through
his fingers.
"This fiendish plot of the yellow curs seems to be a pretty clever one,"
he murmured; "they've simply cut off all railway connections. I can't
help admiring the fellows--they've learned a lot since 1904." He threw
himself into his comfortable Morris chair, and after having carefully
studied the Stock Exchange quotations of Saturday, went once more to the
map on the wall, and marked several spots with a blue pencil; these he
connected by means of a long line which cut off the Pacific States of
Washington, Oregon, and California, and large districts of Nevada and
Arizona from all communication with points to the East. He then looked
at his watch and pressed one of the electric buttons on his desk.
The door opened noiselessly, and an East Indian, dressed in the bright
costume of his native country, entered, and, crossing his arms, made a
deep bow. "When Mr. Gerald Hanbury returns, tell him I want to see him
immediately." The Indian disappeared, and Mr. Hanbury sat down on his
desk, folded his hands under his knees, and swung his feet to and fro,
puffing out the smoke of his pipe from between his teeth. "If only the
boy won't spoil everything with his ridiculous altruistic ideas-- Ah,
Gerald, there you are!"
"Did you send for me, father?"
"Sit down, my boy," said the old gentleman, pointing to a chair; but he
himself remained sitting on the desk.
The son was the very image of his father--the same slender, muscular
figure, the same piercing eyes, the same energetic mouth. "Well, father,
what do you think of it?"
"Think of it? What do _you_ think of it?"
"Isn't it awful, this sudden attack on our country? Isn't it awful the
way we have been taken by surprise? Think of it, three of our States in
the enemy's hands!"
"We'll soon get them back, don't worry about that," said the old
gentleman calmly.
"Have you read the orders for mobilization?"
"I haven't read them, and don't intend to."
"Colonel Smiles told me just now that it will not be possible to
dispatch our troops to the West in less than three weeks. Fortunately
there are about a dozen ships of the Pacific fleet off the west coast,
and they will be able to attack the Japanese in the rear."
"If there's still time," supplemented his father. "Anyhow, we can leave
these matters to others. It's none of our business; they can attend to
all that at Washington. War is purely and simply a question of finances
so far as the United States is concerned, and it's as plain as day that
we can hold out ten times longer than those yellow monkeys. That the
money will be forthcoming goes without saying; Congress will do all that
is needed in that direction, and the subscriptions for the war-loan will
show that we are fully prepared along that line. So let us drop that
subject. The question is, what shall we do? What do you propose doing
with our factory during the war?"
"Go on working, of course, father."
"Go on working--that is to say, produce surplus stock. If we go on
working we shall have goods on our hands which no one will buy, and be
compelled to store them. Ironclads, cannon, powder, uniforms, guns,
these are the things for which there is a demand now; whisky, too, will
be bought and bread will be baked, and the meat trust will make money
hand over fist; but do you suppose the United States Government is going
to buy our pianos to play tunes to the soldiers?"
"But what about our workmen?" interposed Gerald.
"Yes, our workmen," said the old gentleman, jumping energetically off
the desk and standing before his son with his legs wide apart and his
hands in his pockets: "Our workmen--that brings us to your favorite
subject, to which you devote your entire time and interest!" He
transferred his pipe into the right-hand corner of his mouth and
continued: "I intend to dismiss our workmen, my boy, and shut up shop;
we couldn't earn a cent more even if we kept the machines going.
Besides, our Government needs soldiers now, not workmen. Let your dear
workmen shoulder their guns and march to the West. When I was your age,
and starting in with one hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket, no one
offered me pensions for sickness and old age or insurance against
non-employment or whatever this new-fangled nonsense is called. We
ought to increase the energy of the people, instead of stuffing pillows
for them. A man who has anything in him will make his way even in these
times."
"Father!" The young man jumped up from his chair and faced his father
with all the idealistic enthusiasm of youth.
"Keep your seat, my boy, subjects of this nature can be better discussed
sitting."
"No, father, I can't keep still. This question concerns four thousand
workmen and their families."
"Three thousand of whom I shall dismiss at noon to-day," interrupted the
old gentleman decisively.
"What! You don't mean to say you'll send three thousand workmen, quiet,
industrious, faithful, reliable workmen, begging to-day? Why, father!
That would be perfectly barbarous, that would be a crime against
humanity! The people have stuck by us in days of prosperity, and now
when our sales may perhaps," he emphasized the last word, "may perhaps
be diminished, you will stop the wheels and shut down the factory?"
"Look here, my son, I'm not a socialists' meeting. Such sentiments may
sound very nice from the platform, but there's no need of your trying
your speeches on me. The question at issue is, shall we suffer the
consequences or shall they, and I don't mind telling you that I prefer
the latter. Do you suppose that I've worked hard all my life and worn
myself out for the express purpose of turning our factory into a
workingmen's home? No, my boy, I can't support you in your little
hobby."
"But, father, capital and labor----"
"O, cut out those silly phrases," interrupted the old gentleman
irritably, "Karl Marx and Henry George and all your other stand-bys may
be all right in your library, and help to decorate your bookshelves, but
I prefer to settle our practical problems on the basis of my experience
and not of your books. As manager and proprietor of our plant I want to
tell you that when the whistle blows at noon to-day I shall notify our
workingmen that in consequence of the totally unforeseen breaking out of
hostilities--here I shall insert a few words about the sacred duty of
patriotism and of defending one's country--we are unwillingly forced to
dismiss three thousand of our workmen. We'll pay wages for, let's say, a
fortnight longer, but then good-by to the men; we'll shut up shop, and
the thousand men that are left can finish the standing orders and any
new ones that may come in. And if no new ones turn up, then the
remaining workingmen will be dismissed at once. In the meantime I'll
subscribe one hundred thousand dollars to the war-loan, and then engage
passage on a Lloyd steamer, the most expensive cabins with every
possible luxury, for your mother, your two sisters, myself, and I hope
for you, too, and we'll be off to old Europe. Shall we make it the
Riviera? We've been there before, and, besides, it's a little too hot
there now--let's say Norway or Switzerland. In my humble opinion we had
better watch developments from a distance, and, as I said, I earnestly
hope that my only son and heir will join our party, unless he should
prefer to remain here and become a lieutenant in our glorious army and
draw his sword against the enemy? This is my final decision and the last
word I have to say on the subject, unless you think that some friend of
ours in the financial world may have a better suggestion to offer."
"I should never have thought, father, that you could be so hard-hearted
and unfeeling, that you could be capable of ruining the lives of
thousands with one stroke of your pen. Your attitude towards the
relations between employer and employee is absolutely incomprehensible
to me; the socialistic conscience----"
"Listen, my boy," said the old gentleman, going over to his son and
laying his hand gently on his shoulder: "I've always allowed you an
absolutely free hand in your schemes, and you know we've always tried to
meet our employees more than half way in all their wishes, but now it's
a question of who's to suffer--we or they? In times of peace there may
be some excuse for these nice socialistic ideas: they give a man a
certain standing and bring him into the public eye. There's a good man,
they say; he understands the demands of the times. But there's a limit
to everything. One man rides one hobby, and some one else another. One
keeps a racing-stable, another sports a steam-yacht, and still another
swears by polo or cricket, but these things must not be carried to
excess. The minute the owner of the racing-stable turns jockey, he
ceases to be a business man, and the same is true of the man who keeps a
racing-yacht and spends all of his time at the start, and, after all is
said and done, it's our business we want to live on. You've selected the
workingman as your favorite sport, and that also has its limits. If we
squander our hard-earned millions on socialistic improvements now, we'll
have to begin over again in about two years' time. I doubt whether I
should have sufficient genius left to discover a new piano-hammer, and I
entertain still more serious doubts as to your ability to invent a
panacea that will render the whole world happy and make you richer
instead of poorer. _Ergo_, we'll shut up shop. In Hoboken we'll sing
Yankee Doodle and as we pass the Statue of Liberty The Star Spangled
Banner, in token of farewell, and then off we go! If things turn out
better than we anticipate, we can come back, but this is my last word
for the present: At noon the following notice will be posted at all the
entrances and in all the rooms of our factory: 'Three thousand workmen
are herewith dismissed; wages will be paid for a fortnight longer, when
the factory will be closed indefinitely.' By the way, are you going to
the Stock Exchange to-day?"
