But our ship's captain tumbled from the
bridge, rescued his trumpet, and begged Fox, until we were under the
guns of a British man-of-war, to issue no more farewell addresses.
The next evening we passed into the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and saw above
Port Arthur the great guns flashing in the night, and the next day we
anchored in the snug harbor of Chefoo.
I went at once to the cable station to cable Collier's I was
returning, and asked the Chinaman in charge if my name was on his
list of those correspondents who could send copy collect. He said it
was; and as I started to write, he added with grave politeness, "I
congratulate you."
For a moment I did not lift my eyes. I felt a chill creeping down my
spine. I knew what sort of a blow was coming, and I was afraid of
it.
"Why?" I asked.
The Chinaman bowed and smiled.
"Because you are the first," he said. "You are the only
correspondent to arrive who has seen the battle of Liao-Yang."
The chill turned to a sort of nausea. I knew then what disaster had
fallen, but I cheated myself by pretending the man was misinformed.
"There was no battle," I protested. "The Japanese told me themselves
they had entered Liao-Yang without firing a shot." The cable
operator was a gentleman. He saw my distress, saw what it meant and
delivered the blow with the distaste of a physician who must tell a
patient he cannot recover. Gently, reluctantly, with real sympathy
he said, "They have been fighting for six days."
I went over to a bench, and sat down; and when Lynch and Fox came in
and took one look at me, they guessed what had happened. When the
Chinaman told them of what we had been cheated, they, in their turn,
came to the bench, and collapsed. No one said anything. No one even
swore. Six months we had waited only to miss by three days the
greatest battle since Gettysburg and Sedan. And by a lie.
For six months we had tasted all the indignities of the suspected
spy, we had been prisoners of war, we had been ticket-of-leave men,
and it is not difficult to imagine our glad surprise that same day
when we saw in the harbor the white hull of the cruiser Cincinnati
with our flag lifting at her stern. We did not know a soul on board,
but that did not halt us. As refugees, as fleeing political
prisoners, as American slaves escaping from their Japanese jailers,
we climbed over the side and demanded protection and dinner. We got
both. Perhaps it was not good to rest on that bit of drift-wood,
that atom of our country that had floated far from the mainland and
now formed an island of American territory in the harbor of Chefoo.
Perhaps we were not content to sit at the mahogany table in the
glistening white and brass bound wardroom surrounded by those eager,
sunburned faces, to hear sea slang and home slang in the accents of
Maine, Virginia, and New York City. We forgot our dark-skinned
keepers with the slanting, suspicious, unfriendly eyes, with tongues
that spoke the one thing and meant the other. All the memories of
those six months of deceit, of broken pledges, of unnecessary
humiliations, of petty unpoliteness from a half-educated, half-bred,
conceited, and arrogant people fell from us like a heavy knapsack.
We were again at home. Again with our own people. Out of the happy
confusion of that great occasion I recall two toasts. One was
offered by John Fox. "Japan for the Japanese, and the Japanese for
Japan." Even the Japanese wardroom boy did not catch its
significance. The other was a paraphrase of a couplet in reference
to our brown brothers of the Philippines first spoken in Manila. "To
the Japanese: 'They may be brothers to Commodore Perry, but they
ain't no brothers of mine.'"
It was a joyous night. Lieutenant Gilmore, who had been an historic
prisoner in the Philippines, so far sympathized with our escape from
the Yellow Peril as to intercede with the captain to extend the rules
of the ship. And those rules that were incapable of extending broke.
Indeed, I believe we broke everything but the eight-inch gun. And
finally we were conducted to our steamer in a launch crowded with
slim-waisted, broad-chested youths in white mess jackets, clasping
each other's shoulders and singing, "Way down in my heart, I have a
feeling for you, a sort of feeling for you"; while the officer of the
deck turned his back, and discreetly fixed his night glass upon a
suspicious star.
It was an American cruiser that rescued this war correspondent from
the bondage of Japan. It will require all the battle-ships in the
Japanese navy to force him back to it.
A WAR CORRESPONDENT'S KIT
I am going to try to describe some kits and outfits I have seen used
in different parts of the world by travellers and explorers, and in
different campaigns by army officers and war correspondents. Among
the articles, the reader may learn of some new thing which, when next
he goes hunting, fishing, or exploring, he can adapt to his own uses.
That is my hope, but I am sceptical. I have seldom met the man who
would allow any one else to select his kit, or who would admit that
any other kit was better than the one he himself had packed. It is a
very delicate question.
