THE MUTINEERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 5 October 1907, Page 3

THE MUTINEERS.

QUEER HAPPENINGS IX THE RUSSIAN FLEET. AX HEROIC CAPTAIN. An old friend called on me the other day to bid good-bye before leaving oil ( cruire. lie is a typical Russian of the best type—a good old name, a -noble" with a small estate in the country that hardly pays for gloves and boot*, a- man of wide reading and un-. usual linguistic attainments, even for a ' Rttfesia* npble. I made his acquaintance '■ when he %as "finishing the university" —brilliantly. His birth and attainments epened to him a wide choice of a public career, bat the fatal fight of Tituahiaa fixed his determination on the navy. Many of the Moscow nobles, their patriotism stung to the quick by the slum; ids -deeds of the St. Petersburg! burc uiomcv, then strained every nerve to get the Navy reorganised, collected large sums to build new ships—honestly and well. My friend fell in with the wave of enthusiasm, and qualified in the briefest possible time to wear the handsome uniform in which I last saw him. ■Uke A many of the real old nobles of Russia—a great contrast to the "ser-vlcc-nobles"—he is a very abstemious man in all things, drinks nothing and does aot even smoke, I doubt if he is very happy jn the Russian Navy, but the enthusiasm of youth and the determinatiop which is so marked in his character will carry him through to higher ranks and yet more glorious uniforms. The cross for valor, the coveted "George," he has already, and of course he had to tell me all about it. The story exemplifies several aspects of life in the Russian service, and I shall try to repeat it as I heard it from the lips of my old Mend. Of course all names are changed where identification is undesirable and truth might be compromising. "It was ia the summer of last year, at the very time of the mutiny at Sveaborg. I was then aboard one of those old Herman tramps that were bought during the war and fitted up as cruisers. We were supposed to be doing firing "practices in the Baltic, and our ship was one of four. They kept us as far away as possible from Reval or Liban, and each ship was sent to bivouac —yes, yes, that's just the word. We had to bivouac about twenty miles away from port, anchored near shore, in an uninhabited part, took walks and had a little sport in the woods. The other ships were bivouacking elsewhere, at points only known to their captains and the Admiral at Reval, and, of course, there was no communication between the ships. I suppose they suspected something wrong at headquarbut it was a queer life. One ship at a time went into port for orders, but we always kept steam up ready to start on the signal. Our ship came into Reval one morning, no one went ashore, not even the captain. There was a lot of signalling with the shore, but nothing . htppened. We were all pretty anxiom, and the men—seven hundred of them - there were —looked as uncanny as we felt.

