‘Range?’ Togo inquired.
‘Seven thousand yards, honourable Admiral.’
‘Signal all ships to commence firing. Time?’
‘Fourteen ten, honourable Admiral.’
‘The battle has begun, Barrett san,’ Togo remarked, with quiet satisfaction.
*
The Japanese fire, naturally concentrating on the lead Russian ships, produced immediate results. Nicholas could see the water spouts rising to either side of the enemy vessels, and within minutes there was a dull brown smudge, sparked with red, from Osliabia. The Russians were replying, and with some accuracy, but their ships did not seem to have been given any specific targets, and in their endeavour to close up their lines became bunched and ragged, thus presenting ever easier targets to the Japanese guns.
For some half an hour both sides blazed away with everything they had. Mikasa herself trembled to an explosion, and the hoses were got out to play upon the burning deck where a shell had landed. Astern of her the armoured cruiser Asama fell out of the line, and signalled that her steering had been damaged. But Togo held his course, and the Russians were now suffering heavily as the range closed. Osliabia could be seen to be burning in several places, and she too dropped out of the line, while there were also fires on board Kniaz Suvarov and Imperator Alexander III. In fact at three o’clock the flagship was seen to stop to allow a destroyer to come alongside; it was learned later that Rozhdestventsky had been wounded and was being transferred.
But for the moment all eyes were upon Osliabia, holed and burning, lying a hulk in the water. Now she slowly turned over and sank. Nicholas found himself thinking of Yashima, going to the bottom with all her crew, and then Petropavlovsk. But Togo was smiling. ‘One,’ he said.
*
Under the rain of Japanese shells the Russians had insensibly turned away to the east, but now, led by Imperator Alexander III, on which the fires seemed to have been brought under control, they again headed north. Instantly Togo countered by turning up parallel with them, ordering his gunners to concentrate upon Kniaz Suvarov and Imperator Alexander III, both of which were soon blazing again. But the Russians continued to press north, even though Togo was enabled to close the range and do immense damage, and Nicholas spotted why.
‘Look there, honourable Admiral,’ he said.
A few miles away to the north fingers of mist were creeping across the sea, and behind them was a fog bank.
‘Keep firing,’ Togo said. ‘We must cripple them before they reach that mist. Time?’
‘Sixteen-thirty, honourable Admiral.’
But only a few minutes later the Russian ships had been swallowed by the gray cloud. Every head on the bridge turned towards Togo, awaiting his command.
‘We are closing,’ he said. ‘Maintain course and speed.’
Nicholas opened his mouth and then shut it again. Whoever was now in command of the Russian fleet would surely use the fog to turn off one way or the other. The one thing of which he could be certain was that the Japanese would block his direct route to the north. He went into the radio room to listen to the various tapped messages, but the signalman couldn’t make much sense out of them, and he returned to the bridge.
Togo stood at the rail and peered into the damp gloom. The afternoon was filled with sound; above the roaring of the engines and the whistle of the wind, and the slapping of the waves against the hull – the seas were now quite big – there were distant explosions, but it was difficult to decide which of these were gunfire, or from exactly which direction they were coming. And now it was five o’clock. The two fleets had been out of contact for half-an-hour; if they were steaming in opposite directions they could be fifteen miles apart.
Togo turned to face his officers, his face tense. ‘Alter course to south-west,’ he commanded.
The ships came round, as always in perfect precision.
‘Where have they gone, Barrett?’ Togo muttered. ‘If they have turned away, it can only be to the east; to go west would mean we can bottle them up against China.’
He held his course for some twenty minutes, steaming blind into the mist, but there was still no sign of the enemy. He walked up and down, striking one hand with the other fist. ‘Come about,’ he muttered, just before half-past five. ‘Steer north-east again.’
Once again the great ships responded as one, turning back up for the straits. All eyes strained into the mist, and suddenly Nicholas detected a red glow. ‘There!’ he said.
The distant battleship blazed brightly, and clearly did not have long to live.
‘Kniaz Suvarov,’ said Captain Hamaguchi.
‘There!’ shouted Flag-Lieutenant Yamamoto.
In front of them was another battleship, not burning, but clearly badly damaged; she was moving slowly and had a pronounced list.
‘Imperator Alexander III,’ Hamaguchi said.
‘And there!’
As the mist lifted, some miles further off could be seen the remainder of the Russian squadron, steaming north in no kind of formation.
‘General chase!’ Togo snapped. ‘Detach torpedo boats to sink the two crippled ships.’
‘Permission to look for survivors, honourable Admiral,’ Nicholas said. He was only a supernumery in the battle, anyway, and the battle was won.
Togo hesitated, then nodded. ‘Put down the steam cutter. But Barrett . . . take care.’