"I'm not in a mood for the Stock Exchange, father. If that is your last
word, then my last word is: I am your partner----"
"So much the worse," said the father.
"--and therefore have a right to dispose as I please of my interest in
the business. I therefore demand the immediate payment of so much of my
inheritance as will be required to pay the wages of the workmen you've
dismissed for at least another year, with the exception of the single
men who enter the army."
"No, my boy, we won't do anything of the sort. Don't forget that I'm
running this business. According to the contract made when you came of
age, you may demand a million dollars upon severing your connection with
the firm. This sum will be at your disposal at the bank to-day at noon,
but not a cent more. What you do with it is a matter of complete
indifference to me, but let me remind you that ordinarily when a man
throws money out of the window, he at least likes to hear it drop."
"That surely cannot be your last word, father, otherwise we must part."
"All right, my boy, let's part till dinner-time. I hope to find you in a
more sensible frame of mind when the family assembles this evening. I've
told you what will be done in the factory in the meantime, and as for
our trip, we'll discuss that to-night with your mother. Now leave me, I
must get ready for Wall Street."
The door closed noiselessly after Mr. Hanbury, Junior. "The scamp," said
the father to himself, "I can't help admiring him. Thirty years ago I
entertained just such ideas, but what has become of them!" He thought a
moment, passed his hand over his forehead, then jumped up quickly and
exclaimed: "Now to work!" He pressed a button on the desk, his secretary
entered, and the conversation that ensued dealt exclusively with coming
events in Wall Street.
_Chapter VI_
A NIGHT IN NEW YORK
The _New York Daily Telegraph_ had already issued several regular
editions and a number of extras, without really having conveyed much
definite information, for the dispatches consisted for the most part of
rumors that arose like distant lightning on the western horizon, and it
was quite impossible to ascertain just where. A dark bank of clouds lay
over the Pacific States, completely shutting in the territory that had
been cut off from all communication, both by wire and rail. The natural
supposition was, that the Japanese outposts were stationed at the points
just beyond which to the east telegraphic communication had not yet been
interrupted, but the messages that were constantly pouring in from
places along this border-line revealed clearly that these outposts were
continually pushing further eastwards. A serious battle didn't seem to
have occurred anywhere. The utter surprise caused by the sudden
appearance of the Japanese troops, who seemed to spring up out of the
ground, had from the very beginning destroyed every chance of successful
resistance.
Shortly after the first vague rumors of battles said to have been fought
at San Francisco, Port Townsend, and Seattle, had arisen, even these
sources of information ran dry. The question from where all the hostile
troops had come, remained as much of a riddle as ever. That was a matter
of indifference after all; the chief consideration was to adopt
measures of defense as speedily as possible.
But the War Department worked slowly, and the news received from
headquarters at Washington consisted only of the declaration that the
regulars were going to be sent to the West immediately, that the
President had already called out the reserves, and that Congress would
meet on May eleventh to discuss means for placing the militia on a
war-footing and for creating an army of volunteers. The regular army!
Three States with their regiments and their coast-defenses had to be
deducted at the very start. What had become of them? Had they been able
to hold their own between the enemy and the coast? What had happened to
the Philippines and to Hawaii? Where was the fleet? None of these
questions could be answered, simply because all telegraphic connection
was cut off. The strength of the enemy was an absolutely unknown
quantity, unless one cared to rely on the figures found in the ordinary
military statistics, which had probably been doctored by the Japanese.
Was this the Japanese army at all? Was it an invading force? Could such
a force have pushed so far to the East in such a short space of time
after landing? The press could find no satisfactory answer to these
questions, and therefore contented itself with estimating the number of
American soldiers available after subtracting the three coast States.
The newspapers also indulged in rather awkward calculations as to when
and how the troops could best be dispatched to the invaded territory.
But this optimism did not last long and it convinced nobody.
Another serious question was, how would the masses behave upon the
breaking-out of this sudden danger, and what attitude would be assumed
by the foreign elements of the population. It was most important to
have some inkling as to how the Germans, the Irish, the Scandinavians,
the Italians and the various people of Slavonic nationality would act
when called upon to defend their new country. It was of course
absolutely certain that the two great political parties--the Republicans
and the Democrats--would work together harmoniously under the stress of
a common danger.
Francis Robertson, the well-known reporter of the _New York Daily
Telegraph_--called the Flying Fish on account of his streaming
coat-tails--had been on the go all day. He had scarcely finished
dictating the shorthand notes made on his last tour of inspection, to
the typewriter, when he received orders--it was at seven o'clock in the
evening--to make another trip through the streets and to visit the
headquarters of the various national and political societies. First he
went to a restaurant a few doors away, and in five minutes succeeded in
making way with a steak that had apparently been manufactured out of the
hide of a hippopotamus. Then he jumped into a taxicab and directed the
chauffeur at the corner of Twenty-ninth Street to drive as quickly as
possible through the crowd down Broadway. But it was impossible for the
chauffeur on account of the mob to move at more than a snail's pace, and
the cab finally came to a dead stop at Madison Square, which was packed
with excited people. Robertson left the cab and hurled himself boldly
into the seething mass of humanity, but soon discovered that if he
wished to make any progress at all he would have to allow himself to be
carried forward by the slowly moving crowd. At the corner of
Twenty-second Street he managed to disentangle himself and hurried
through the block, only to find a new crowd on Fourth Avenue.
He intended to cross Fourth Avenue and then push on to Third Avenue, in
order to reach Tammany Hall by that route, but he was doomed to
disappointment, for the human stream simply carried him down Fourth
Avenue as far as Union Square, where it ceased moving for a time.
Presently it got under way again, proceeding even more slowly than
before, and Robertson soon found himself in the middle of the square,
being suddenly pushed against the basin of the fountain upon which he
climbed for the double purpose of regaining his breath and of looking
around to see if it were possible to make his way through to Tammany
Hall. In vain! His eyes were greeted by an interminable sea of heads and
hats, which did not offer the slightest chance of his being able to slip
through. The trees, the statues and the fountain in the square appeared
to be buried to a height of two yards in a black flood. He looked
longingly across Sixteenth Street over to Third Avenue, but nowhere
could he find an opening.
He felt like a ship-wrecked mariner cast ashore on a desert island. The
sullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing the
square like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellow
lights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Street
at regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at a
fair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of two
tunnels in the mountains. He pulled out his note-book and by the light
of the electric arc-lamp made a note of the observation.
Then he jumped down from the ledge where he had taken refuge and once
more joined the human stream. The latter, as if animated by a common
purpose, was moving downtown, and if Robertson's neighbors were properly
posted, it was headed for the Chinese quarter. It was evident that they
intended to vent their fury for the present on these allies of the
Japanese. This longing for revenge, this elementary hatred of the yellow
race kept the crowd in Union Square in motion and shoved everyone
without discrimination towards Broadway and Fourth Avenue. The square
resembled a huge machine, which by means of some hidden automatic power
forced tens of thousands of unresisting bodies into the narrow channels.
