I looked into the engine-room and was surprised at the regularity with which the cranks and connectingrods were doing their duty. I looked around generally, and it occurred to me that the Columbia had shrunk to the dimensions of a row-boat. Compared with the iron leviathans which were battling around her in smoke and flame, she resembled a pet lamb that has got mixed up in a bull-fight.
I have a dim remembrance of moving about the ship with inconceivable rapidity. I fancied that if I remained still for a second a shell would surely fall on top of me. First of all I went aft as far as I could. I don't know why I went aft, but I had a kind of vague idea that if the front part of the ship were blown away, I could hang on to the rear. Here I found chief-engineer Smith, his face of a pallor which moved me more than eloquence, one side of it splashed with powder or some black stuff shot up by a shell that had burst near the screw, and the other side glistening with perspiration.
Mr. Smith did not seem to hear the banal, consolatory remarks I addressed to him; but in spite of his glassy stare and very preoccupied manner he showed that he was aware of my presence by telling me, in extremely emphatic language, the sort of fool I was for not having gone ashore in the doctor's boat. I did not, however, understand all he said, for, strange
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to say, he had relapsed in his excitement into the broadest of broad Scotch.
The Chinese crew looked as if they might, in their madness, do something desperate, but the Chinese passengers remained all the time crouched behind the little wooden structure that formed the saloon and the cabins, and seemed to think that they were quite safe there. One of them said to the ship's officers: " What for you standee out there in open? All right here," and seemed hurt and astonished when he saw that none of us accepted the invitation to get under cover.
There was always present in my mind the terrible certainty that there was no longer any cover, no more protection. A glance at the terrific splashes made by the shells that fell around showed me that, if one of those formidable missiles struck the Co/umdia, all was over with us.
Yet, in spite of this, I must say that I always breathed more freely for a second or so after I had got behind something, no matter what it was. I also had at times the strongest possible inclination to go below, to get down to the very keel of the ship, to go through the keel if possible, to dive to the bottom of the sea, coming up for breath in the intervals between the shells. The chief-engineer seemed to have the same inclination, for I once caught him hesitating at the top of a ladder, which he clutched with a grasp of iron. He did not descend that ladder, however. He said that he saw there was no good in doing so, and, indeed, there was a better chance on deck than below.
Between the cabins aft and those forward there was an open space, and I suddenly took it into my head to traverse this space in order to join the ship's officers,
who were all gathered together at the other extremity of the boat. I did so, running as quickly as my legs could carry me, as if I were running from one certain shelter to another and might be caught half-way across if I did not hurry. Of course I did not reason about the matter. My legs simply ran off with me.
Outside the saloon, on the side facing the forts, I found our two Russian soldiers crossing themselves at a great rate and praying fervently. A few minutes before, they had gone forward with their rifles, and wanted the captain to stop the boat, but I had explained to them that we were going " nyemnozhko dalsche," just a little further, so as to be out of the way of the projectiles; that, in doing so, we were only obeying the orders we had just received from the last naval officer who had visited us, and that directly we rounded that point yonder we would drop anchor.
This, combined with something in the eyes of the Englishmen, pacified the soldiers, and saved us from a bloody struggle which I had, at one moment, regarded as inevitable. The soldiers seemed to particularly appreciate the idea of getting away from the shells, and when the latter fell like rain around us they were too much occupied in prayer to pay any attention to external things. After a while one of them completely disappeared, going down below, probably in obedience to that blind instinct of self-preservation which all of us found it so hard to struggle against and which the Chinese so cheerfully obeyed. He reappeared when all was over and we had almost lost sight of land, but neither he nor his companion caused us any further trouble.