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Page 11
She was the _Itsuku_ gunboat of about five hundred tons, on a cruise
of observation in the Gulf, along with two or three consorts, whom she
had lost in the fog. There was not a soul on board who could speak a
word of English, but by a few Chinese was sufficiently understood, and
a gunnery officer could speak tolerable French, a knowledge of which
tongue I shall probably be recollected to have mentioned as being the
major portion of the inadequate exchange for my eighty thousand
pounds. They informed us that they had taken us for a torpedo boat,
and seeing the Chinese flag had no hesitation in opening fire on so
dangerous a neighbour, as they deemed us. They seemed very scantily
pleased when told our real character, and learnt that their
precipitancy had perhaps lost them a little promotion, or at least
honourable mention, as capturers of important despatches, as I
understand them to have been.
I remained on board this vessel for more than a month. The Chinese, of
course, were prisoners of war, but there was no ground for detaining
me as such. I related how I had been left behind by the _Columbia_ at
Port Arthur, without, of course, giving any hint that she had been
engaged in supplying China with war material. I thought this would
satisfy my captors, but I was not long in finding out that they
entertained their own ideas as to my character, for one day I was
plainly asked whether I was not a military or naval instructor of the
Chinese. I was able to conscientiously deny that I was any such thing,
but the query took me very much aback, as the naturalness of the
suspicion was obvious, and I foresaw no end of trouble in clearing
myself of it. The commander of the gunboat, a consequential and rather
surly personage, shook his head, and said he would have to take time
to consider the matter.
Time he certainly did take, and plenty of it. We were, however, well
treated, chiefly through the kindness of the French-speaking officer,
Lieutenant Hishidi, with whom I struck up an acquaintance, he being
in fact the only one of the gunboat's crew with whom I could converse.
He caused a small separate cabin to be extemporized for myself and Lin
Wong, and looked to our comfort in other ways. My friend Lin, I should
say, had received a nasty graze on the ribs of the right side from one
of the machine-gun bullets, but otherwise was all right, though in a
very chop-fallen condition at being made prisoner. He and I were
allowed more liberty than the other captives, and apart from the
detention had little to complain of.
I was naturally much interested at first in looking round me and
taking stock of the Japanese sailors and their vessel. She was in
superb fighting trim, beautifully clean and well found in every part,
and the duty was carried on with thorough man-of-war smartness. It was
impossible to watch these little active, clever, determined sailors
without feeling that the men of the finest navy in the world, which I
take to be that of her Britannic Majesty, would find in them foemen
worthy of their steel. I remember that they were daily exercised at
the guns, and the promptitude and precision with which they sank the
_Kowtung_--such was the unlucky despatch-boat's name--was a handsome
testimonial to the accuracy of their aim.
Lieutenant Hishidi and I had many conversations, chiefly during his
watches, and our talk generally turned on the war and nautical
matters. Of the Chinese he spoke with unmeasured contempt, certainly
not undeserved, and said that the Japanese fleets and armies had no
misgiving as to the result of the struggle; they felt able, against
such opponents, to do anything and go anywhere--"aussi loin que mer et
terre puissent nous mener," was his emphatic expression.
"We have been making this war for a long time," said he, "and we feel
sure of what we can do."
I remarked on the extraordinary rapidity with which a nation, closed
like the Japanese, up to within thirty years since, to European trade
and European ideas, had adopted and assimilated the system of Western
civilization.
"Yes," he replied, "we can learn, and we have learnt, because we saw
that the knowledge would give us a great advantage in our own part of
the world."
He had been in France, and expressed great admiration of French
ship-building and French seamanship, and seemed doubtful when I
maintained that British seamen would in case of war assert their
superiority over the French ones just as decisively now as they ever
had done in the past--and of naval history in general Hishidi had a
good idea.
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