The crowd rolled on unceasingly. Here and there a hat flew off into the
air, came down again, bobbed up and down once or twice, and then
continued its journey somewhere else on the surface. It was fortunate
that those who had become insensible from the dreadful noise and the
foul, dusty air were unable to fall down; they were simply held up by
the close pressure of their neighbors and were carried along until a few
blocks farther on they regained consciousness. Nevertheless a few fell
and disappeared in the stream without leaving a trace behind them. No
pen could describe their terrible fate; they must have been relentlessly
ground to pieces like stones on the rocky bed of a glacier.
Above this roaring stream of human beings there swept unceasingly, in
short blasts like a tearing whirlwind, the hoarse cry of a people's
passion: "Down with the yellow race! Down with the Japanese! Three
cheers for the Stars and Stripes!" The passionate cry of a crowd
thirsting for revenge rose again and again, as if from a giant's lungs,
until the cheers and yells of "down" turned into a wild, deafening,
inarticulate howl which was echoed and re-echoed a thousand times by the
tall buildings on both sides of the avenue. Now and then an electric
street-car, to which clung hundreds of people, towered like a stranded
vessel above the waving mass of heads and hats.
Robertson decided to give up the idea of reaching Tammany Hall and to
drift with the crowd to the Chinese quarter. At Astor Place a branch of
the human stream carried him to the Bowery, where he found himself on
the edge of the crowd and was scraped roughly along the fronts of
several houses. He stood this for another block, but determined to
escape at the next corner into a side street. Before he could reach it,
however, he was crushed violently against the wall of a house and turned
round three or four times by the advancing throng; during this maneuver
his right coat-tail got caught on something and before he knew it, he
had left the coat-tail behind. At last he reached the corner and clung
tightly to a railing with his right hand, but the next moment he flew
like a cork from a champagne-bottle into the quiet darkness of Fifth
Street, bumping violently against several men who had been similarly
ejected from the current and who pushed him roughly aside.
Robertson was bursting with rage, for just before he had been propelled
into Fifth Street, he had caught a glimpse of the grinning face of Bob
Traddles, of the _Tribune_, his worst competitor, only a few feet away.
The latter showed clearly how delighted he was at this involuntary
discomfiture of his rival in the mad race for the latest sensational
news. Robertson attempted for a while to get back into the current, but
all of his efforts proved futile. Then he tried at least to find out
what the people intended to do, and in spite of the contradictory
information he received, he was pretty well convinced that they were
really going to make an attack on the inhabitants of the Chinese
quarter. Although hopelessly separated from Tammany Hall by the
countercurrent of the human stream, he at last succeeded in reaching the
Eighth Street station of the Second Avenue Elevated, where he took an
uptown train to Forty-second Street. Then he walked over to Third Avenue
and took a downtown train, which was crowded to suffocation, as far as
Grand Street, for the purpose of reaching the Chinese quarter from the
uptown side. The trip had consumed fully two hours. At the crossing of
Grand and Mott Streets he found the entrance to the latter barred by a
line of policemen standing three deep. He showed his badge to a sergeant
and received permission to pass.
The dead silence of Mott Street seemed almost uncanny after the noisy
roar of the mob, the echoes of which still rang in his ears. The
basements of the houses were all barricaded with shutters or boards, the
doors were locked, and there was scarcely a light to be seen in the
windows of the upper stories. A person paying his first visit to this
busy, bustling ant-hill of yore would, if he had not been reminded by
the peculiar penetrating smell of the yellow race of their proximity,
scarcely have believed that he was really in the notorious Chinese
quarter of New York.
The policeman who acted as Robertson's guide told him that they had
known all about the movements and intentions of the mob long before it
had reached the police headquarters, by way of the Bowery and Elm
Street, and begun to force its way from the Bowery through some of the
side streets into the Chinese quarter. Fearing that the latter would be
set on fire, the chief of police had given orders to protect it from the
irresponsible mob by barricading the streets with all the available
members of the force. In this attempt, however, they had been only
partially successful. It was out of the question for six hundred men to
hold out against tens of thousands; the enormous pressure from the rear
had hurled the front rows like driftwood against the thin chain of
policemen, which, after a stubborn resistance, had simply been broken
through at several spots.
A hand-to-hand fight had ensued and shots were soon fired on both sides,
so that the police had to content themselves with an effort to check the
worst excesses. Then, too, the spirit of patriotism was just as rampant
in the breasts of the police as it was in the breasts of those who urged
on the mob. As it was impossible to catch hold of the treacherous
invaders themselves, their natural allies should at least not escape
unscathed. The Chinese were of course prepared for such an attack. The
howling, raging mob found barricaded doors and windows wherever they
went, and even when they did succeed, after considerable labor, in
breaking these down, it was usually only to find that the birds had
flown, that the occupants had made their escape in time. Wherever
resistance had been offered by the Chinese, the mob had gone beyond all
bounds in its frenzy.
"Several hundred Chinamen must have been killed," said the policeman,
"and it would be best for the papers to hush up what went on inside the
houses." Robertson and his companion stopped near a lamp-post, and the
former hurriedly made some shorthand notes of all the information he had
received.
"Look," said the policeman, "Judge Lynch has done his work well," and he
pointed with his club to a lamp-post on the other side of the street
from which two dark bodies were hanging. "Simply hanged 'em," he added
laconically.
As the policeman would not allow him to enter any of the houses because,
as he said, it meant certain death, Robertson decided to go to the
nearest telephone pay-station in order to 'phone his story to the paper.
The policeman went with him as far as the police-station. By the
uncertain light of the street-lamps they stumbled along the pavement,
which was often almost entirely hidden by heaps of rubbish and regular
mountains of refuse. They saw several more bodies suspended from
lamp-posts, and the blood on the pavement before many of the mutilated
houses testified eloquently to the manner in which the mob had wreaked
its vengeance on the sons of the Celestial Kingdom. Ambulance officers
were carrying away the wounded and dead on stretchers, and after
Robertson had stayed a little while at the police-station and received
information as to the number of people killed thus far, he walked in the
direction of Broadway, having found the entrance to the Subway closed.
At Broadway he again came upon a chain of police, and learned that the
troops had been called out and that a battalion was marching up
Broadway.
Robertson plunged once more into the seething human whirlpool, but made
little progress. For about fifteen minutes he stood, unable to move,
near a highly excited individual, who, with a bloody handkerchief tied
around his head and with wild gesticulations was reciting his
experiences during the storming of a Chinese house. This was his man. A
momentary lull in the roar around him gave him a chance of getting
closer to him and screaming into his ear: "I'll give you two dollars if
you'll step into the nearest hallway with me and tell me that story!"
The man stared at him in astonishment but when Robertson added, "It's
for the _New York Daily Telegraph_," he was posted at once. They made
their way with considerable difficulty to the edge of the crowd and
managed to squeeze into a wide doorway full of people, whose attention,
however, was not directed to the doings on Broadway, but rather to a
meeting that was being held in a large rear room. Robertson managed to
find an unoccupied chair in a neighboring room, which was packed to the
door, and sitting astride it, proceeded to use the back of the chair as
a rest for his note-book. The story turned out to be somewhat
disjointed, for every time a push from the crowd sent the man flying
against the hard wall, he uttered a long series of oaths.
"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole in
the wall behind you and hustle with your story!"
"This'll mean at least a column in the _Telegraph_," mused Robertson as
the story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear to
what was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of a
speaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over the
heads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of which
looked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero the
promised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room.
Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of the
speaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmen
against a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand of
them.
The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, looked
like a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completely
filled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery of
the workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of the
millionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn with
excitement.
