The North Pacific

"Ay, ay, sir!" returned Liddon, delighted with his commission.

For the second time within an hour the boat glided down from the davits, and went tossing over the waves, driven by eight pairs of brawny arms.

Before they could reach the side of the junk, a chorus of shouts came from the gunboat they had just left.

"Man overboard! Man overboard! Stand by to pick him up!"

The fact was that when the Chinamen saw that the formidable war-ship was really in earnest, a panic seized them. They all shrieked and jabbered together, as their vessel hove to, and Dick Scupp plainly saw that more trouble was coming for him. There seemed to be a dispute between two factions on the junk, one of which screamed and pointed first to Dick and then to the Osprey, and the other pointed as furiously to the hold of the junk. Comprehending that they were discussing whether to restore him to his own ship, or to hide him below decks – possibly with a knife in his heart – and declare innocence, the sailor made ready for action.

The party demanding his concealment seemed to have carried their point, for a number of them now made a rush for Dick, with fierce eyes and with daggers drawn. The seaman sprang to his feet, catching one of his guards with a blow under the ear and tripping the other to the deck. Before a hand could be laid upon him he bounded over the rail into the sea, and began to swim vigorously toward the approaching boat.

All efforts of the crew of the latter were now directed to saving the life of their comrade. Liddon steered skilfully up to him and a moment later he was dragged in over the gunwale, gasping and sputtering. The junk, meanwhile, caught the wind over her bows and filled away again toward the north-east. The Osprey waited to pick up her boat, as the Chinamen thought she would, and another chase was in prospect.

"Stave her to bits! It's an insult to the United States! We can catch up with her in five minutes!" urged the junior officers of the gunboat, gathering around their commander, forgetful of discipline.

Rexdale shook his head, though his teeth were set and his face red with suppressed anger. "We can prove nothing," he said. "They'll swear he was a deserter and concealed himself on board. Uncle Sam doesn't want to take on China or anybody else in this scrappy country just now. We'd be blamed and court-martialled if we should sink a junkful of Chinamen for no better reason than the one we have."

He turned to the pilot. "Full speed ahead, on her course for Chemulpo." Then, calling down to the gun-captain, "Unload and secure!"

Dick was duly disciplined for absenting himself beyond leave, but, considering the hard experience he had undergone, his punishment was made nominal, with a not very severe reprimand from the commander. The dog was named "Junk" and became the rival of the black kitten – though very friendly with her – as the mascot of the Osprey.

CHAPTER XVIII.
OSHIMA GOES A-FISHING

Captain Oshima (promoted from lieutenancy for bravery on the field), of the 10th Regiment in the Second Japanese Army, under General Odzer, was fishing. Like most of the Japanese soldiers he had brought from home, among other effects, a small fishing-line and several hooks. There were hours and even days when he was called upon to perform no active duty beyond routine drills, and in memory of the days when he and Oto used to tramp the brook-sides of dear old Japan, displaying their trophies at night to gently admiring O-Hana-San and the other prim little maids of the village, he had determined to try his luck in this strange, war-swept Manchuria. The hill-tops might be wreathed in battle-smoke and the plains heaped with dead and dying; but in obscure valleys and down slopes which had thus far escaped the tread of martial forces, the ploughshare of the steel shell and the terrible harrow of shrapnel, streamlets laughed and flowed blithely along their pebbled courses, and tiny trout darted to and fro as merrily as in the dreamy days of peace and plenty. So Oshima went a-fishing.

Unrolling his line and attaching it to a neat little pole, cut in a near-by thicket, he took his seat on a boulder and dropped his baited hook in one of the quieter pools of a brook that fed an upper branch of the Faitse River. It was warm, and Oshima took a fan from his pocket and fanned himself gravely as he fished. Every Japanese soldier is provided with a fan. Oshima had often looked back on his company, and on the column trailing behind, on a long march under the scorching Manchurian sun in June, and had seen a thousand little fans fluttering beside the heads of the men.

