A PEN PICTURE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7962, 13 February 1906, Page 3

A PEN PICTURE.

AN INCIDENT OP THE LATE WAR IN THE FAR EAST. The following extraots are from an article—-"A Pen Picture"—written by a war correspondent, Mr Francis McGullagh, for the American Press. Mr McCullagh was aboard the British merchant steamer Columbia, lying in the outer harbour of Port Arthur, when Togo's attaok on the Russian, Dort ushered in the great war tragedy with suoh dramatic suddenness. He not only saw the first shot fired, but by astonishing good luck was present iu the thick of the bombardment, escaped unhurt in the Columbia to Chifu, and was the only journalist to give the world the momentous news. THE BRITISH FLAG. "The Columbia was now moving, but, of course, I expected she would soon anchor acaln. . . . We were so close to toe boacb that I OOUld have thrown h stone aehoro, and were still going south. I wondered vaguely why we bad not yet anchored, but was afraid to ask the captain, aa he was now absolutely unapproachable. Besides, what did it matter? We coulii no more expect to these thick-falling shells than a man standing outside in a thunderstorm can expect to escape the drops of rain. The skipper bad now hoisted his biggest British ensign to the masthead. 'God them,' said he in a sturdy tone, speaking more to himself than to us, and jerking his thumb upwards, while in his eyes there burned a lurid light which I took at the time to be the light cf, insanity. 'God them, let them fire on ibat!' It seemed to me to be one of those childish but infinitely mystic and significant things which, all unconsciously, dying men sometimes do. Did the captain want to go down under the old flag? Did be think—'for drowning men grasp at straws' —that the Japanese might refrain from firing on that flag out of friendship or the Russians out of fear? If the fomer were the case he was mistaken, for the Japanese projectiles continued to fali very dose. One fragment of shell made a small hole in the deck forward, another fragment tore the flag. Before the engagement began I had been reflecting with exultation that here was a chance of my getting to Ohefoo before any other war corres- • pondent; but when the shells began to sine through the air and raise hngp pillars of water before, behind, and close to both sides of the ship, 1 forgot all about the matter, or if I had reflected on it at all it was only to curse my luck at falling in a light which was not mine—fur I regarded myself as already doomed. I thought bf writing a farewell letter to One dear friend; but the reflection that letters never find their way from the bottom of the deep made me stop after the first few words. Wfiat annoyed me most was the uaelessness of my death. To die for a great cause is glorious. To die as a oombatant on board one of these war vessels would be an honour. I felt, oddly enough, that if 1 had died a a, regularly-attaohed correspondent on board one of the Russian battleships I would have been satisfied. Even if I had knowingly, willingly sailed into the fray ou board the Columbia the prospect of death wuild not have beeu so horrible. But it was by the merest accident that I had got caught in this whirlwind of great events; that I had to inixed up in this gigantin contest of empire. Any fool might have done the same. I ardently longed to get, outside the danger zone, so that I could bid my friends good-bye with a sad, sad smile, and then sail bacK again to meet my fate. FATE'S IRONY. '<But in truth my death was going to be miserable—a non-combatant struck by a stray shell while running away from the fight on board a harmless merchant steamer. Good heavens, what a fate! I looked into the' engine-room, and was surprised at the regularity with which the cranks and connecting rods were doing their duty. Hooked around generally, and it occurred to me that the Columbia had shrunk to the dimensions of a row boat. Compared with the iron leviathans who were battling around her in smoke and flame, she resembled a pet lamb that has got mixed up in a bull flght. I have a dim remembrance of moving about the ship with inconceivable rapidity. 1 fancied that if I remained still for a second a shell would surely fall on top of mei First of all I went; aft as far as I could. I , don't know why I went aft but I had a kind of vague idea that if the front part of the ship were blown away I could hang ou to the rear. Herfc I found Chief Engineer Smith, his face of a pallor which moved me more than eloquence, one side of it splashed with powder or some black stuff, shot up by a shell that had burst hear the screw, and the other glistening with perspiration. Mr Smith not even seem to bear the banal, consolatory remarks I addressed to him; but in Spite of his glassy stare and very preoccupied manner he showed that be was aware of my presence by telling me, in extremely emphatic language, the sort of fool I was for not having gone ashore in the doc tor's boat. .... "There is always present in my mind the terrible certainty that there was no longer any oover, no more protection. A glance at the terrific splashes made by the shells that fell around showed me that if one of these formidable missiles fell on the Columbia all was over with as. Yet, in spite of this, I must say that I always breathed more freely for a second or so after I had got behind something, no matter what it was, I also had at times the strongest possible inclination to go below, to get down to the very keel of .the ship, to go through the keel if possible, to dive to the bottom of the sea, coming up for breath in the intervals between the shells. . . • "Between <the cabins aft and those forward there is an open space, and I suddenly took it into my head, to traverse this space in order to join the other officers, who were all gathered together at the other extremity of the boat. 1 did so, running, as quickly as my legs oould carry me, as if I were running from one certain shelter to another, and