"--and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to the
absolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I ask
you all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour,
and we will then assert our right to employment by simply continuing our
work and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and most
convenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shut down his plant and skip with
his millions to the other side. But we demand that the factory be kept
running, and if our wages aren't paid, we'll find means for getting
them. Our country cannot fight the enemy even with a thousand
millionaires. When the American people take the field to fight for the
maintenance of American society and the American state, they have a
right to demand that the families they are compelled to leave at home
shall at least be suitably cared for. Again I say: We'll keep Mr.
Hanbury's factory open."
The air shook with thunderous applause, and a firm determination lighted
up hundreds of faces, wrinkled and scarred from work and worry. And who
would have dared oppose these men when animated by a single thought and
a common purpose? Again and again enthusiastic shouts filled the room,
and the speaker was assured that not a man present would fail to be on
hand the next morning.
Leaning against the door-post, Robertson made notes of this occurrence
also and then looked round in a vain endeavor to find a means of escape
from the suffocating atmosphere. While doing so his glance fell on the
spot where only a few moments before he had observed the swaying shadow
of the speaker. The latter's place had been taken by another, who was
making a frantic but vain effort to secure quiet and attention. With his
arms waving in the air he looked through the murky atmosphere for all
the world like a quickly turning wind-mill.
Gradually the applause ceased, while everybody in the room, Robertson
included, was startled by the announcement of the chairman that Mr.
Hanbury was most anxious to address the assemblage. A moment of
astonished silence and then Bedlam broke loose. "What, Mr. Hanbury wants
to speak?" "Not the old one, the young one!" "He must be mad. What does
he want here?" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Down with him! We don't
want him here, we can manage our own affairs!" "Let him speak!" "Three
cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Be quiet, damn you, why don't you shut up?"
These and other similarly emphatic shouts reached Robertson's ears. He
hunted for his last pencil in his vest-pocket, and when he looked up
again, he saw through the cloud of smoke a tall, refined person standing
on the table.
"We don't want to be discharged! Don't let our wives starve!" the voices
began again, and it was some time before it became possible for the
speaker to make himself heard.
"Is that really Mr. Hanbury?" Robertson asked one of his neighbors.
"Yes, the son."
"It seems incredible! He's taking his life in his hands."
Gerald Hanbury's first words were lost in the uproar, but gradually the
crowd began to listen. He spoke only a few sentences, and these
Robertson took down in shorthand:
"--The demand just made by your speaker, and supported by all present,
that my father's factory should not be shut down in these turbulent
times, was made by myself this very morning, the moment I heard the news
of the base attack on our country. I don't want any credit for having
presented the matter to my father in most vigorous fashion, and I regret
to say I have accomplished nothing thus far. But the same reasons which
you have just heard from the lips of Mr. Bright have guided me. I, too,
should consider it a crime against the free American people, if we
manufacturers were to desert them in this hour of national danger. I am
not going to make a long speech; I have come here simply to tell you
that I shall go straight to my father from here and offer him the whole
of my fortune from which to pay you your wages so long as the war lasts,
and not only those employed in the factory, but also the families of
those who may enter the army to defend their homes and their country."
Such an outburst of passionate enthusiasm, such wild expressions of joy
as greeted this speech Robertson had never witnessed. The crowd screamed
and yelled itself hoarse, hats were thrown into the air, and pandemonium
reigned supreme. Mr. Hanbury was seized by dozens of strong arms as he
jumped down from the table and was carried through the room over the
heads of the crowd. After he had made the rounds of the hall several
times and shaken hundreds of rough hands, the group of workmen
surrounding the foreman on whose shoulders young Hanbury was enthroned
marched to the entrance, while the whole assembly joined in a marching
song.
By pure chance Robertson found himself near this group as they came to a
halt before the door, just in time to save Mr. Hanbury from having his
skull smashed against the top. So they let him slide down to the ground,
and then the whole crowd made a rush for the Broadway entrance. Such a
jam ensued here, that another meeting was held on the spot, which,
however, consisted chiefly in cheers for Mr. Hanbury.
Suddenly some one shouted: "We'll go with Mr. Hanbury to his father!"
Inch by inch they moved towards Broadway, whence a terrific roar and
wild shouts greeted the ears of the closely packed mass at the entrance.
Robertson was standing close to Mr. Hanbury, whose face shone with happy
excitement. Just as they reached the entrance to the street, the crowd
outside suddenly started to run north in mad haste.
"This is the proudest day of my life as an American citizen!" said
Robertson to Hanbury. Hardly had he finished the sentence, when a
crashing sound like thunder rent the air and resounded down the whole
length of Broadway, as if the latter were a cañon surrounded by
precipitous walls of rock.
"They're firing on the people," burst from thousands of lips in the
wildest indignation.
Some one shouted: "Pull out your revolvers!" and in response red sparks
flashed here and there in the crowd and the rattle of shots greeted the
troops marching up Broadway. The mob seemed to be made up largely of
Russians.
Just in front of Robertson and Gerald Hanbury a young woman, who had
been wounded by a stray shot, lay on the pavement screaming with pain
and tossing her arms wildly about.
"Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" came the loud cry once more from the
entrance. At this instant a big workman, apparently drunk, and dressed
only in shirt and trousers, stepped in front of the door, and swinging
the spoke of a large wheel in his right hand shouted: "Where's Mr.
Hanbury?" And some one shouted as in reply: "The blackguard has turned
three thousand workmen out on the streets to-day so that he can go
traveling with his millions." The workman yelled once more: "Where is
Mr. Hanbury?" Gerald moved forward a step and, looking the questioner
straight in the eye, said: "I'm Mr. Hanbury, what do you want?"
The workman glared at him with wild, bloodshot eyes and cried in a
fierce rage: "That's what I want," and quick as a flash the heavy spoke
descended on Hanbury's head. The terrific blow felled Gerald to the
ground, and he sank without uttering a sound beside the body of the
wounded woman lying at his feet.
Robertson flew at the drunken brute as he prepared for a second blow,
but some of the other laborers had already torn his weapon out of his
hand, and, as if in answer to this base murder, the troops discharged a
fresh volley only a hundred yards away, which was again received with
shots from dozens of revolvers.
Robertson felt a stinging pain in his left arm and, in a sudden access
of weakness, he leaned for support against the doorway. His senses left
him for a moment, and when he came to, he saw a company of soldiers
passing the spot where he stood. The next instant the butt-end of a
musket pushed him backwards into the doorway.
"This is madness!" he cried. "You're firing on the people."
"Because the people are murdering and plundering downtown!" answered an
officer. Gradually the tumult calmed down. Another company passed by
Robertson, who had sat down on the step before the door. He examined his
arm and found that he was uninjured; a stone splinter must have struck
his left elbow, for the violent pain soon disappeared. The mob was
quickly lost to view up Broadway, while some ambulance surgeons appeared
on the other side of the street. Robertson called over to them and told
them Mr. Hanbury had been murdered, whereupon they crossed the street at
once.
Gerald Hanbury's corpse was lifted on a stretcher.
"How terrible, they've broken in his skull," said one of the surgeons,
and taking a gray shawl from the shoulders of the charwoman who was
writhing with agony, he threw it over the upper part of Gerald's body.
"Where shall we take it?" asked one of the surgeons.
"To Mr. Hanbury's house, two blocks north," directed Robertson, and
going up to one of the surgeons he added: "I'll take your place at the
stretcher, for you can make yourself useful elsewhere."
"How about her?" asked one of the ambulance attendants, pointing to the
woman on the ground.
"I'm afraid we can't do much for her," replied one of the surgeons, "she
seems to be near death's door."
Then the men lifted their burden and slowly the sad procession walked up
Broadway, which was now almost deserted.
A few shots could still be heard from the direction of Union Square; to
the left the sky was fiery red while clouds of smoke traveled over the
high buildings on Broadway, shutting out the light of the stars.