The Japanese army are not only among the fiercest fighters the world has ever known, but they are dainty in their appointments. With the army go camp-followers who are allowed to sell fans, handkerchiefs, cigarettes, tea, soaps, tooth-brushes, and writing-paper. For the officers are carried great iron kettles in nets, two on a pony; these are used in heating water for baths, as well as to cook the company mess of rice. A few squares of straw matting make a bath-house, and a big stone jar is the tub of comfort for the almond-eyed campaigner. Much time is also spent in correspondence. The field post carried an immense amount of mail every day between Antung and the front. Around the camp of Oshima's regiment could be seen, in the quieter hours of the day, hundreds of soldiers sitting cross-legged under the trees, painting artistic epistles to their dear ones at home with brushes on rolls of thin paper. Oshima himself had written two letters that day; one to his mother and one to O-Hana-San, who was now a volunteer nurse under the Red Cross at a large seaport of the new country. So he went fishing.

He caught three very small trout within an hour. Then he rose, rolled up his line and deposited it in a neat packet, strung the fish upon a twig and was about to return to camp when he noticed a Chinese coolie acting very peculiarly. The man was dressed as a Chinese labourer, with a helmet upon his head, a coarse blouse and thick-soled shoes, like all of his caste. He was carrying two pails of water, which he had just filled at the brook, a few rods below Oshima. This was no unusual occupation for a coolie, although it was surprisingly far from camp; the peculiarity lay in the keenness with which the man surveyed the outworks of the fortifications, and his manner in glancing nervously over his shoulder as he walked off. When he saw Oshima looking at him he almost dropped his pails; then hurried down toward the camp at a pace that soon carried him out of sight.

It was late in the afternoon when the captain – who had dined sumptuously on rice and his three fish – caught sight of the coolie once more. The man was walking past his tent, carrying water as before. Oshima called to him sharply. Apparently the coolie did not hear, for he continued on his way, with head bent and eyes cast down.

Oshima spoke a few words to his orderly, who passed an abrupt order to two privates stationed near headquarters. They at once stepped after the Chinaman, and clapping their hands on his shoulders, turned him round in his tracks and marched him back to the tent.

Oshima viewed the coolie in silence for a moment; then said in Chinese, "What is your name, my man?"

"Ah Wing, master."

"Your occupation?"

The man held up his water-pails, as if that were a sufficient answer. He had not yet looked his interrogator in the face, but persistently gazed down at the ground.

Oshima scrutinised the fellow intently. Suddenly and without warning the officer sprang to his feet, knocked off the helmet and tweaked the supposed coolie's pigtail. Behold, it came off in his hand! The man stood erect. He dropped his burden. His countenance was pale but firm. He looked his captor in the eye.

"You are a Russian soldier?" asked Oshima.

"I am an officer in the Third Siberian Reserves," answered the prisoner calmly, in his own language. "My name is Sergius Jalofsky. Volunteers were called for to obtain information as to your forces and defences. I was one of six to volunteer. The other five have, I trust, escaped. I was to return to Liaoyang to-night."

"Search him," said the Japanese captain sternly.

From an inner pocket was produced a paper containing measurements, figures, and plans relating to the encampment. The evidence was convincing, even if the spy, seeing that escape or concealment was impossible, had not made his full confession.

"Hold the prisoner under guard," ordered Oshima. "We will hold a court-martial and settle this matter at once."

The capture of the Russian was reported at once to the colonel of the regiment, and a council of officers was convened. Five minutes' deliberation was sufficient.

"You will die at sunset," said Oshima to the spy. "You are a brave man. You shall be shot."

At a gesture of the captain the guard led away the prisoner, whose countenance had not changed nor features relaxed in the slightest degree when the sentence was pronounced.

The sun was already nearing the mountain-tops in the west, and the cool damp shadows of evening rapidly advanced.

