Banzai! Part 12

"So long, Tom," answered the roundsman curtly as he slowly proceeded to resume his interrupted rounds.

An advance guard of a few men had been sent ahead. They found the sentry at the barrack-gates fast asleep. When he awoke it was to discover himself surrounded by a dozen men. He stared at them, still heavy with sleep, and then reached mechanically for his gun; it was gone. He tried to pull himself together, felt something cold pressed against his right temple, and saw the barrel of a Browning pistol in the hand of the man in front of him.

"Hands up!" came the command in a low tone, and a few seconds later he was bound and gagged. As he lay on the ground, he saw a whole battalion of foreign soldiers half in the court-yard before the barracks, and vague thoughts of naval maneuvers and surprises, of Admiral Perry and the j.a.ps went through his mind, till all at once the notion "j.a.ps"

caused him to sit up mentally--weren't these men real j.a.panese? And if so, what did it all mean?

In the meantime double guards had occupied all the men's quarters, in which Uncle Sam's soldiers began gradually to wake up. The guns and ammunition had long ago pa.s.sed into the hands of the j.a.ps, and when at last the reveille from a j.a.panese bugle woke up the garrison completely, there was nothing to be done but to grind their teeth with rage and submit to the inevitable. They had to form in line in the court-yard at eight o'clock, and then, disarmed and escorted by j.a.panese troops, they had to board the ferry-boats and cross over to Angel Island, while the cannon on Fort Point (Winfield Scott) thundered out the last notes of American resistance in San Francisco.

When, shortly after midnight, the guard had been relieved for the last time, and only a few sleepy soldiers remained in the sentry-boxes of the coast batteries of San Francisco, the enemy lay in ambush behind the coast-line, ready, to the last man, to rise at a given signal and render the unsuspecting American troops _hors de combat_ in their sleep. And thus, before the sentinels had any idea what was going on, they were disarmed and gagged. Not a single cry or shot was heard to warn the sleeping soldiers. They awoke to find themselves confronted by j.a.panese bayonets and gun-barrels, and resistance was utterly useless, for the enemy, who seemed to be remarkably well posted, had already taken possession of the ammunition and arms.

And where, all this time, was Admiral Perry with his fleet? Nowhere. The j.a.panese had made no mistake in relying on the traditional love of sensation of the American press. The telegram sent on May sixth from Los Angeles to the San Francisco _Evening Standard_ was nothing but a j.a.panese trick. It notified the _Standard_ that Admiral Perry intended during the naval maneuvers (which were actually to take place within the next fortnight) to gain an entrance through the Golden Gate, and the j.a.panese felt certain that the editor would not make inquiries at the last moment as to the veracity of this report, which was not at all in accord with previous arrangements, but would print it as it was, more especially as it was signed by their usual correspondent.

Thus the j.a.panese had reason to hope that no immediate suspicions would be aroused by the appearance of warships in the Bay of San Francisco.

And so it turned out. The five j.a.panese armored cruisers and the torpedo flotilla, which were to surprise and destroy the naval station and the docks, were able to cross the entire bay under cover of the fog without being recognized and to occupy the docks and the a.r.s.enal. Four mortar-boats threatened Point Bonita and Lime Point, till they both surrendered.

What could the two cruisers _New York_ and _Brooklyn_, lying in dock for repairs, do without a single ball-cartridge on board? What was the good of the deck guards using up their cartridges before the red flag of Nippon was hoisted above the Stars and Stripes?

It is true there was a fight at one spot--out at Winfield Scott.

Although the fog proved of great a.s.sistance to the j.a.panese in a hundred cases, the stipulated signal for attack, that is, the whistle of the j.a.panese auxiliary cruiser _Pelung Maru_, for example, being taken for a fog-signal, nevertheless an annoying surprise awaited the enemy elsewhere.

A steamer headed towards the Golden Gate in the wake of the _Pelung Maru_ heard the roar of the sealions, and as this showed how near they were to the cliffs, the vessel dropped anchor and instead of blowing its whistle ordered the ship's bell to be rung. This was heard by the _Pelung Maru_ a short distance ahead and interpreted as a sign that something had occurred to disturb the plan of attack. A steamlaunch was therefore sent out to look for the anch.o.r.ed ship.