Robertson looked back. The street lay dark and still. Suddenly far away
in the middle of the street two glaring white lights appeared and above
them flared and waved the smoky flames of the petroleum torches, while
gongs and sirens announced the approach of the fire-engines. And now
they thundered past, the glaring lights from the acetylene lamps in
front of the fire-engines lighting up the whole pavement. Streams of
light and rushing black shadows played up and down the walls of the
buildings. Next came the rattling hook and ladder wagons and the
hosecarts, the light from the torches dancing in red and yellow stripes
on the helmets of the firemen. And then another puffing, snorting
engine, with hundreds of sparks and thick smoke pouring out of its wide
funnel, hiding the vehicle behind it in dark clouds. They're here one
moment, and gone the next, only to make way for another hook and ladder,
which sways and rattles past. The clanging of the gongs and the yells of
the sirens grow fainter and fainter, and finally, through the clouds of
sparks and smoke the whole weird cavalcade was seen to disappear into a
side-street. Little bits of smoldering wood and pieces of red-hot coal
remained lying on the street and burned with quivering, quick little
flames.
As they walked on the man next to Robertson told him why the troops had
been compelled to interfere. The excited mob which had tasted blood, as
it were, in the Chinese quarter and become more and more frantic, had
continued plundering in some of the downtown streets without any
discrimination--simply yielding to an uncontrollable desire for
destruction. As a result a regular battle ensued between this mob, which
consisted chiefly of Russian and Italian rabble, on one hand, and Irish
workingmen who were defending their homes, on the other. The Russian
contingent seemed to consist largely of the riff-raff which had found
such a ready refuge in New York during the Russian Revolution, and some
of these undesirable citizens now had recourse to dynamite. Some of the
bombs caused great loss of life among the Irish people living in that
part of town, and several policemen had also been killed in the
performance of their duty. It was at this point that the authorities
deemed it advisable to call out the troops, with whose arrival affairs
immediately began to take on a different turn.
The soldiers did not hesitate to use their bayonets against the rabble.
At several corners they encountered barricades, but they hesitated
resorting to their firearms until several bombs were thrown among the
troops while they were storming a barricade defended by Russian
Terrorists. That was the last straw. With several volleys the soldiers
drove the gang of foreign looters up Broadway, where a volley discharged
near the spot where Gerald Hanbury had been murdered, dispersed the last
compact mass of plunderers.
In the meantime the men had reached Mr. Hanbury's house and Robertson
rang the bell. Not until they had rung loudly several times did the
butler appear, and then only to announce gruffly that there was no one
at home. A policeman ordered him to open the door at once, so that Mr.
Hanbury's dead body might be brought in.
"But Mr. Hanbury is at home, you can't possibly have his dead body
there!"
"Tell Mr. Hanbury right away!" interrupted the policeman. "It's young
Mr. Hanbury, and he's been murdered. Open the door, do you hear!"
Silently the heavy bronze door turned on its hinges and, with the
policeman in the lead, the men were ushered into the high marble
entrance-hall of the Hanbury palace. They carried the stretcher on which
lay the murdered body of the son of the house up the broad staircase,
the thick carpets deadening the sound of their steps. At the top of the
stairs they lowered their burden and waited in silence. Doors opened and
shut in the distance; from one of them a bright stream of light fell on
the shining onyx pillars and on the gilt frames of the paintings, which
in the light from strange swinging lamps looked like huge black patches.
Then the light from the door disappeared, a bell rang somewhere and
figures hurried to and fro. A fantastically dressed East Indian next
appeared and made signs to the ambulance-men to carry the stretcher into
a room which, in its fabulous, Oriental splendor represented one of the
most beautiful of the Indian mosques. The men carried their burden
carefully into the middle of the room and then set it down and looked at
one another in embarrassment. The policeman assumed a dignified posture
and cleared his throat. Suddenly the heavy gold-embroidered curtain
before one of the doors was pushed aside by a brown hand and fell back
in heavy folds; an old white-haired man stood for a moment in the
doorway and then advanced towards the officer with a firm step.
The latter cleared his throat again and then began in a dry and
business-like tone to give his report of Gerald Hanbury's murder,
ending with the words "--and these gentlemen picked him up and brought
him here."
"I thank you, gentlemen," said the old man, and taking out his
pocket-book he handed each of them, including Robertson, a twenty-dollar
bill. Then he sat down wearily on the edge of the stretcher and rested
his head in his hands. He seemed to be oblivious of his surroundings.
The men stood round for a few moments not knowing what to do, until
finally the policeman led the ambulance-men and Robertson to the door,
which opened automatically.
As the Indian closed the door behind them the officer said to Robertson:
"This is like the last act in a Third Avenue melodrama."
"Life has a liking for such plays," answered Robertson. As they left the
Hanbury mansion the clock of Grace Church struck midnight. Robertson
glanced down Broadway once more and saw that the long thoroughfare was
almost deserted; only here and there the bluish-white light from the
electric lamps shone on the bayonets of the sentinels patrolling up and
down at long intervals. Then he repaired to the _Daily Telegraph_
offices to dictate his notes, so that the huge rolls of printed paper
might announce to the world to-morrow that the first victims of the
terrible war had fallen on the streets of New York.
The factory of Horace Hanbury & Son was not shut down.
_Chapter VII_
THE RED SUN OVER THE GOLDEN GATE
Too-oo-ot, bellowed the whistle of a big steamer that was proceeding
gingerly through the fog which enveloped the broad Bay of San Francisco
early on the morning of May seventh. The soft, white mist crept through
the Golden Gate among the masts and funnels of the ships made fast to
the docks, enveloped the yellow flame of the lanterns on the foremast in
a misty veil, descended from the rigging again, and threatened to
extinguish the long series of lights along the endless row of docks. The
glistening bands of light on the Oakland shore tried their best to
pierce the fog, but became fainter and fainter in the damp, penetrating,
constantly moving masses of mist. Even the bright eye on Angel Island
was shut out at last. Too-oo-ot, again sounded the sullen cry of warning
from the steamer in the Golden Gate--Too-oo-ot. And then from Tiburon
opposite the shrill whistle of the ferry-boat was heard announcing its
departure to the passengers on the early train from San Rafael. The
flickering misty atmosphere seemed like a boundless aquarium, an
aquarium in which gigantic prehistoric, fabulous creatures stretched
their limbs and glared at one another with fiery eyes. Trembling beams
of light hovered between the dancing lights on and between the ships,
rising and falling like transparent bars when the shivering sentries on
deck moved their lanterns, and threw into relief now some dripping bits
of rigging, and again the black outline of a deck-house as the sailor
hurried below for a drink to refresh his torpid spirits.
The cold wind blew the damp fog into Market Street, forced it uphill and
then let it roll down again, filling every street with its gray
substance.
Too-oo-ot, came the whistle from the Golden Gate again and further off
still another whistle could be heard. Over in Tiburon the ferry-boat had
calmed down, as it found itself unable to budge in the fog. One after
the other, the tower-clocks struck half-past four, the strokes sounding
loud and unnatural in the fog. From Telegraph Hill at the northern end
of San Francisco a splendid view could be obtained of this undulating
sea of mist. A few of the isolated houses situated in the higher parts
of the town looked like islands floating on the ever-moving glossy gray
billows, while the top stories of several sky-scrapers rose up here and
there like solemn black cliffs. A faint light in the east heralded the
approach of day. Too-oo-ot, sounded the whistle of the approaching
steamer once again; then its voice broke and died out in a discordant
sob, which was drowned in the nervous gang, gang, gang of the ship's
bell. The steamer had been obliged to anchor on account of the fog.
Too-oo-ot, came from the other steamer further out. Then life in the bay
came to a stand-still: nothing could be done till the sun rose and
brought warmth in its train.
