In fact, we spent so much time trying to persuade one another to mount that there was serious danger of our never reaching our destination at all. He allowed me to fall behind or to gallop on in advance just as I liked, so that I was in mortal fear that I would accidentally escape and get the poor fellow into trouble. As a matter of fact, I would probably have tried to utilise my knowledge of the country in order to escape here or afterward on the way to Dalny, had it not been that my guards were invariably such kind, confiding fellows that I had not the heart to abuse their confidence. Several other things cooled my ardour for escape. Firstly, I might fall into the hands of the Chinese and be tortured to death. Secondly, I might, if captured by individual Japanese or Russian scouts, be killed by them for the sake of the large sum of money which I carried. Thirdly, I stood a fairly good chance, even if I reached the Russian lines, of being shot at by some of the outposts before I could explain myself.
The country through which we passed was hilly, and near the end of our journey we crossed a river. Litde Red Riding Breeches asked me the name of that river, and I replied, " the Liao-ho," at which answer he seemed mightily pleased, for he had evidently got instructions to lead me backward and forward in such a way that I would quite lose all sense of direction. Of course it was not the Liao-ho at all.
Sifontai, or Kuroki's village, as I had better call it, for I believe that the Japanese purposely gave us the wrong name, was a very small and a very much overcrowded hamlet, in which there was not enough accommodation for troops, much less prisoners. It was surrounded by a cordon of guards, one of whom challenged us, but allowed us to proceed on my guide giving the password. I was at once brought to the principal house in the village, the residence of General Kuroki's staff.
In the outer room some clerks were working. In the inner room General Fuji, the chief of staff, received me very affably and offered me tea. He said that as the Japanese had derived much moral support from England and America he could not but regard me — at one and the same time British subject and American newspaper man — as doubly a friend. I so shocked General Fuji by bluntly asking him if I were a prisoner that, for a moment, he was unable to speak. " Why, didn't I tell you that you're our guest? " he cried, as soon as he had recovered his voice; "but," he added benignantly, "you need to have a rest, a long rest, in Japan."
And in these words I read my fate.
I was then sent to a Chinese house, in which I found the Russian officers who had been captured with me. The house had previously been occupied by soldiers of the Imperial Guard, and we slept among them that night, packed together like herrings in a barrel. They were clean lads, however, far cleaner than any Russian privates, cleaner, even, than the average Englishman, and they were very accommodating, too, for one of them gave me a blanket to cover myself with.
The next morning I woke up late, to find everything in an awful muddle. The orderlies of the Russian officers, who had slept three deep on top of one another out in the porch, were continually rushing in with the object of making tea for their masters at a fire which burned on the floor, and the Japanese soldiers were continually putting them out again. The Russian officers could do nothing without the assistance of their " vestavoi," while the Japanese guard had had orders to admit no privates to that room, and were determined to enforce those orders.
Some orderlies solved the difficulty by making the tea outside and handing it through the window, but the bawling out of orders, which were not obeyed, and the wails of hapless " vestavoi" seized at the doorway with steaming teapots were heartrending and ludicrous. A young soldier of the Guards who slept beside me, and who turned out to be a Greek Christian, greatly amused his comrades, on awakening, by reading them extracts from a Russo-Japanese phrase book which he had captured. The humour of the situation can readily be imagined on the discovery that some of the questions asked were: — " Where is the road to Kobe? " M Who is the Governor of Osaka fortress? " " What is the strength of the enemy in Matsuyama? " " Has the Mikado fled to Nikko or to Aomori? " The Japanese Greek Christian laughed so long and so heartily at these unconscious witticisms that I thought his little looped-up eyes would never open again. Evidently he had no great belief in the political infallibility of his co-religionists.
Meanwhile we were very much cramped for room, and I decided to go out into the yard, where I found a considerable number of Japanese guardsmen and a sprinkling of Russian officers.