The latter was the German steamer _Siegismund_, whose captain, standing on the bridge, suddenly saw a dripping little launch approaching with its flag trailing behind it in the water. And just as in every cleverly arranged plan one stupid oversight is apt to occur so it happened now.

The launch carried the j.a.panese flag and the lieutenant at the helm called to the _Siegismund_ in j.a.panese. As they were directly before the guns of the American batteries, the German captain didn't know what to make of it. He couldn't imagine what the launch from a j.a.panese warship could be doing here at dawn before the Golden Gate fortifications, and thinking that the fact would be likely to be of interest to the commander of the fort, he sent him the following wireless message: "Have just met launch of a j.a.panese warship off Seal-Rocks; what does it mean?"

This information alarmed the garrison at Winfield Scott, and the men at once received orders to man the guns. Then they waited breathlessly to see what would happen next.

An inquiry sent by wireless to the other stations remained unanswered, because these were already in the hands of the j.a.panese, whose operators were not quick-witted enough to send back a rea.s.suring answer. As the commander of the fort received no answer, he became suspicious, and these suspicions were soon justified when a number of soldiers were discovered trying to force their way into the narrow land entrance of the fort. A few shots fired during the first bayonet a.s.sault and the bullets landing within the fort showed that it was a serious matter.

Besides, a puff of wind dispersed the fog for a few seconds just then, and the shadowy silhouettes of several large ships became visible.

Without a moment's hesitation the commander of Winfield Scott ordered the men to open fire on them from the heavy guns. These were the shots that had been heard at the San Francisco Post Office and Tom was quite right in thinking that he heard the rattle of musketry directly afterwards.

But with the small stock of ammunition doled out to the coast defenses in times of peace--there were plenty of blank cartridges for salutes--it was impossible to hold Winfield Scott. The fort sent out a few dozen sh.e.l.ls into the fog pretty blindly, and, as a matter of fact, they hit nothing. Then began the hopeless battle between the garrison and the j.a.panese machine-guns, and although the shots from the latter were powerless to affect the walls and the armor-plating, still they worked havoc among the men. And the ammunition of the Americans disappeared even more quickly than their men, so that when at ten o'clock two j.a.panese regiments undertook to capture the fort by storm, the last defender fell with practically the last cartridge. Then the Rising Sun of Dai Nippon was subst.i.tuted on the flagstaff of Winfield Scott for the Stars and Stripes.

In the city itself small j.a.panese guards were posted at the railway station, the Post Office and the telegraph offices, at the City Hall and at most of the public buildings, and as early as this, on the morning of May seventh, troops for the march eastward were being landed at the pier at Oakland. A standing garrison of only five thousand men was left in San Francisco, and these at once occupied the coast-batteries and prepared them for defense. The same thing was of course done with the docks and the naval station, with Oakland and all the other towns situated on the bay.

The sudden appearance of the enemy had in every case had a positively paralyzing effect. Among the inhabitants of the coast the terrible feeling prevailed everywhere that this was the end, that nothing could be done against an enemy whose soldiers crept out of every hole and cranny, and even when a few courageous men did unite for the purpose of defending their homes, they found no followers. It is a pity that others did not show the resolute courage of a Mexican fisherman's wife, who reached the harbor of San Francisco with a good catch early on Monday morning and made fast to the pier close to a j.a.panese destroyer. Almost immediately a j.a.panese petty officer came on board and demanded the catch for the use of the j.a.panese army. The woman, a coa.r.s.e beauty with a fine mustache, planted herself in front of the j.a.p and shouted: "What, you shrimp, you want our fish, do you?" and seizing a good-sized silver fish lying on the deck, she boxed the astonished warrior's ears right and left till he fell over backwards into the water and swam quickly back to the destroyer, snorting like a seal, amidst the laughter of the bystanders.

The question naturally suggests itself at this point: Why didn't a people as determined as the Americans rise like one man and, arming themselves with revolvers and pistols and if it came to the worst with such primitive weapons as knives and spokes, attack the various small j.a.panese garrisons and free their country from this flood of swarming yellow ants? The white handbills posted up at every street corner furnished the answer to the question.

The munic.i.p.al authorities were made responsible to the j.a.panese military governor, who was clever enough to leave the entire American munic.i.p.al administration unaltered, even down to the smallest detail. Even the local police remained in office. The whole civil life went on as before, and only the machine-guns in front of the j.a.panese guard-houses situated at the various centers of traffic showed who was now ruler in the land.