*
Speed was reduced just far enough to allow the steam cutter to be lowered. Nicholas was already at the helm, and the crew of twelve were in their places. The boat struck the waves with a whoompf; steam was already up, and she surged away from the battleship’s side as Mikasa, guns still belching and steam still issuing from the several doused fires in her after section where she had been hit, continued to close the remnants of the Russian squadron.
But now it was time to concentrate on the job in hand. The radio message was already being acted upon, and half-a-dozen torpedo boats had left the Japanese fleet to race towards the stricken Russian monster. Imperator Alexander III was low in the water – indeed forward her deck was awash – but she was not surrendering, and her six-inch guns barked defiantly at the little ships which were coming to destroy her. Plumes of water flew skywards, limiting the already poor visibility, for the cutter, rising and falling on the waves, was constantly losing sight of her target.
But she topped a crest just as there was a heavy explosion, and a plume of metal and water, and men, flew into the air from the battleship’s stern as one of the torpedoes struck. Now the end was very near, as water poured into the hull, and Imperator Alexander III began to heel. Yet some of her guns continued to fire in aimless defiance, while men began to throw themselves into the sea. By now the cutter was within half-a-mile of the sinking ship, but Nicholas dared not go any closer until the shooting, on both sides, had ceased – his tiny craft was totally unprotected.
The end was not long in coming. Heeling more severely every second, Imperator Alexander III gave a last mighty sigh as one of her boilers exploded, and capsized. Her hull showed for a few seconds, then it sank, leaving an immense turmoil amidst the heaving waters.
The Japanese torpedo-boats now stood by to assist in finding survivors, and Nicholas nosed the cutter in amongst them. They hauled on board two seamen, and then a lieutenant, all soaked in oil and with teeth chattering from the cold. They were wrapped in blankets and given sake to drink.
‘Does anyone speak Japanese?’ Nicholas asked.
They stared at him, blankly.
‘Well, then, English.’
‘I speak English,’ said the officer in surprise.
‘What news of Captain Count Rashnikov, and his son?’
The officer continued to frown in bewilderment. ‘Lieutenant Rashnikov died early on, sir; he was struck by a shell splinter. But Count Rashnikov, why I saw him just before we turned over.’
‘Then he could still be out there, unless he has already been picked up.’ Nicholas signalled the coxwain to mo
ve the cutter closer to where the battleship had gone down.
‘With respect, sir,’ asked the lieutenant, ‘Are you acquainted with the Count?’
‘You could say that,’ Nicholas agreed.
*
His brain was already ranging to how he would break the news of Young Paul’s death to Elizabeth; that she had known it was a possibility would be no more of a solace than had either Alexander or himself been killed, which was equally always a possibility in time of war. Indeed, he had no idea how Alexander had fared: even the light cruisers had certainly been involved in the fighting.
They searched for another half an hour, while the evening drew in, and the fog came down again; they could still hear guns exploding to the north of them, but could see nothing of what was happening. One of the torpedo-boats remained with the cutter, but Nicholas was about to call off the search, as there did not seem to be any more survivors, when he saw a man clinging to a spar not fifty feet away. He signalled the coxswain, and the cutter nosed closer.
The man gave a brief wave of his arm, but he was obviously very cold and tired. The Japanese seamen reached for him, and dragged him over the gunwale, but as they did so there was a huge explosion from the mist to the north. All heads turned, and despite the poor visibility they for a moment saw a gigantic glow, which faded as rapidly as it had sprung up.
‘A ship has exploded, honourable Admiral,’ the coxswain said.
Nicholas knew he was right, and that it was clearly a battleship. The question was, Russian or Japanese? The damage to Asama apart, the Japanese fleet had thus far gained an enormous victory. To lose one of their only four remaining capital ships, perhaps to a freak explosion . . . he looked down at Rashnikov, still only half across the gunwale; the Russian was bleeding from the mouth as well as from some external injuries. Now he drew back his lips in a wolf’s grin. ‘Got one of you bastards, anyway,’ he muttered.
Nicholas glanced up at the torpedo-boat, which was close alongside. Its warrant-officer captain was leaning from the control platform. ‘I have just heard, honourable Admiral,’ he shouted. ‘That was Borodino. The victory is complete!’
Nicholas looked back down at the stricken Rashnikov. ‘You’ll have to wait until the next time,’ he said.
Rashnikov gave him a look of utter hatred, and died.
*
Following the sinking of Borodino, with night falling, Togo called his heavy units together, and left the business to his torpedo-boats until daylight. The small craft did their work well, and before dawn Navarin, Admiral Nakhimov and Sissoi-Veliki all went down.
