‘I think Admiral Ito was correct in declining to continue the action in the dark, Your Majesty,’ Nicholas said carefully. ‘As to the next morning, by then I was on my way to Shimonoseki with Matsushima.’
Mutsuhito nodded. ‘We now know that the Chinese made, not for Wei-hai-wei, but for Port Arthur, and that they reached there in safety. Does that not suggest that Admiral Ito was not is such close pursuit as he indicates?’
‘I have no knowledge of the conditions, Your Majesty. I do understand Admiral Ito’s reasons for caution: our guns had very little effect on the Chinese battleships, but every time one of our ships was hit by one of their twelve-inch shells, the damage was severe.’
‘You are a loyal officer, Barrett,’ the Emperor said. ‘Of course we gained a victory. But we did not annihilate the enemy fleet. That is what I had hoped for, and that is what I believe could have been achieved, had we acted with more boldness. Have you heard the report that the Chinese battleships were out of ammunition? Had we pressed the attack home with torpedoes . . .’
‘We had no torpedoes, Your Majesty.’
Mutsuhito nodded. ‘So I understand. There are many questions to be asked about this battle. Still, we should yet achieve the total destruction of the Chinese Navy. Our Second Army, under the command of Marshal Oyama Iwao, is now on its way to the Liaotung Peninsular. Its orders are to force the surrender of Port Arthur, or to carry it by storm. We will have those ships.’ He stood up. ‘Hasten to be well, Barrett san.’
*
But the ribs remained slow to heal, and although Nicholas was allowed to return to his Tokyo home at the end of October, it was clearly going to be another couple of months before he would be able to resume duty.
Elizabeth and Aki welcomed him with great joy, and the two boys – Alexander was on leave from Eta-Jima – wanted to hear the story of the Battle of the Yalu, as it was being called, over and over again. By then, too, the Japanese armies had gone from strength to strength; Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, taking command of the First Army, had forced the passage of the Yalu and was invading Manchuria, while Oyama’s force had landed successfully on the Liaotung Peninsular and was investing Port Arthur.
With this news there came a letter from Takamori, giving details of the fight at Pyong-Yang, and referring to the Chinese with utter contempt, principally because during the assault it had come on to rain, whereupon, to the amazement of the Japanese, the Chinese defenders had all ceased firing while they had raised umbrellas to keep off the wet!
More to the point, Takamori wrote that, as he had indeed covered himself with credit in the final assault, he had secured a transfer to one of the regiments in Marshal Oyama’s army, as well as promotion to captain, and was on his way to take part in the siege of Port Arthur.
Aki clapped her hands for joy. ‘He is going to be a great soldier,’ she declared. ‘A general.’
‘I should think so too,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘You must be very proud of him, Nicky.’
Nicholas supposed he was proud of his eldest son, even if he still mistrusted the actual motives which were impelling the young man forward. He was also upset by the naval news. Ito had apparently again permitted the escape of the remnants of the Chinese fleet, including the two battleships, this time from Port Arthur. These were now safely in Wei-hai-wei, which was generally regarded as impregnable, as the harbour itself lay behind two fortified islands and was secured by iron chain booms.
‘I wonder what the Emperor’s opinion is of that?’ he asked Elizabeth. He received an indication a few days later in the form of a letter from one of the Imperial secretaries, asking how soon Rear-Admiral Barrett would be fit for duty?
*
The naval doctors were pessimistic. Although the various infections had been brought under control, the shattered bones were only slowly knitting together. ‘It will be another month, at least, honourable Admiral, before you are fit for service,’ the surgeon said.
‘And,’ Elizabeth pointed out when they returned home, ‘you are doing yourself no good by becoming so agitated. You are fifty-four years old, Nicky. You simply have to be careful.’