A corporal's guard led the captive to a retired spot at a short distance from the camp. The men formed in line, with loaded muskets ready.

"Sir," said the corporal, "have you any request to make, or message to leave? You are one of the bravest men I ever met. I give you my word your message shall be delivered."

For the first time the Russian's eyes moistened. "I thank you, comrade," said he. "I have but done my duty. It was at the Czar's command. I have no word – yet – I will ask you to send word to my wife in Irkutsk that I died like a man and a soldier." He took his ikon from his breast, kissed it, and bent his head over it a moment. Then, having given his wife's address to the corporal, who wrote it down carefully, he folded his arms and stood erect.

The corporal gently placed the folded arms down at the man's side. "It is well not to cover one's heart," he said. "Death will be very quick."

The Russian bowed his head gravely. "I am ready," he said.

"Ready, men! Aim! Fire!"

As the smoke drifted away, the Russian looked upward an instant, with a smile on his bronzed face; then, murmuring "At – the – Czar's – command!" he fell, dead.

Day by day, through the fierce summer heats of June and July, the Japanese strengthened their hold upon lower Manchuria, and tightened the cordon about Port Arthur.

Nanshan Hill and Motien Pass on the east were carried with the bayonet. Kinchow had already fallen, the fire of the Japanese fleet annihilating the Russian batteries in a two-days battle.

When the great Corliss wheel was set up and the massive machinery "assembled" at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, the maker refused to start his engine for a trial before the Exposition was officially opened.

"It will run," he said, "and run smoothly and perfectly. Every part is exact; figures cannot lie."

It was a great risk to take, but the event proved that the manufacturer was right. When the electric signal announced the formal opening of the Fair, steam was let on. The huge piston of the Corliss engine started; the enormous wheel – the largest ever made, up to that time – began to revolve, and in a moment every polished rod and valve and wheel in the great engine was doing its part, running the entire machinery of the hall and performing its work without jar or noise, as smoothly as a child's water-wheel in a wayside brook.

So operated the wondrous, complex machine of the Japanese military system, from the first mobilisation in Tokio, through the hurry and risk of transportation across the inner sea, and in movement after movement, battle after battle, in a country far removed from home. Field telephones kept the commanders in touch with advanced forces; the commissary department fulfilled its duties like clock-work; Kuroki, Oyama, Nodzu, Nogi, moved regiments and divisions to and fro like pieces upon a gigantic chess-board.

The heat was now terrible. More than once a whole battalion rushed into a river to drink, under the full sweep of the enemy's fire. Still the resistless army of small brown men swept onward, marching through fields of Chinese corn, winding along narrow defiles, holding firmly every point of vantage gained.

As the end of August drew near it was evident that the two mighty armies must meet. Minor battles had been fought, and skirmishes had been of almost daily occurrence throughout the campaign, but the vast hordes of armed men from the East and West had not yet been pitted against each other. The time had come at last, and the civilised world held its breath.

The Russian army lay strongly entrenched at Liaoyang, an old town on the line of the railroad between Port Arthur and Harbin. The Japanese had been pouring troops into the peninsula for months, a portion called the Third Army gathering around Port Arthur, under General Nogi, the remainder pressing northward on the heels of the retreating enemy. The objective of the First, Second, and Fourth Armies was Liaoyang. The supreme command of the Japanese forces was now entrusted to Field Marshal Marquis Oyama, who had commanded ten years before, in the war against China.

The three armies, having overcome every obstacle, were in touch before Liaoyang. They formed a huge horse-shoe, with its ends resting on the Taitse River, on the south bank of which stood Liaoyang. The Russians formed an inner horse-shoe in a similar position. On each side were over two hundred thousand men, nearly half a million human beings, all animated with the one desire to kill!

On the morning of August 30th, at the first grey of dawn a puff of white broke upward from the Japanese lines and a shell, filled with shrapnel, flew screaming across the peaceful plain – a dread messenger to announce the beginning of the longest and greatest battle the world had ever known.

