But everybody was not half asleep that night. At this moment, only twelve miles off the land, Togo's darkened messengers of death are sweeping round as in a big semicircle, like a hawk circling above its prey before making the ultimate, downward swoop. They are bracing themselves up for the final rush. The lieutenant's hand is on the " telegraph " ready to jam it down. The torpedo gunners stand by, ready to press the fatal button. FULL-SPEED! Dead for our betraying lights come the torpedo-boats of Togo.
At exactly 11.30 I was undressing in my cabin when I heard three muffled explosions, which made the ship rock, and which were followed almost immediately by the discharge of small guns.
The transition was so abrupt, the silence of the night was torn so rudely, that for a second I was startled, and the wild thought, " The Japanese are on us! " rushed through my brain.
O brassy-throated bugle and hoarse words of command, how ye stir my blood! O faint, distant, throbbing drum, almost thou persuadest me that this is not mere mimic war!
But in another instant I regained myself and laughed, laughed in this the most solemn moment of my life, because from amid the blankets in an adjoining room I heard the bitterly ironical voice of Captain Anderson say, " War's declared! "
If the captain had cursed the Russians for half an hour for disturbing him in his first sleep by their practice-firing he could not have conveyed a deeper impression of disgust.
Once I had got over my first start, I thought it a nuisance myself that the fleet should begin practising at such an unearthly hour of the night, especially as the air was now so cold for sight-seers; but, as I could not afford to miss even a merely spectacular display, I hastily pulled on my boots and overcoat and went on deck. There I saw an extraordinary sight.
A transformation had come over the scene, like that which takes place in a darkened theatre when the curtain is lifted; and, as a matter of fact, though then I knew it not, the vast curtain of night had risen on one of the mightiest dramas that the world has seen since Troy town fell. It was a tragedy to whose gloomy grandeur only ^Eschylus could do justice. All the Russian vessels were now using their searchlights, so that the sea around them shone like a sheet of silver, and the air was traversed by long, oscillating, windmill arms of light, resembling gigantic shafts of sunshine shining through a chink in the shutter of a darkened room. One or two searchlights carefully swept the beach backwards and forwards, and especially the entrance to the inner harbour. Several searched again and again every cranny of the mountains and the rocky shore. One blazing eye glared at the Columbia for fully five minutes, making us all feel slightly uncomfortable, as if a policeman's bull's-eye had been suddenly flashed in our faces. Strong, however, in the conviction of innocence, the little group on deck bore that blinding stare unflinchingly, making at the same time sundry uncomplimentary remarks about the owner of that particular search light. We might not have stood the ordeal quite so well if we had known what was happening, and how many times during the next few days panic-stricken Russian officers would fire on harmless British merchantmen.
Meanwhile we did not hear the faintest swish of a distant torpedo-boat: there was absolutely nothing to suggest that the Japanese were prowling about, and not one of us ventured to entertain such an extravagant idea. It would have been hysterical, un-English to do so. A humorous, scoffing scepticism was the correct attitude. On the China coast it is bad form to take anything seriously.
We did not realise that, having done their deadly work, the Japanese destroyers were now rushing seawards at thirty knots, with Russian shot ploughing up the water all around them.
Dazzling bright lights now signalled like ejaculations on the mast-heads of the Russian ships — dash! dot! dash! dot! dash! — and I looked on vaguely interested, not realising in the least the nature of the thrilling drama that was now being played before me.
I noticed that some searchlights were directed upwards at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and did not seem to be brought into requisition at all. I also noticed that the lighthouse lamp burned brightly, and that the guiding lights at the entrance of the harbour had not been extinguished.
Some war-ships were, however, in complete darkness, and if I did not know that it was all make-believe I should have considered their appearance as aweinspiring. They had ceased to be ships and become dreadful black blotches on the water, still as death, but liable to burst at any moment into manifestations of hellish energy.