Nicholas knew she was right, but it was galling to have to write to the Emperor with the news. He understood by now that he would never be given command of the Japanese fleet, or even part of it; that would be regarded as an insult to the Japanese admirals. But he also knew that Mutsuhito wished to have him back at Ito’s elbow, and that the Emperor felt that had he been there on the afternoon of 17 September, instead of attempting to save Matsushima, the Chinese would not have been allowed to escape. And now that they had equally escaped from Port Arthur . . . this was the more galling as on 19 November Port Arthur was indeed stormed, the assault being carried out by the troops of General Nogi Maresuke.
Elizabeth studied the papers. ‘The Chinese do not seem to have fought very well after all the talk about Port Arthur being impregnable.’
‘Any word on casualties?’
‘They seem to have been light on the Japanese side, but heavy on the Chinese. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? I suppose we’ll have to get hold of the foreign press to know the truth.’
The truth was certainly indicative of a huge Japanese triumph. Port Arthur, the Gibraltar of the Far East, had fallen in an assault that had lasted no more than nine hours; Chinese resistance had been hardly nominal, despite the fact that they had apparently defended their city with barbarous determination in the beginning, which had included beheading some Japanese prisoners taken before the final assault had begun. It was during the next few weeks that reports began to drift in about the nature of the Japanese triumph, and when Elizabeth finally handed Nicholas a copy of the London Times, her hand trembled.
Nicholas read the report filed by Frederic Villiers, The Times’ correspondent in Port Arthur.
‘The soldiers, presumably maddened by the ghastly sight of the mutilated heads of their comrades, lost touch of their officers (sic) and commenced shooting every living thing they met in the streets. Captain Du Boulay, Colonel Taylor, and Lieutenant O’Brien, our military attachés, with three correspondents, watched this firing from a height overlooking the town, from which every street and alley lay as in a map before them. These gentlemen saw no opposition to the troops, nor were there any shots fired from the houses on Oyama’s soldiers. The unfortunate shopkeepers and citizens, standing at their doors, by virtue of Oyama’s pacific proclamations, ready to receive the soldiers with expressions of welcome, were ruthlessly shot down on their very thresholds. Shopkeepers were killed in the act of kowtowing; the smile of welcome yet lingered on their pallid faces. Mr Hart, of Reuter’s Agency, was instrumental in allaying the fears of many of the inhabitants, and persuading them to remain in the city, for he had heard of the merciful treatment of unarmed people by the Japanese. But the cutting and the carving craze had seized the troops, and no mercy was shown.
‘The massacre continued for two days. Not only were the Chinese murdered in the streets, but shops and houses were broken into, and the wretched people were shot as they cowered in their hiding-places, or dragged out to be cut to pieces in the open. Women, children and feeble grey-bearded men were mercilessly slaughtered. Even animals were hacked and shot, and the bodies of the dead beheaded or ripped open as they lay in the streets.
‘Not only the soldiers, but the armed coolies took a share in the bloody work. These gentlemen were all of the famous samurai sect, and practically the Bashi-bazouks of the army. The order of the Mikado that the samurai, or two-handed swordsmen, were not to serve in the army, for fear of excesses, had been evaded by these gentlemen enlisting as coolies. With every baggage train one met samurai dressed in the humble garb of the coolie, but with their long katana slung across their shoulders, carefully swathed in rags to protect the lacquer scabbard, and to keep the precious blade free from dust and rust, pretending to assist their lower-grade brethren in pushing a cart along. If these gentlemen could not for the moment whet their well-tempered steel i
n the blood of a Chinaman, they would try their ancient blades on the pigs and dogs of the country. It was a piteous sight in passing through the Manchu villages to see a number of badly wounded pigs, some with their heads nearly severed, but still with sufficient life within them to drag themselves along.
‘These barbarians got their chance at Port Arthur, and took full advantage of it. The old swords drank blood freely. But the regular soldiers also did their full share. Discipline for the time had disappeared, and some of the Japanese officers were shot by their own men while vainly trying to check their excesses.’
‘Can this be true?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Of course it is not true,’ Nicholas said angrily. ‘It is the most utter claptrap. The fellow clearly has no idea what he is talking about, describing the samurai as a sect! Two-handed swordsmen, indeed, as if this was their sole function. As for the Emperor refusing them permission to serve with the army . . .’