One battery after another opened fire, throughout the entire front of nearly forty miles. Under cover of the artillery attack the Russians charged furiously, often driving the Japanese before them at the point of the bayonet; but no sooner was a company or a regiment annihilated than another took its place, and was hurled against the foe. Positions were taken and retaken. The carnage was terrible. Never in the world's history had such enormous masses of men thrown their lives away with utter abandon. On each side a thousand cannon thundered from morning till night. At noon of the second day a slow rain began to fall, transforming the plain into a quagmire, crossed and recrossed by endless trains of men, a part charging toward the front with wild shouts of defiance, a part halting, crawling, limping, or lying in carts, seeking the hospitals, where their ghastly wounds could be treated. When the second night fell it was reported in every capital in both hemispheres that after two days of desperate fighting Kouropatkin had gained a decided advantage.

Fred Larkin was in his element. Dashing to and fro on a shaggy little Siberian pony, he gathered news as if by instinct. His experience in the Spanish-American War served him in good stead, and he not only knew what deductions to draw from certain movements on both sides, but what information was most desired by his paper and the great reading public at home. In Boston the crowds in lower Washington Street read on the bulletin boards the despatches he dashed off in his note-book and sent from the Liaoyang telegraph office after they had been duly censored.

Late in the afternoon on the second day of the battle he was making his way back to the town across the miry fields south of Liaoyang. The shaggy pony shook his mane and snorted as the rain fell, but was too tired to trot.

"Tough day, pony," said Fred, who himself was so used up with his exertions that he could hardly sit upright in the saddle. "Never mind, old boy. In half an hour you will be in your stable, munching oats. You shall have an extra good supper for the hard work you've – hallo! be careful!"

The pony had wandered a little from the main road, which the steady stream of hospital and commissary waggons had made well-nigh impassable, and Fred had allowed him to pick out his own path across the plain so long as his general direction was right. The little animal now interrupted him by shying violently at an object upon which he had almost trampled. Peering down Fred saw a soldier stretched out upon the sodden ground. At first he thought the man was dead, but looking more closely he saw the soldier's hand move slightly, as if to ward off a blow.

"Poor chap!" said Fred, whose kind New England heart the horrors of war had by no means hardened, "I won't hurt you. Are you wounded?"

As the man did not reply, the rider dismounted for a closer examination of the prostrate soldier. Then he uttered an exclamation of pity. It was evident that the man had been struck – probably by a fragment of a shell – and a terrible wound inflicted upon his head. How he had managed to crawl from the firing line as far as this spot, Larkin could not see. It was plainly impossible for him to live. Fred mustered up what little Russian he could command and spoke gently to the poor fellow, whose life was going fast.

"What is your name?" he asked. "Can I do anything for you?"

"Ivan – Ivanovitch," gasped the soldier, making a great effort to speak. "I do not – know – I do not understand – I am a – soldier of – Russia – It was the command – the Little Father – ah-h!"

He spoke no more, but lay quiet and silent, his white, boyish face, upturned to the slow rain. Fred opened his military coat, and laid his hand upon Ivan's breast. The ikon was there, treasured to the last; but the heart no longer beat. At the Little Father's command, Ivan Ivanovitch, like thousands of his comrades, not knowing why, not understanding, but faithful to the last, had given up his home, his dear ones, his life.

With a long sigh Fred drew the flap of the young soldier's coat over the still face, remounted his pony, and rode on towards Liaoyang.

He found the town in a state of wild confusion, with heavy carts rumbling through the ill-made streets, crowds of wounded men on their way to the hospitals and the trains for Mukden; refugees clamouring at the railroad station, householders removing their goods, and thousands of people hurrying to and fro like ants in a breached ant-hill. With much difficulty the reporter got a brief dispatch through to the Bulletin, and sought a well-earned rest at his lodgings near the station.