"This damned fog," said Tom Hallock, a telegraph boy, to his colleague,
Johnny Kirkby, as he jumped off his bicycle in front of the Post Office,
"this damned fog is enough to make one choke."
Johnny muttered some unintelligible words, for he was still half asleep;
the effect of last night's eighteen drinks had not yet quite worn off.
"You can't see the nearest lamp-post," he blurted out after a while. "I
nearly ran into a company of infantry just now that suddenly popped up
in front of me out of the fog. What's going on this morning, anyhow?
What are they marching out to Golden Gate for?"
"Oh, you jay," said Tom, "naval maneuvers, of course! Are you blind?
Haven't you read the _Evening Standard_? There are to be naval maneuvers
this morning, and Admiral Perry is going to attack San Francisco."
"This war-game is a crazy scheme," grumbled Johnny. They both left their
bicycles downstairs in a room in the Post Office and then went up to
their quarters on the first story.
"Naval maneuvers?" began Johnny again. "I really don't know anything
about them. It was in last night's _Evening Standard_. It said that the
orders had been changed quite unexpectedly, and that the maneuvers would
take place outside the bay to-day."
"It looks as though we'd have a long wait before daylight appears," said
Tom impatiently, pointing out of the windows, while Johnny tackled the
dilapidated tea-kettle in an effort to make himself an early morning
drink. Tom stamped up and down the room to warm himself, remarking:
"Thank the Lord it's Sunday and there isn't much going on, otherwise
we'd all get sick chasing around with telegrams in this beastly fog."
Boom! The roar of a distant cannon suddenly made the windows rattle;
boom again! It sounded as though it came from the Fort. "There you are,"
said Tom, "there's your naval maneuvers. Perry won't stand any nonsense.
He's not afraid of the fog; in fact, it gives him a fine chance for an
attack."
Johnny didn't answer, for he had meanwhile dozed off. As soon as he had
with considerable trouble got his tea-kettle into working order, he had
fallen fast asleep, and now began to snore with his nose pressed flat
on the table, as if he meant to saw it through before his tea was ready.
Tom shrugged his shoulders in disgust, and said: "Those blamed drinks."
Another boom! from outside. The door opened behind Tom and a telegraph
official looked in. "One, two," he counted, "two are there," and then he
closed the door again.
Downstairs in the street a motor-cycle hurried past puffing and
rattling, the rider's figure looking like a gigantic elusive shadow
through the fog.
Tom started to walk up and down again as the clock in the hall struck a
quarter to five. A bell rung in the next room. Steps were heard coming
up the stairs and a colleague of the other two came in, swearing at the
fog. He passed Johnny, poured out some of the latter's tea for himself
and drank it, meanwhile looking at the sleeper inquiringly.
"It's the drinks," said Tom, grinning.
"H'm," growled the other. Another motor-cycle went by on the street
below, and then another.
Later on a group of ten motor-cycles rode past.
"Did you see that, Harry?" asked Tom, who was standing at the window.
"What?"
"Didn't they have guns?"
"They probably have something to do with the naval maneuvers."
At this moment another group of ten men passed, and there was no doubt
of the fact that they carried guns.
"I guess it is the naval maneuvers," asserted Tom.
Boom! came the sound of another shot.
"That's queer," said Tom. "What do you suppose it is?" He opened the
window and listened. "Do you hear it?" he asked Harry, who admitted
that he could also hear a rattling, scraping noise as though drums were
being beaten far away or as though a handful of peas had been thrown
against a pane of glass.
Tom leaned further out of the window in time to see a bicycle rider stop
in front of the Post Office, take a big sheet of paper, moisten it with
a large brush, and stick it on the wall near the entrance; then he rode
off. Tom shut the window, for the fog seemed to be getting thicker and
thicker, and now, in the pale light of approaching dawn, it was almost
impossible to recognize the yellow spots of light on the lamp-posts. By
this time Johnny had awakened and they all had some tea together.
They were interrupted by a fourth messenger boy, who entered the room at
this moment and exclaimed:
"That's a great scheme of Admiral Perry's, and the fog seems to have
helped him a lot. What do you think? He has surprised San Francisco.
There's a notice posted downstairs stating that the Japanese have taken
possession of San Francisco and that the Japanese military governor of
San Francisco asks the citizens to remain quiet or the city will be
bombarded from the harbor by the Japanese fleet."
"Perry is a great fellow, there's no use trying to fool with him," said
Tom. "San Francisco surprised by the Japs--that's a mighty fine scheme."
Outside some one was tearing up the stairs two at a time, doors banged
noisily, and several bells rang. "Somebody's in a h--- of a hurry," said
Harry; "we'll have something to do in a minute."
A telegraph operator hurriedly opened the door and with great beads of
perspiration rolling down his face, shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Boys, the Japanese have surprised San Francisco."
A roar of laughter greeted this piece of information.
"Stung!" cried Harry. "Stung! Perry is the Jap."
"Perry?" inquired the newcomer, staring at the other four. "Who's
Perry?"
"Don't you know, Mr. Allen, that there are naval maneuvers going on
to-day and that Admiral Perry is to surprise San Francisco with the
fleet?"
"But there are notices at all the street-corners saying that the
Japanese governor of San Francisco begs the citizens----"
"Yes, that's where the joke comes in. Perry is going to attack the town
as a Jap--that's his scheme."
"You haven't had enough sleep," cried Tom. "If all the Japs looked like
Admiral Perry, then----"
Tom broke off short and dropped his tea-cup on the floor, staring
blankly at the door as if he saw a ghost. Just behind Mr. Allen stood a
Jap, with a friendly grin on his face, but a Jap all the same, most
certainly and without the slightest doubt a Jap. He looked around the
bare office and said in fluent English: "I must ask you to remain in
this room for the present." With these words he raised his revolver and
kept a sharp eye on the five occupants.
Johnny jumped up and felt instinctively for the revolver in his hip
pocket, but in a flash the muzzle of the Jap's gun was pointed straight
at him and mechanically he obeyed the order "Hands up!"
"Hand that thing over here," said the Jap; "you might take it into your
head to use it," and he took Johnny's revolver and put it in his pocket.
Several Japanese soldiers passed by outside. Mr. Allen sank down on a
chair; not one of them could make head or tail of the situation.
They were kept waiting for half an hour. Down below in the street, where
the wagons were beginning to rattle over the pavement, could be heard
the steady march of bodies of soldiers, frequently interrupted by the
noise of motor-cycles. There could no longer be any doubt--the affair
was getting serious.
The lamps were extinguished and the gray light of dawn filled the rooms
as the head Postmaster made his rounds, guarded by a Japanese officer.
The official was perspiring profusely from sheer nervousness. He begged
the employees to keep calm, and assured them that it was no joke, but
that San Francisco was really in the hands of the Japanese. It was the
duty of the employees and the citizens, he said, to refrain from all
resistance, so that a worse misfortune--a bombardment, he added in a
whisper--might not befall the city.
The men were obliged to give up any weapons they had in their
possession, and these were collected by the Japanese. At seven o'clock,
when these details had been attended to, and the few telegraph
instruments which were kept in commission were being used by Japanese
operators--all the others had been rendered useless by the removal of
some parts of the mechanism--one of the regular operators asked to be
allowed to speak to the Postmaster. Permission having been granted by
the Japanese guard, he told his chief, in a low voice, that the moment
the Japanese soldiers had taken possession of the telegraph room he had
hurriedly dispatched a message to Sacramento, telling them that San
Francisco had been surprised by the Japanese fleet and that the whole
city was occupied by Japanese troops.
"I thank you in the name of our poor country," said the Postmaster,
shaking the operator's hand, "I thank you with all my heart; you have
done a brave deed."