‘You are becoming agitated again,’ she said quietly.
‘Of course I am agitated. My own son was there.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Do?’
‘You and I may know it has to be false, Nicky. But this is a report in one of the great newspapers of the world. It will be believed. The name of the Japanese army will be blackened for all time.’
‘Then an immediate rebuttal must be issued. I will go to see the Emperor.’
*
Mutsuhito looked tired, but his eyes lit up as he welcomed his favourite barbarian and gestured him to a chair before his desk. ‘Barrett san, it is good to see you on your feet. You have lost weight.’
‘I could probably do with that, Your Majesty. I shall be ready for duty within a fortnight.’
‘That is excellent news. Yes. I will speak with you before you rejoin the fleet. But now, you look troubled.’
‘Your Majesty, have you seen the reports in the foreign press of what happened in Port Arthur?’
Mutsuhito nodded. ‘We have been verbally crucified.’
‘A rebuttal must be issued immediately, Your Majesty. This man Villiers’ report is so riddled with inaccuracies it can easily be proved he was activated by hatred of the Japanese.’
‘I’m afraid I am not in a position to issue a rebuttal, Barrett.’ Mutsuhito gestured at one of the papers lying on his desk. ‘There is a report from Marshal Oyama. Mr Villiers may have been grossly inaccurate in some of the details, but the substance of what he says is true.’
Nicholas stared at him in consternation.
‘I think Villiers may be partly right,’ Mutsuhito went on, ‘in his estimation that our troops were enraged by the execution of those prisoners. But Oyama is of the opinion that the real reason for our people getting completely out of hand was that, because Port Arthur was regarded as so strong, our officers felt it necessary to whip our men up to the very highest pitch of anger and enthusiasm, in order to carry out the assault successfully. It is not possible so to fire men’s minds with the desire to kill and then with a wave of the hand expect them to revert to normal human beings.’ He gave one of his little smiles. ‘I have read sufficient history to know that even British troops, within this last century, have occasionally run amok.’
‘Incidents which are deeply, and publicly, regretted by all true-thinking Englishmen, Your Majesty.’
Mutsuhito sighed. ‘I am sure you are right.’
‘Thus, if we cannot refute these accounts of what happened, we must at least publicly denounce them, Your Majesty.’
‘I am sorry, Barrett, but I cannot do that. Do not suppose I would not like to. But this is Japan, not England. Do you not know what is the required response of any officer in my army, or in my navy, for that matter, who is publicly denounced by the Emperor? Or privately, in fact.’
Nicholas swallowed. He had forgotten that, for all Mutsuhito’s efforts to mitigate it, the law of bushido remained sacred to the samurai, and of course all the senior officers in the army were samurai.
‘Were I even to issue a criticism of what happened in Port Arthur,’ Mutsuhito went on, ‘Marshal Oyama and all of his senior officers would feel obliged to commit seppuku. This I cannot contemplate. Nor are you in a position to take any action in this matter, Barrett, publicly, or privately. Publicly, because I forbid it, privately, because while some officers did attempt to restrain the troops, and as Villiers writes, some were even killed by their own men, there was also a considerable proportion who not only encouraged the excesses, but participated in them. Marshal Oyama has submitted a list of these officers who permitted, and in some instances took part in, these massacres.’ He held out a sheet of paper. ‘You may look at it. You will observe that they are mostly junior in rank.’
Nicholas ran his eye down the list, and checked at the fourth name from the bottom. His head came up.
