On January 20, and during the succeeding few days, 7000 troops belonging to the 3rd Brigade of the East Siberian Rifles left Port Arthur by train for the Yalu. They were accompanied by several batteries and several sotnia of Cossacks, and were carefully watched by three Japanese, whom I can scarcely call secret agents, for their mission was plain.
One day, while this ominous exodus of troops was taking place, and while I was reading Turgieneff in my over-heated Russian room, a seedy-looking man came to see me. He at once told me that he was a military officer of a certain great Power — in fact, I may as well say that he was Colonel Ducat, the British military attache at Peking — and had come to Port Arthur incognito, in order to see for himself how things stood there. He questioned me very closely about the garrison, and finally suggested, in an affable, offhand way, that I should procure for him any military lists, regulations, etc., that were being printed at the Novi Krai office. Now, as a matter of fact, the Novi Krai was very busy at this time printing such documents, but of course I could not betray my Russian employers in this way.
On the 20th we got word that the Aurora, Orel, and nine torpedo-boats, had entered the canal, and that the Kasuga had left Aden and the Nisshin had left Perim. The race was getting exciting.
On January 24 all the flour in Port Arthur was bought up. On January 25 all the horses belonging to residents were examined by the military authorities,
who said that, if necessary, they would impress such as proved suitable for military purposes.
On January 28 AlexeiefT had a wire from the Russian military attache at Tokio, respecting the mobilisation of the Japanese army.
On February 1 the Kassuga and Nisshin were at Singapore. On February 2 the Retvizan, Peresviet, Tsarevitch, and Sevastopol, which had, up to this time, been in the inner harbour, joined the outside fleet, which consisted of the battle-ships Pobieda, Petropavlovsk, Poltava, and the cruisers Diana, Pallada, Askold, Bayan and Boyarin, and on February 2 all the vessels were in battle array in the outer harbour. Just before this junction was effected a British merchant steamer collided with another steamer in the inner harbour, and ran down a steam-launch on its way out; and this led the Russians to say that the Japanese had offered the captain 50,000 roubles if he would sink his ship or some other ship in the narrow entrance, and thus prevent the two sections of the Russian fleet from joining for a day or two. The story is not incredible; anyhow it scared the Russians very much; and on the pretence that several cases of cholera had been discovered in Chefoo, they now imposed forty-eight hours' quarantine on all foreign steamers, and, when that period was expired, insisted on a Government tug-boat tugging them into Port Arthur. In this way they could not accidentally sink themselves, and could not run on mines. On the 5th the quarantine was lifted for about ten minutes and then reimposed again.
Things were now getting exciting, so I went to see M. Plancon, the chief of Alexeieff s Diplomatic Bureau, and found him exceedingly wroth with the Japanese.
" They're mad! The Japanese are mad! " he cried. " They're now making naval demonstrations along the Korean coast. There are even transports with their fleet. Now, they expect us to go out and sink those transports and thus begin the war."
" And will you? " I asked breathlessly.
"Well, I can't say what we'll do," said M. Plancon, "but I can tell you that if this sort of thing goes on much longer Russia will strike, and will strike hard."
"Well now, between ourselves, M. Plancon," said I, " what do you think it all means? "
"I think," said he, "that it means this. Japan is now awaiting our answer to her last proposal, and she thinks by these demonstrations, which really mean nothing at all, to make us yield as much as possible. But she'll find that she's mistaken. We shall just make the same proposals as we should have made had there been no demonstrations at all."
I wired to the Herald, through Chefoo, a resume1 of this conversation, but I don't think it ever reached the Herald. It reached the Japanese Consulate in Chefoo, however; for, a few days after, Mr. Midzuno startled me by accidentally bringing into the conversation some of M. Planc^on's phrases, and by adding bitterly, "Yes, Mr. Plangon will soon see if the Japanese are mad."