Just at the time when the operator sent off his telegram to Sacramento,
a little, yellow, narrow-eyed fellow, lying in a ditch many miles
inland, far to the east of San Francisco, connected his Morse apparatus
with the San Francisco-Sacramento telegraph-wire, and intercepted the
following message: "Chief of Police, Sacramento.--San Francisco attacked
by Japanese fleet this morning; whole city in hands of Japanese army.
Resistance impossible, as attack took place in thick fog before dawn.
Help imperative."
The little yellow man smiled contentedly, tore off the strip, and handed
it to the officer standing near him. The latter drew a deep breath and
said: "Thank Heaven, that's settled."
At the time of the occupation of the Post Office building, the Japanese
outposts had already spun their fine, almost invisible silver threads
around all the telegraph-wires far inland and thus cut off all
telegraphic communication with the east. The telegram just quoted
therefore served only to tell the Japanese outposts of the overwhelming
success of the Japanese arms at the Golden Gate.
But how had all this been accomplished? The enemy could not possibly
have depended on the fog from the outset. Nevertheless an unusual
barometrical depression had brought in its train several days of
disagreeable, stormy weather. The Japanese had been fully prepared for a
battle with the San Francisco forts and with the few warships stationed
in the harbor. The fact that they found such a strong ally in the fog
was beyond all their hopes and strategical calculations.
When the sun sank in the waves of the Pacific on the sixth of May, every
Japanese had his orders for the next few hours, and the five thousand
men whose part it was to attend to the work to be accomplished in San
Francisco on the morning of the seventh, disappeared silently into the
subterranean caves and cellars of the Chinese quarter, to fetch their
weapons and be ready for action soon after midnight.
_Chapter VIII_
IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH
It was thought that the earthquake had done away forever with the
underground labyrinth of the Chinese quarter--those thousands of pens
inhabited by creatures that shunned the light of day, those mole-holes
which served as headquarters for a subterranean agitation, the
mysterious methods of which have never been revealed to the eye of the
white man. When had the old Chinatown been laid out; when had those
hidden warehouses, those opium dens and hiding-places of the Mongolian
proletariat been erected, those dens in which all manner of criminals
celebrated their indescribable orgies and which silently hid all these
evil-doers from the far-reaching arm of the police? When had the new
Chinatown sprung up? When had the new quarter been provided with an
endless network of subterranean passages, so that soon all was just as
it had been before the earthquake? No one had paid any attention to
these things. The Mongolian secret societies never paused for a moment
in their invisible conspiracy against the ruling whites, and succeeded
in creating a new underground world, over which the street traffic
rolled on obliviously.
A narrow cellar entrance and greasy, slippery steps led into Hung Wapu's
store, behind which there was a chop-house, which in turn led into an
opium-den. The rooms behind the latter, from which daylight was forever
excluded, were reserved for still worse things. No policeman would ever
have succeeded in raiding these dens of iniquity; he would have found
nothing but empty rooms or bunks filled with snoring Chinese; the
abominable stench would soon have driven him out again, but if, by any
chance, he had attempted to penetrate further and to explore the walls
for the purpose of discovering hidden openings, the only result would
have been a story in the next day's papers about a "missing" policeman.
Hung Wapu, whose plump face, with its enormous spectacles, resembled
that of an old fat boarding-house keeper, was standing at the entrance
to his cellar-shop late on the evening of May sixth. A disgusting odor
and the murmur of many voices reached the street from the cellar. The
policeman had just made his rounds, and Hung Wapu looked after him with
a cunning grin as his heavy steps died away in the distance.
The coast was clear for two hours. Hung Wapu went in and locked the
door, above which a green paper-lantern swung gently to and fro in the
soft night wind. Hung Wapu passed through the store to the chop-house,
where several dozen Chinese were squatting on the ground dining on
unmentionable Chinese delicacies, which consisted of anything and
everything soft enough to be chewed. No one watching the vacant
expression of these people would have dreamed for a moment that anything
was wrong; no one observing these chattering, shouting sons of the
Celestial Kingdom would have guessed that anything out of the ordinary
was on foot. They kept on eating, and did not even look up when several
Japs stole, one by one, through their midst and disappeared through a
door at the back. The Japs apparently attracted no attention whatsoever,
but a keen observer would have noticed that Hung Wapu placed a little
saki-bowl on a low table for every Japanese visitor that had entered his
shop.
The Japs all went through a side-door of the opium-den into a large
room, where they took off their outer clothing and put on uniforms
instead. Then they lay down to sleep either on the mats on the floor or
on the bundles of clothing which were stacked on the floor along the
walls of the room.
Hung Wapu now accompanied one of his Chinese guests up the cellar-steps
to the street, and sitting down on the top step began to chat in a low
voice with his apparently half-intoxicated countryman. At the same time
he polished about two dozen little saki-bowls with an old rag,
afterwards arranging them in long rows on the pavement.
The animated traffic in the narrow alley gradually died down. One by one
most of the gas-lamps closed their tired eyes, and only the green
paper-lantern above Hung Wapu's door continued to swing to and fro in
the night-wind, while similar spots of colored light were visible in
front of a few of the neighboring houses. Far away a clock struck the
hour of midnight, and somewhere else, high up in the air, a bell rang
out twelve strokes with a metallic sound. A cool current of air coming
from the harbor swept through the hot, ill-smelling alley.
Hung Wapu went on whispering with his companion, and all the time he
continued to polish his little saki-bowls. After a while the visitor
fell asleep against the door-post and snored with all his might. Misty
shadows began to fall slowly and the lights of the street lamps took on
a red glow. Suddenly the figure of a drunken man appeared a little
distance away; he was carefully feeling his way along the houses, but as
soon as he came in sight of Hung Wapu's cellar, he suddenly seemed to
sober up for a minute and made directly for it. "Saki!" he stammered,
planting himself in front of Hung Wapu, whereupon the latter made a
sign. The drunken man, a Japanese, whose face looked ghastly pale in the
green light from the lantern, stared stupidly at the saki-bowls, which
Hung Wapu was trying to shield from the tottering wretch with his arm.
"Twenty-eight bowls," he stammered to himself, "twenty-eight
saki-bowls----"
At this moment the sleeping Chinaman awoke and looked at the drunken man
with a silly laugh.
"Yes, twenty-eight saki-bowls; it's all right--twenty-eight saki-bowls,"
repeated the drunken Jap, and reeled on along the houses.
Hung Wapu seemed to have ended his day's work with the polishing of the
twenty-eight saki-bowls; he piled them up in a heap and disappeared with
them into his cellar, followed with extraordinary agility by the Chinese
sleeper. He hurried through the chop-house, the occupants of which were
all fast asleep on their straw mats, passed through the opium-den, and
then, in the third room, divested himself of his Chinese coat. The
silk-cap with the pigtail attached was flung into a corner, and then,
dressed in a khaki uniform, he seated himself at a table and studied a
map of the city of San Francisco, making notes in a small book by the
light of a smoky oil lamp.
The drunken Jap, who had apparently had doubts about entering Hung
Wapu's chop-house, tottered on down the quiet street and made for
another paper-lantern, which hung above another cellar door about ten
houses farther on.
Here too, curiously enough, he found the Chinese landlord sitting on the
top step. He wanted to push him aside and stumble down the steps, but
the Chinaman stopped him.
"How much?" stuttered the drunken man.
"How much?" answered the Chinaman. "How much money will the great
stranger pay for a meal for his illustrious stomach in Si Wafang's
miserable hut? Forty kasch, forty kasch the noble son of the Rising Sun
must pay for a shabby meal in Si Wafang's wretched hut."