Mutsuhito gazed at him. ‘There can be no repercussions with regards to your son, either, Barrett. This massacre is, as you say, a blot upon the honour of Japanese arms. We must take what steps are necessary to ensure that it never happens again. But these steps must be private. This is a matter we must handle in our own way. It is not a matter for the outside world. Now I would speak to you about happier things: the destruction of the Chinese fleet. They are hidden away in Wei-hai-wei, and Prince Ito informs me that he cannot entice them out. Now that Port Arthur has fallen, and Korea is ours, it seems to me that the Shantung Peninsular offers us more prospects than an advance through Manchuria in the dead of winter. We obviously must make a pretence at such an advance, to occupy the Chinese minds, but I have instructed Marshal Oyama to transfer units of his Third Army to Jung-cheng, and invade Shantung. This new army will be known as the Second Army, and will be commanded by Oyama in person. Its objective will be Wei-hai-wei. Thus Admiral Ting will be forced either to accept an attack overland, or come out and face our fleet. I wish you there. I wish the Chinese fleet destroyed, Barrett.’
‘The two Chinese battleships are floating fortresses, Your Majesty. Presuming Admiral Ting has been replenished with ammunition for his big guns, he may elect to fight them as forts rather than risk them on the open sea, especially against our superior seamanship. In which case, he may be able to hold up Marshal Oyama’s advance for some considerable time; there is no artillery in the army can match the range and power of twelve-inch guns.’
Mutsuhito frowned. ‘What are you proposing?’
‘If you wish the Chinese fleet destroyed, Your Majesty, I am suggesting that our best prospect is to go in and get them.’
Mutsuhito’s frown deepened. ‘You would take our fleet into Wei-hai-wei? Would we not be blasted out of existence by the shore emplacements?’
‘Our cruisers, certainly, Your Majesty. But we have also had it proved that our shells, even the twelve-point-six-inch, cannot penetrate the armour on the Chinese battleships, so even if we could get in and out we would be wasting our time. To destroy them we will have to use torpedoes. But torpedoes are an unknown quantity on the open sea, where both ships are moving. They have never been used in a fleet action. On the other hand, if an attack could be launched inside Wei-hai-wei, using torpedo boats, while the battleships are at anchor . . . even if they got up sufficient steam to move, there is no room to manoeuvre.’
‘Is not Wei-hai-wei a big harbour?’ Mutsuhito asked. ‘I have heard it is eighteen miles long by six wide.’
‘That is correct, Your Majesty. But at least a third of the area is too shallow for the battleships. I believe the torpedo boats will do the job. And if they fail, what have you lost? Half-a-dozen very small ships and a few men. While their very appearance may force the Chinese ships to sea.’
‘A bold plan,’ Mutsuhito mused. ‘A suicide plan, for the attackers.’
‘Not necessarily, Your Majesty. In any event, I would beg your permission to lead the assault myself.’
Mutsuhito gazed at him. ‘Because you wish to commit suicide.’ He tapped his desk. ‘Because of the actions of your son.’
Another long stare. Then Mutsuhito nodded. ‘I will believe you. You may try your plan.’
‘I will need the authority to overrule Prince Ito if he does not care for the idea, Your Majesty.’
Mutsuhito nodded again. ‘I will give you such authority, Barrett.’ He smiled. ‘I gave you such authority once before, and you gained a signal victory. However, Barrett, the risks must be minimised as far as possible. You will undertake no action until after Marshal Oyama’s Second Army has been landed on Shantung and commenced its advance. Until it has reached Wei-hai-wei, in fact, and taken at least some of the out-lying forts. Then, if Admiral Ting does not come out, you may go in. Those are orders, Admiral Barrett.’
‘I understand, Your Majesty.’ Nicholas didn’t agree with the Emperor; he remained convinced that the Chinese fleet could only be destroyed by torpedoes in restricted waters; if they came out and reached the open sea it would be a repeat of the Yalu, and this time the Chinese would hardly allow themselves to run out of ammunition. But he did not dare press too hard; Mutsuhito, like Ito, had no proper concept of the difficulties of naval warfare, and he might lose everything.
‘Then I will wish you good fortune, Barrett,’ Mutsuhito said. ‘Your orders, and authority, will be delivered to you before you leave. But Barrett,’ he added, as Nicholas stood to attention and bowed. ‘Be sure you come back to us.’
Bloody Sunrise Page 30