All the officials and the whole city administration were bound by a marvelously clever and effective system.

In the proclamations issued by the j.a.panese military governor the city was threatened, should the slightest sign of resistance occur, with acts of vengeance that positively took one's breath away. Three j.a.panese cruisers, with their guns constantly loaded and manned and aimed directly at the two cities, lay between Oakland and San Francisco. They had orders to show no mercy and to commence a bombardment at the first sign of trouble. It did not seem to have occurred to any one that although the bombardment of a town like San Francis...o...b.. a few dozen guns might indeed have a bad moral effect, it would nevertheless be impossible to do much harm. But the j.a.panese had other trump cards up their sleeves. The military governor declared that the moment they were compelled to use the guns, he would cut off all the available supply of water and light, by which means all resistance would be broken down within twenty-four hours. For this reason all the gas-works and electric plants were transformed into little forts and protected by cannon and machine-guns. Tens of thousands might try, in vain, to take them by storm; the city would remain wrapped in darkness, except, as the j.a.panese general remarked with a polite smile to the Mayor of San Francisco, for the bright light of bursting sh.e.l.ls.

In the same way the munic.i.p.al waterworks in San Francisco and all the other towns occupied by the j.a.panese were insured against attack. Not one drop of water would the town receive, and what that meant could be best explained to the Mayor by his wife. And thus, in spite of their often ridiculously small numbers, the j.a.panese troops were safe from surprise, for the awful punishment meted out to the town of Stockton, where a bold and quickly organized band of citizens destroyed the j.a.panese garrison, consisting only of a single company, was not likely to be disregarded. The entire population of the Pacific Coast was forced to submit quietly, though boiling with rage, while at the same time all listened eagerly for the report of cannon from the American army in the east. But was there such a thing as an American army? Was there any sense in hoping when months must pa.s.s before an American army could take the field?

The deception of the _Evening Standard_ by means of the fatal telegram was preceded by an instructive episode. Indeed, it might well be asked whether anything that happened in this terrible time could not be traced back pretty far. In order that the news of the naval maneuvers in the _Evening Standard_ should receive sufficient attention on the critical day, this paper and consequently the inhabitants of San Francisco had for some months past been taught to expect over the signature "Our Naval Correspondent," amazingly correct accounts of the movements of the American fleet and all matters pertaining to the navy.

Mr. Alfred Stephenson had hard work to keep his head above water as editor of the _Los Angeles Advertiser_ at Los Angeles. The struggle for existence gave him considerable cause for worry, and this was due to the fact that Mrs. Olinda Stephenson wished to cut a figure in society, a figure that was not at all compatible with her husband's income. Mr.

Stephenson was therefore often called upon to battle with temptation, but for a long time he successfully withstood all offers the acceptance of which would have lowered him in his own estimation. The consequence was that financial discussion had become chronic in the Stephenson household, and, like a Minister of Finance, he was compelled to develop considerable energy in order to diminish the financial demands of the opposition or render them void by having recourse to pa.s.sive resistance.

This constant worry gradually exhausted Mr. Stephenson, however, and the check-book, which, to save his face, he always carried with him, was nothing more than a piece of useless bluff.

He could therefore scarcely be blamed for eagerly seizing the opportunity offered him one evening at a bar in Los Angeles, when a stranger agreed to furnish him regularly with news from the Navy Department for the _Evening Standard_. The affair had, of course, to be conducted with the greatest secrecy. The stranger told Stephenson that a clerk in the Navy Department was willing to send him such news for two hundred dollars per annum. The result was astonishing. The articles signed "Our Naval Correspondent" soon attracted wide attention, and the large fees received from San Francisco quite covered the deficits in the Stephenson household. Mrs. Olinda was soon rolling in money and the tiresome financial discussions came to a speedy end. From that time on Stephenson regularly received secret communications, which were mailed at Pasadena, and as to the origin of which he himself remained in complete ignorance. But these same messages enabled the _Evening Standard_ in a brief s.p.a.ce of time to establish a national reputation for its naval news, which was at no time officially contradicted.

The matter did not, of course, pa.s.s unnoticed in Washington, for it soon became evident that secret dispatches were being misappropriated.