might be caught half-way across it 1 did not harry. Of coarse I did not reason about the matter. My legs simply rau off with me. On my reaching the 'shelter' of the unprotected forward set of cabiua 1 fuuncl, in the unprotected apace in front of ■them—that ia in the extreme bows—the captain and the rest of the offl•cers grouped together, wild-eyed, pallid, and silent. The quartermaster was at the vrheel. PROFANITY STOPS A MUTINY. "I decided to stick to the capfain. At the same time I began to conceive •an intense an'mosity for the Japanese in general, and for Admiral Togo in particular, for how can one retain his good opiniou of people Who are throwing 12in shell at him? I thought it vile, treacherous. 'Oh won't I roast them in the Herald if ever I get oat of this.' I told the oaotaia what I would do, but I did not catch his reply, for at,that instant » shell exploded with a tremendous detonation right under the bow, splashing the deck with water, and making the gallant little craft "first baulk like a horse, and then tremble vioieutly from stem to stern. Everybody's face grew a shade whiter, and with a shiver that penetrated to thp marrow of ray bones, caught the dreadful words contact mine.' The faces of the 4 Chinese sailors grew livid, and it looked as if they would rush overboard, carrying Ihe rest of us along with them. I ran into my oabin. and remember feeling astonished and hurt for the millionth part of a second on perceiving that things were just as I had left them on getting up in the- morning—brush, soiled water in the wash basin, bed unmade, pyjamas lying on the floor, half-smoked cigarette on the ash tray, enlarged photograph of the captain's wife beaming at the head of the bed. Glancing mechanically at the looking-glass, I was horrified ' to see reflected therein a face that, was not my faoe at all. but thai; of ■ a disinterred corpse. Then the terrific, vioious whiz-z-z-z z-z-z overhead made me suddenly bury my head in. the bed olbches, and stop my ears with my fingers, bat hardly bad I done so than an uncontrollable desire to get outside into "the open air seized upon me. 1 felt that if I remained in that cabin a seoond longer I would smother. I felt that if I joined some group or "knot of men I would be safe. Accordingly I fled from the cabin like one pursued by the fariea. I weDt so quickly that I might have gone overboard had I not heard the captain say at that moment in his usual tones to his Chinese 'boy,' who •standing, white-lipped beside him and dressed for some reason or other, in bis best silk gown: 'Boy bring me some cigarettes. Hurry up D you —— ' " wherepuon the boy's tense face relaxed, as if he had been instantane"oasly cured of somepjinful malady and be went away, smiling and assuring his panic-stricken countrymen, who were bunched behind him in the attitudes of men about to go mad, that it was all right. The skipper's lurid basphemies had saved us from a mutiny. SAFE AT LAST. "After forty minutes of the sort *off experience thall have been trying to deaoribe, the Columbia got xjlear of the rival fleets. For some ■ time after we had got out of reaoh of the shells we still felt uneasy, lor ' asb ot from a JRussi an torpedo boat might still overtake us; but, at last,, the battling navies and the head of Port Arthur sank below the horizon, and we were safe. The change was so sudden that for some .time I had difficulty in remembering who .and where I was.