"Forty kasch? I'll bring the forty kasch, most noble Si Wafang. 'I won't
go home till morning, till daylight does appear,'" bawled the tipsy man,
and staggered on down the street, whereupon this landlord also
disappeared in his cellar, after extinguishing the paper lantern over
the doorway.
A death-like stillness reigned in the street, and no one imagined that
the rats were assembling, that the underground passages were full of
them, and that it only needed a sign to bring the swarming masses to the
surface.
A cold breeze from the sea swept through the deserted streets and a
misty veil enveloped the yellow light of the gas-lamps. The lanterns
hanging in front of the Chinese cellars were extinguished one by one,
and everyone apparently turned in. The fog became thicker and thicker,
and covered the pavement with moisture.
Suddenly the door of Hung Wapu's cellar squeaked; it was opened
cautiously and a low clatter came up from below. Thirty dark forms crept
slowly up the steps, one after the other, and without a word they began
their march. Ten houses farther on a similar detachment poured out of
the other Chinese cellar and joined their ranks.
The gas-lamps shed a dull, yellowish-red light on the gun-barrels of the
Japanese company, which was marching down to the docks.
Two thousand steps farther on it had become a battalion, which marched
rapidly in the direction of the barracks of the Fifth Regiment of
regulars in the old Presidio. At the next corner the leader of the
battalion unobtrusively saluted a man in uniform who stepped suddenly
out of a doorway. A few Japanese words were exchanged in a low tone.
"This is an unexpected ally," said the Japanese colonel, holding out his
hand in the dense fog.
Four o'clock struck from the tower of the Union Ferry Depot, and out
from the sea, from the Golden Gate, came the bellowing voice of a
steamer's whistle. The two officers looked at each other and smiled, and
the troops continued their march.
"Halloo!" shouted a roundsman to a policeman who had been leaning
against a lamp-post half asleep. "Halloo, Tom, wake up! Who are those
fellows over there; where the deuce are they going?"
Tom opened his eyes, and up on the hill, a few blocks away, he could
faintly distinguish through the thick fog the outline of a group of
rapidly moving soldiers. "I guess they are some of our boys taking part
in the naval maneuver. You know, Perry's going to attack us to-day."
"Well, I didn't know that," replied the roundsman. "They're great boys,
all right; up and about at four in the morning." Just then the angry
bellow from a steamer's whistle came across the water and abruptly ended
this early morning conversation.
"I suppose that's Perry now," said Tom. "Well, he can't do much in this
beastly fog, anyway."
"So long, Tom," answered the roundsman curtly as he slowly proceeded to
resume his interrupted rounds.
An advance guard of a few men had been sent ahead. They found the sentry
at the barrack-gates fast asleep. When he awoke it was to discover
himself surrounded by a dozen men. He stared at them, still heavy with
sleep, and then reached mechanically for his gun; it was gone. He tried
to pull himself together, felt something cold pressed against his right
temple, and saw the barrel of a Browning pistol in the hand of the man
in front of him.
"Hands up!" came the command in a low tone, and a few seconds later he
was bound and gagged. As he lay on the ground, he saw a whole battalion
of foreign soldiers half in the court-yard before the barracks, and
vague thoughts of naval maneuvers and surprises, of Admiral Perry and
the Japs went through his mind, till all at once the notion "Japs"
caused him to sit up mentally--weren't these men real Japanese? And if
so, what did it all mean?
In the meantime double guards had occupied all the men's quarters, in
which Uncle Sam's soldiers began gradually to wake up. The guns and
ammunition had long ago passed into the hands of the Japs, and when at
last the reveille from a Japanese bugle woke up the garrison completely,
there was nothing to be done but to grind their teeth with rage and
submit to the inevitable. They had to form in line in the court-yard at
eight o'clock, and then, disarmed and escorted by Japanese troops, they
had to board the ferry-boats and cross over to Angel Island, while the
cannon on Fort Point (Winfield Scott) thundered out the last notes of
American resistance in San Francisco.
* * * * *
When, shortly after midnight, the guard had been relieved for the last
time, and only a few sleepy soldiers remained in the sentry-boxes of the
coast batteries of San Francisco, the enemy lay in ambush behind the
coast-line, ready, to the last man, to rise at a given signal and render
the unsuspecting American troops _hors de combat_ in their sleep. And
thus, before the sentinels had any idea what was going on, they were
disarmed and gagged. Not a single cry or shot was heard to warn the
sleeping soldiers. They awoke to find themselves confronted by Japanese
bayonets and gun-barrels, and resistance was utterly useless, for the
enemy, who seemed to be remarkably well posted, had already taken
possession of the ammunition and arms.
And where, all this time, was Admiral Perry with his fleet? Nowhere. The
Japanese had made no mistake in relying on the traditional love of
sensation of the American press. The telegram sent on May sixth from Los
Angeles to the San Francisco _Evening Standard_ was nothing but a
Japanese trick. It notified the _Standard_ that Admiral Perry intended
during the naval maneuvers (which were actually to take place within the
next fortnight) to gain an entrance through the Golden Gate, and the
Japanese felt certain that the editor would not make inquiries at the
last moment as to the veracity of this report, which was not at all in
accord with previous arrangements, but would print it as it was, more
especially as it was signed by their usual correspondent.
Thus the Japanese had reason to hope that no immediate suspicions would
be aroused by the appearance of warships in the Bay of San Francisco.
And so it turned out. The five Japanese armored cruisers and the torpedo
flotilla, which were to surprise and destroy the naval station and the
docks, were able to cross the entire bay under cover of the fog without
being recognized and to occupy the docks and the arsenal. Four
mortar-boats threatened Point Bonita and Lime Point, till they both
surrendered.
What could the two cruisers _New York_ and _Brooklyn_, lying in dock for
repairs, do without a single ball-cartridge on board? What was the good
of the deck guards using up their cartridges before the red flag of
Nippon was hoisted above the Stars and Stripes?
It is true there was a fight at one spot--out at Winfield Scott.
Although the fog proved of great assistance to the Japanese in a hundred
cases, the stipulated signal for attack, that is, the whistle of the
Japanese auxiliary cruiser _Pelung Maru_, for example, being taken for a
fog-signal, nevertheless an annoying surprise awaited the enemy
elsewhere.
A steamer headed towards the Golden Gate in the wake of the _Pelung
Maru_ heard the roar of the sealions, and as this showed how near they
were to the cliffs, the vessel dropped anchor and instead of blowing its
whistle ordered the ship's bell to be rung. This was heard by the
_Pelung Maru_ a short distance ahead and interpreted as a sign that
something had occurred to disturb the plan of attack. A steamlaunch was
therefore sent out to look for the anchored ship.
The latter was the German steamer _Siegismund_, whose captain, standing
on the bridge, suddenly saw a dripping little launch approaching with
its flag trailing behind it in the water. And just as in every cleverly
arranged plan one stupid oversight is apt to occur so it happened now.
The launch carried the Japanese flag and the lieutenant at the helm
called to the _Siegismund_ in Japanese. As they were directly before the
guns of the American batteries, the German captain didn't know what to
make of it. He couldn't imagine what the launch from a Japanese warship
could be doing here at dawn before the Golden Gate fortifications, and
thinking that the fact would be likely to be of interest to the
commander of the fort, he sent him the following wireless message: "Have
just met launch of a Japanese warship off Seal-Rocks; what does it
mean?"
This information alarmed the garrison at Winfield Scott, and the men at
once received orders to man the guns. Then they waited breathlessly to
see what would happen next.
An inquiry sent by wireless to the other stations remained unanswered,
because these were already in the hands of the Japanese, whose operators
were not quick-witted enough to send back a reassuring answer. As the
commander of the fort received no answer, he became suspicious, and
these suspicions were soon justified when a number of soldiers were
discovered trying to force their way into the nar
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