Vigorous efforts were made to discover the guilty person in the Navy Department, but they all proved vain for the following reason: Among the wireless stations used for maintaining constant communication between the Navy Department at Washington and the various naval ports and naval stations, and the fleet itself when at sea, was the large station on Wilson's Peak near the observatory, whose shining tin-roof can be seen plainly from Los Angeles when the sun strikes it. All messages arriving there for transmission to San Diego and Mare Island could be readily intercepted by the wireless apparatus attached inconspicuously to the huge wind-wheel on an orange plantation between Pasadena and Los Angeles. The uninitiated would have concluded that the wires had something to do with a lightning-rod. The j.a.panese proprietor of the plantation had simply to read the messages from the Morse key of his apparatus and forward what he considered advisable to Mr. Stephenson by mail. A few hours later the _Evening Standard_ was in a position to make a scoop with the dispatches of its infallible naval correspondent.

Thus Stephenson, without having the slightest suspicion of it, formed a wheel in the great chain which prepared the way for the enemy, and since the _Evening Standard_ had earned a reputation for publishing absolutely reliable news in this field, no one for a moment doubted the announcement of Admiral Perry's attack, although this was the first spurious message which Stephenson had furnished to his paper.

_Chapter IX_

A FORTY-EIGHT-HOUR BALANCE

A steamer is lying at the pier taking in cargo. Long-legged cranes are taking hold of bales and barrels and boxes and lowering them through the ship's hatches with a rattle of chains. Wooden cases bound with steel ropes and containing heavy machinery are being hoisted slowly from the lorries on the railway tracks; the swaying burden is turning round and round in the air, knocking against the railing with a groaning noise, and tearing off large splinters of wood. The overseer is swearing at the men at the windla.s.s and comparing his papers with the slips of the customs officer, the one making a blue check on the bill of lading and the other taking note of each article on his long list. Suddenly a small box comes to light, which has been waiting patiently since yesterday under the sheltering tarpaulin. "A box of optical instruments," says the customs officer, making a blue check. "A box of optical instruments,"

repeats the overseer, making a mark with his moistened pencil-stump: "Careful!" he adds, as a workman is on the point of tipping the heavy box over. Then the hook of the crane seizes the loop in the steel rope and with a stuttering rattling sound the wheels of the windla.s.s set to work, the steel wire grips the side of the box tightly, the barrel beside it is pushed aside, and a wooden case enclosing a piece of cast-iron machinery is sc.r.a.ped angrily over the slippery cobble-stones.

Heave ho, heave ho, chant the men, pushing with all their might. To the accompaniment of splashing drops of oily water, puffs of steam, groans of the windla.s.s and the yells and curses of the stevedores, the whole load, including the box of optical instruments, at last disappears in the hold of the ship. It is placed securely between rolls of cardboard next to some nice white boxes filled with shining steel goods. But when the noise up above has died down, when with the approach of darkness the rattling of the chains and the groaning of the windla.s.ses has ceased, when only the slow step of the deck-watch finds an echo--then it can be heard. Inside the box you can hear a gentle but steady tick, tick, tick.

The clock-work is wound up and set to the exact second. Tick, tick, tick it goes. When the ship is far out at sea and the pa.s.sengers are asleep and the watch calls out: "Lights are burning. All's well!" then the works will have run down, the spring will stop and loosen a little hammer. Ten kilograms of dynamite suffice. A quarter of an hour later there'll be nothing left of the proud steamer but a few boats loaded down with people and threatening every moment to be engulfed in the waves.

Tick, tick, tick, it goes down in the hold; the clock is set. Tick, tick, tick, it goes on unceasingly, till the unknown hour arrives. No one suspects the true nature of a piece of the cargo which certainly looked innocent enough. Yet the hour is bound to come sooner or later, but no one knows just when.

Nor had the country at large recognized that the hour was at hand. In the time that it took the short hand of the clock to complete its round four times, our country had completely changed its complexion, and the balance drawn by the press on Tuesday morning after an interval of forty-eight hours, had a perfectly crushing effect. Of course the appearance of the enemy in the West at once produced a financial panic in New York. On Monday morning the Wall Street stock-quotations of the trans-continental railroads fell to the lowest possible figure, rendering the shares about as valuable as the paper upon which they were printed. Apparently enormous numbers of shares had been thrown on the market in the first wild panic, but an hour after the opening of the Stock Exchange, after billions had changed hands in mad haste, a slight rise set in as a result of wholesale purchases by a single individual.