By dawn Nicholas, having boarded the torpedo-boat, had rejoined Mikasa, and now the search for the remaining Russian ships was resumed. The surviving battleships Imperator Nikolai I and Orel, together with the coastal defence ships Admiral Seniavin and Admiral Apraksin, and a single cruiser, were sighted at ten-thirty. As the Japanese approached, a white flag was hoisted on Imperator Nikolai I, as Admiral Nebogatov surrendered. The cruiser made off, but was run aground later that day.
Nicholas looked at Togo as they watched the Russian admiral being ferried towards them. ‘My congratulations, honourable Admiral,’ he said. ‘You have gained the greatest naval victory in history.’
Togo smiled. ‘Did I not once say to you, Barrett san, that one day we would sail to the very sun, together?’
*
Nicholas was right in his estimate of the victory. Two more Russian stragglers were sunk later on that day, and the next morning a destroyer was captured, with the wounded Admiral Rozhdestvensky on board. Thus the entire Russian fleet had been destroyed. Of the eight battleships, six had been sunk and two captured; of the three coastal defence ships, one sunk and two captured; all the three armoured cruisers were sunk; of the five cruisers, two had been sunk and three had sought refuge in neutral ports, to be interned; of the destroyers, five had been sunk, one captured, and one interned; the four transports and two destroyers had escaped. It was estimated that five thousand Russians had been killed or drowned, and more than six thousand taken prisoner.
On the Japanese side, three torpedo-boats had been sunk and two cruisers sufficiently damaged to necessitate a return home for repairs. Some six hundred men had been killed or wounded.
The Battle of Tsushima ended the war; a mighty power had been defeated by the little islanders who came out of the rising sun. The Tsar sought peace, and as Mutsuhito also wanted an end to the fighting before he was bankrupted, this was concluded at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in September 1905, under the auspices of the president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
Japan got all that it wanted, including not only the Liaotung Peninsular and Port Arthur, but also the southern half of the Sakhalin Peninsular.
Perhaps more important than either of these territorial gains, however, she also obtained a renewal of her treaty with Great Britain, for ten years, and with redefined clauses: were either power to be attacked by any other single enemy, the treaty partner was bound to assist in every possible way.
‘Thus our victory is secured,’ Mutsuhito told his jubilant admirals and generals. ‘Our sunrise has been long, and bloody. But now the sun is noon high. It must be our duty to make sure that it never sets. Gentlemen, my congratulations.’
The assembly drew their swords, and shouted ‘Banzai!’ Then Nicholas and Alexander could take their leave, and go into the gardens, where hundreds of other officers were milling about in the euphoria of victory.
‘Honourable Father!’ Takamori bowed. ‘Honourable brother!’
Nicholas clasped his eldest son’s hand. Takamori was a colonel now, and as usual had covered himself with glory in battle. ‘Your wife and son are well?’
‘Very well, honourable Father. May we visit you?’
‘Of course.” Now was surely a time for burying hatchets.
‘We have much to speak about,’ Takamori said. ‘Many tales to relate. Many plans to lay.’
‘Plans?’ Nicholas smiled. ‘My only plans are for my retirement.’
Takamori frowned. ‘You will leave Japan?’
Nicholas shook his head. ‘It is the only home I have ever known. I will leave Tokyo, and go and live in Kyushu.’ He smiled. ‘Where it all began for me.’
‘That is good,’ Takamori said. ‘Then you will be available when next we go to war.’
‘Takamori,’ Nicholas said. ‘There are not going to be any more wars. We have achieved everything the Emperor set out to do, nearly forty years ago.’
‘No more wars, honourable Father? How can that be? Are we not samurai? Are we not governed by the laws of bushido? How may a samurai die, like a dog in his bed, or like a warrior, with his sword in his hand?’
*
‘Is it really over?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘The fighting, and the killing. Your fighting and killing?’
She lay with her head pillowed on his shoulder, and he hugged her. ‘Mine, certainly.’
‘Ever since I have known you,’ she said. ‘You have either been fighting, or preparing to fight.’
‘Well, all my life I have been a fighting sailor. Except when it has been necessary to be a soldier.’
‘And now it is finished. I am so very happy, Nicky.’ She raised her head as he did not immediately respond. ‘But you are not?’
‘Oh, I am happy to have survived, with you. But the future!’
‘Has the future ever looked brighter? Japan is accepted as one of the great powers, allied with Britain . . .’
‘She has achieved this in a single generation, my sweet. But merely because she wears western dress and speaks western diplomatic language and possesses a western style fleet and army, does not mean that she has truly shrugged off the weight of her past. On her ability to do that depends the future. And if she cannot, then the Emperor’s bloody sunrise could become a bloody sunset.’
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Bloody Sunrise Page 41
