Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese WarCollingwood, Harry
General
Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War
Collingwood, Harry
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 -- Juvenile fiction
The main fleet arrived at the rendezvous shortly before sunset, and
anchored. I looked keenly at ship after ship, as they steamed in, but
could detect no signs of injury to any of them; so after dinner I took
our dinghy and rowed across to the _Mikasa_, with several of the
officers of which I was by this time on quite intimate terms. The first
man I happened to run into, however, upon passing in through the gangway
was Captain Ijichi, commanding the ship; and he, as anxious to hear my
yarn as I was to hear his, instantly pounced upon me and marched me off
to his own cabin, where we were presently joined by Lieutenant Prince
Kasho, for whom Ijichi had sent.
Here I was made to start the proceedings by spinning, at considerably
greater length, the yarn which I had related to the Admiral earlier in
the day, and which I was now able to supplement with the additional
information that our 2nd Division had chased the Russian destroyer, of
which they had started in pursuit, into Pigeon Bay, where they had sunk
her. The honours of the day were of course with them, for they had
accounted for two Russian destroyers, whereas we of the 1st Division had
only given five of the enemy a very severe mauling; nevertheless, my
little audience were good enough to stamp our performance with their
marked approval.
Then the skipper of the _Mikasa_ related his story. The long-range
bombardment of Port Arthur was not a very exciting affair, it seemed,
but it was successful in so far that it proved the correctness of the
Admiral's theory that it could be done by firing over the high ground
and dropping shells upon an unseen mark on the other side.
The attempt was of a twofold character, one part of which was to test
the above theory, while the other was to destroy the Russian signal
station upon the island of Sanshan, off Dalny, from which spot the enemy
were able to observe and report to Port Arthur the movements of our
fleet. This task was successfully accomplished by a detachment of our
cruisers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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