Night after night the cannon thundered, and day after day the battle raged. The Russian front was now crowded in from thirty miles to less than eight. At great risk Oyama resolved to divide his army, and attempt a flanking movement, which proved successful. On the seventh day of the battle, Kuroki threw a strong force across the Taitse, ten miles above the town. This movement turned the scale. Kouropatkin gave orders to fall back on Mukden.

Larkin, meanwhile, was doing the work of half a dozen reporters and a Good Samaritan besides. He took his place beside the surgeons and nurses, whenever he could leave the firing line, and laboured by the hour, caring for the wounded, especially the Chinese who suffered the fate of those caught between two conflicting forces. The losses on both sides had been fearful, and the amount of ammunition expended almost incredible. In one day of the battle the Russian artillerists reported one hundred thousand shots fired.

Fred was assured at headquarters, on the day of Kuroki's flank movement, that in any case Liaoyang would not be evacuated for forty-eight hours; so he toiled on, in good faith, making no special provision for his withdrawal from the front, but intending to accompany the Russian army in its retreat. The next morning what was his surprise, on emerging from his lodgings, to find the town deserted by Kouropatkin's forces. Japanese flags were already flying from almost every house and shop of the Chinese inhabitants. Shells were bursting in the streets, and the Japanese army was reported just outside the gates.

He hurried to the railway station, only to find that the last train had gone. There seemed no way of escape, without crossing the fire-swept zone in the rear of the retreating army. Fred reluctantly faced the conclusion that he must return to the hospital and submit to inglorious capture, if no worse, at the hands of the Japanese; and this when he was ordered to "remain with the Russian army" by his own "Czar," the chief of the Daily Bulletin. The reporter ground his teeth as he stood irresolute, in a sheltering doorway. At that moment he happened to glance upward, and a huge, ungainly object, showing above the low roofs of the surrounding buildings, caught his eye. At first it meant nothing to him. "The balloon section have run and left their big gas-bag behind them," he said to himself mechanically. Throughout the fight a balloon had hovered above each of the contending armies, the occupants spying out the dispositions of the enemy's forces and telephoning from aloft to the commanders' headquarters. It was evident that the Russians, startled by the hurried orders to retreat, had obeyed so hastily as to leave their charge behind, to fall into the hands of the Japanese.

A thought flashed across Fred Larkin's quick brain as he gazed upon the swelling expanse of tawny silk. Quitting the doorway where he had taken refuge from the bursting shells, and snatching a Japanese flag as he ran, he made for the balloon. It was suspended over a small square, held down by a strong hemp cable. To spring into the car was the work of a moment. He drew his knife and was about to sever the rope when a shriek rang out from a neighbouring street and a man was seen running toward the square, pursued by half a dozen Chinamen.

"Help! Help! They'll murder me!" screamed the man, looking about wildly as he ran.

His eye fell upon Fred, in the balloon, and at the same moment the reporter recognised him, disguised, mud-stained, and dishevelled as he was.

"Stevens!" exclaimed Larkin, stooping to cut the moorings. Then a better impulse came over him. "Jump in, man!" he shouted. "It's our only chance to get out of town, if that's what you want!"

Stevens recoiled at the sound of Fred's voice, and his pursuers, seeing the daring reporter standing over the fugitive with a drawn knife, hesitated a moment.

"Get in! Get in!" reiterated Fred, seizing the shaking coward by the collar and fairly dragging him over the side of the wicker basket. "I won't hurt you!"

"Wh-where are you going?" stammered the renegade, sinking down in the bottom of the car.

"We'll decide that point later," said Fred, sawing away at the rope. "If a shell hits our ship before we've cast off, we shall stay right here; and from the looks of your excited friends there, the place would probably prove unhealthy for – Ah! Here we go!"

The last strand parted and the great balloon soared swiftly above the town. A distant Japanese artillerist trained his gun upon it, but the shot passed below, and a moment later the air-ship was out of range, mounting toward the clouds and swept by a strong west wind directly over the battle-field.