"About noon a stgam launch came alongside with a despatch from the Fort Admiral, and I was on the bridge tt the time. Our captain read it over aid dismissed the officer who brought K. Three- hours later another packet was received, and we were off on the word. Of course, we thought we were limply going hack to our customary bivouac, twenty milei up the coast We crawled leisurely along in the usual way, but before long everyone noticed the course wai laid lor the open sea, and we all began to speculate about what was to happen. "It waa already evening when someone described astern a battleship steaming after us at full speed,and we very soon made her out to be the Pamjat Axova. All the officers came on deck, and we felt about as uncomfortable as could be. The Pamjat Azova gained on us rspidly, although we did our best and twelve knost out of our old hulk. Of course she ought to have run into as with ease, but she did not. We best to quarters, bat it was absurd to think of fighting, for the 'enemy'—one of our own ship*—carried 12-inch guns, and oar beat was one old 6-inch; besides/we were only a converted cargotramp without any armor to speak of, an3'a Single shot from the battleship, would hare sent us to the bottom. So we pat out all lights, changed the course, and ran for it. "Well, the Pamjat Aiova apparently lost O»,or gave up the chase. We heard later what had happened to them. They ppt hack to Reval, and in the offiing shot several officers and took the ship. The admiral was on board, and with the rest of the officers slipped into a boat and made off. Somebody turned a quick-firer on the boat, and smashed them up shockingly. Then the sheep were sorry for themselves, and gave up to" the port authorities about 150 men as the ringleaders of this horrible business. Our captain was a man of another kidney, and it is a pity there are not more like him in our navy. _ ' Manoeuvres! Not a bit of it The Pamjat Aiova was an enemy indeed. The men had possession of her, and if they had caught us up would have taken our ship and stores too, or tried to. Probably they intended to put the officers peaceably ashore near Reval, but someone's misbehavior—and it might have been the officers got bold again within sight of Reval—caused the tragic termination of the affair. '•Our chief was an old Port Arthar man, and he knew what he was about. I suppose that is why they trusted all the ammunition for the squadron to us. I was on the bridge with him towards midnight that night when we sighted a lighthouse, and he improved the occasion by me work out the position of the ship. I was busy with this calculation when one of the officers came np and said something, to which the captain replied in a cool rodinary voice: Then I shall blow up the ship!' Then he turned to me, smiling as' he aught sight of my scared face, and told me to find X. and Y. and send them up to him. They were both in their berths, and I had to leavs them there, too. When I got back to the bridge the captain was saying: Turn those two Maxims inboard to command the waist,' and when this was done by a couple of signalmen who were there, and trusty men, -we found there was no ammunition for the guns. I was then only a 'one-year volunteer,' and consequently dressed like a sailor, so the captain sent me down to get some cartridge belts for the Maxims. All the time we could hear a buzzing and murmur far below us, but not a man to he seen. Everything was dark, for all the lights below had been turned off by the men. It was a nasty job to get down to the magazine deck through all the rabble of men. They paid no attention to me luckily, and I soon found tint the fore-magazine was being broken open by a wild mob of men, who had got at the arms and now wanted ammunition. I got back unnoticed, and reported. The captain was smoking a cigar, calm and cool, as he gave orders to the lieutenant in charge of the explosive stores. He was to find the chief engineer, take some of the technical men, mostly youngsters like myself, jrho could be trusted, to stand in with the officers, and prepare tjie ship for destruction. There were at least 10 tons of explosives in the after-maga-zine. Well, I was sent below a second, time to find the petty officers, lnd the arm, and come up on the bridge. / *TUs time, as I made my wa\ b to tbefr berth (there were about thit > of them, and they bad quarters to themselves), the, men w«e all fully armed, busy clicking the cartridge-clips as they loaded uptaft magazine rifles. The petty officers were all in their quarters, but it was imnoMlUe to get them on deck unnoticed, and, had the men suspected their .intention to join the officer*. they could not have got through t!* mob alive. I slipped back again, making my way up the last of the hatches along with the men who were swarmlfig np from all the decks. "How I got back is more than I can tell. Everything was confusion, and those in front were being nrged on from behind. I suppose they were too busy to notice me. and I got back to the bridge all right just in time to look into the muzzles of hundreds of rifles pointing up at us. The signal men had been placed as if t« serve the Mavims ntc.ifh end of the bridge, and, of course, to. , crowd below did not know we had no ammunition for them. There was a dead silence. The captain slowly pared to and fro, stopped to light a match and a fresh cigar in full view of the seven hundred mutineers Mow. We could distinctly hear the mutual exhortations of the crowd, who were plainly daunted by their captain's easy bearing- 'Loose off. now,' *No; you first, and orders from the middle of th» mob. evid-ntlv the place of safety of the leader*." Then the chief engineer .gave a bail from the lower bridge; the captain paused in his walk. You understand he has not shown by a single sign or movement that he was aware of to* jflewnr* of the seven hundred mutiIMis. fU ealltd back, la e*rjthingin

readiness, Mr A.l' Evidently by previous arrangement the chief engineer replied, 'The wires are laid to the aft magazine, the torpedo stores are also wired, and So-and-so stands ready to expiod; the mines at the first shot.' "The captain dropped his nonchalant air, tinnj; away the cigar, drew his revolver, and striding forward to th 3 fc.v rail uf the bridge raised his right arm in the air and said: 'My lads, at ill.' lir. L shot fired this ship goes skywards; drop every man of you his rifle on the word, or I fire: Arms down!'

"\ou never saw such a sight. The front ranks absolutely fell on their knees, and the clatter of arms on the deck terrified me lest a chance shot should send us all aloft. The petty officers went into that mob and simply hustled out the leaders; men were taken by the collar with 'Drop that rille, you dog!' right in the middle of the crowd. Of course, all the stupids were in front, and the whole crew seemed paralysed and remained so long enough for the officers who tumbled up and the few men who stood in with us to secure the ringleaders and the arms. Of course, we knew them all more or less, and the men were as good as they knew bow till the end of the trip. "We all got the George 'for valor' for that, and the captain his long-expected step, which he had certainly deserved often enough before. But until such changes are made at the top, some of the chiefs of the Admiralty reduced to the ranks or sent to Siberia, such captains as ours have no chance in the Russian navy. They had to promote fcim for very shame, and I am sure he took care that the ringl \iders were not too hardly dealt with by the legal bodies ashore. Did X. and Y. also get the George! Why, of course, we all got it, petty officers and all. In fact, don't you see, if X. and Y. and a few others of the officers had not celebrated our escape from the pursuit of the Pamjat Azova rather too generously, and had also been on the bridge, it is likely enough the men would have found courage to fire right away; they had reason enough for it, to niv knowledge. A good many officers even on our ship deserved some commendation for being drunk in their berths that time, and we didn't grudge them the medal, I can tell you. The captain saved his ship, but I thinTt some of our lives were saved by the absence of those officers who staved below."—Moscow correspondent "of the St. James' Budget.