On my reaching the " shelter" of the forward set of cabins, I found, in the unprotected space in front of them, that is in the extreme bows, the captain and the rest of the officers grouped together, wild-eyed, pallid, and silent. The quartermaster was at the wheel.
The mate casually threw a rope's end overboard, with the object, as he afterwards told me, of having something to hold on to in case the ship was struck. At the same time I conceived the brilliant idea of throwing some woodwork into the sea and jumping after it. How fine it would be to swim ashore — we were, as I have already said, running very close to the land — with the assistance of this woodwork! As my imagination dwelt on this flattering prospect, a large shell dropped on the spot where I had imagined myself to be swimming and caused me to abandon the idea hastily.
I decided, then, to stick to the captain. At the same time I began to conceive an intense animosity for the Japanese in general and for Admiral Togo in particular, for how can one retain his good opinion of people who are throwing 1 2-inch shells at him? I thought it vile, treacherous. " O! wont I ' roast ' them in the Herald if ever I get out of this! " I told the captain what I would do, but did not catch his reply, for at that instant a shell exploded with a tremendous detonation right under the bow, splashing the deck with water and making the gallant little craft first baulk like a horse and then tremble violently from stem to stern. Everybody's face grew a shade whiter, and with a shiver that penetrated to the marrow of my bones I caught the dreadful words, "contact mine." The faces of the Chinese sailors grew livid, and it looked as if they would rush overboard, carrying the rest of us along with them.
I ran into my cabin and remember feeling astonished and hurt for the millionth part of a second on perceiving that things were just as I had left them on getting up in the morning — tooth-brush, soiled water in the washbasin, bed unmade, pyjamas lying on the floor, halfsmoked cigarette on the ash-tray, enlarged photograph of the captain's wife beaming at the head of the bed. Had everything been wrecked and had there been a smell of gunpowder in the air, and my blanket been standing on end looking like the ghost of Hamlet's father, I should have considered it the proper thing; but this common, comfortable vulgarity of a bedchamber that has just been slept in seemed monstrously out of place.
Glancing mechanically at the looking-glass, I was horrified to see reflected therein a face that was not my face at all, but that of a disinterred corpse. Then a terrific, vicious whiz-z-z-z-z-z overhead made me suddenly bury my head in the bed-clothes and stop my ears with my fingers, but hardly had I done so than an uncontrollable desire to get outside into the open air seized upon me. I felt that if I remained in that cabin a second longer I should smother. I felt that if I joined some group or knot of men I should be safe. Accordingly I fled from the room like one pursued by the furies. I went so quickly that I might have gone overboard had I not heard the captain say at that moment in his usual tones to his Chinese " boy " who was standing white-lipped beside him, and dressed, for some reason or other, in his best silk gown: " Boy, bring me some cigarettes! Hurry up! D you!
_ 1 _ I! _ J J J _!!!! —!!!!!" whereupon the boy's tense face relaxed, as if he had been instantaneously cured of some painful malady, and he went away, smiling and assuring his panic-stricken countrymen, who were bunched behind him in the attitudes of men about to go mad, that it was all right. The skipper's lurid blasphemies had saved us from a mutiny.
One of the officers said he thought it best to run the Columbia ashore, but, as the shells were bursting more thickly on the beach and on the face of the cliffs than on the line we were taking, this plan was not adopted.
As a matter of fact we did the best thing we could under the circumstances. We ran between two lines of shells, the shells intended for the Russian fleet, which went too far, that is, which went beyond the Russian battle-ships, and the shells intended for the forts, which fell short, that is which fell at the point where sea and land met. I saw this afterwards.
The Russian battle-ships were frequently hit. One of the Japanese shells knocked a funnel off the Askold, leaving that vessel with four funnels; another hit the Sevastopol, covering her with a dense cloud of black smoke, from which, however, she seemed to emerge uninjured. Several other Russian vessels were struck, but none of them seemed to be seriously damaged.
So much for the first line of Japanese shells.