Yet even before this fact had been clearly recognized, the railway magnates of the West had bought up all the floating stock without exception. They could afford to wait for the millions they would pocket until the American army had driven the enemy from the country.

At the same time selling orders came pouring in from the other side by way of London. The Old World lost no time in trying to get rid of its American stocks, and the United States were made to realize that in the hour of a political catastrophe every nation has to stand on its own feet, and that all the diplomatic notes and the harmless sentimentalities of foreign states will avail nothing. So it was after the terrible night of Port Arthur and so it was now.

It was of course as yet impossible to figure out in detail how the j.a.panese had managed to take possession of the Pacific States within twenty-four hours. But from the dispatches received from all parts of the country during the next few days and weeks the following picture could be drawn. The number of j.a.panese on American soil was in round numbers one hundred thousand. The j.a.panese had not only established themselves as small tradesmen and shopkeepers in the towns, but had also settled everywhere as farmers and fruit-growers; j.a.panese coolies and Mongolian workmen were to be found wherever new buildings were going up as well as on all the railways. The yellow flood was threatening to destroy the very foundations of our domestic economy by forcing down all wage-values. The yellow immigrant who wrested spade and shovel, ax and saw, from the American workman, who pushed his way into the factory and the workshop and acted as a heartless strike breaker, was not only found in the Pacific States but had pushed his way across the Rockies into the very heart of the eastern section. And scarcely had he settled anywhere, before, with the typical Tsushima grin, he demanded his political rights. The individual j.a.p excited no suspicion and did not become troublesome, but the Mongolians always managed to distribute their outposts on American soil in such a way that the j.a.panese element never attracted undue attention in any one particular spot. Nevertheless they were to be found everywhere.

We had often been told that every j.a.panese who landed on the Pacific Coast or crossed the Mexican or Canadian borders was a trained soldier.

But we had always regarded this fact more as a political curiosity or a j.a.panese peculiarity than as a warning. We never for a moment realized that this whole immigration scheme was regulated by a perfect system, and that every j.a.panese immigrant had received his military orders and was in constant touch with the secret military centers at San Francisco, who at stated periods sent out j.a.panese traders and agents--in reality they were officers of the general staff, who at the same time made important topographical notes for use in case of war--to control their movements. Both the lumber companies in the State of Washington, which brought hundreds of j.a.panese over from Canada, and the railways which employed j.a.panese workmen were equally ignorant of the fact that they had taken a j.a.panese regiment into their employ.

Thus preparations for the coming war were conducted on a large scale during the year 1907, until the ever-increasing flow of j.a.panese immigrants finally led to those conflicts with which we are familiar. At the time we regarded it as a triumph of American diplomacy when j.a.pan, in the face of California's threatening att.i.tude, apparently gave in after a little diplomatic bickering and issued the well-known proclamation concerning emigration to Hawaii and the Pacific States, at the same time dissolving several emigration companies at home.

As a matter of fact j.a.pan had already completed her military preparations in our country in times of absolute peace, the sole difficulty experienced being in connection with the concentration of the remaining coolie importations. The j.a.panese invasion, which our politicians dismissed as possible only in the dim and distant future, was actually completed at the beginning of the year 1908. A j.a.panese army stood prepared and fully armed right in our midst, merely waiting until the military and financial conditions at home rendered the attack feasible.

When we glance to-day through the newspapers of that period, we cannot help but smile at allowing ourselves to be persuaded that the j.a.panese danger had been removed by the diplomatic retreat in Tokio and the prohibition of emigration to North America. Our papers stated at the time that j.a.pan had recognized that she had drawn the bow too tight and that she had yielded because Admiral Evans's fleet had demonstrated conclusively that we were prepared. That only goes to show how little we knew of the Mongolian character!

We had become so accustomed to the large j.a.panese element in the population of our Western States, that we entirely neglected to control the harmless looking individuals. To be sure there wasn't a great deal to be seen on the surface, but it would have been interesting to examine some of the goods smuggled so regularly across the Mexican and Canadian borders. Why were we content to allow the smuggling to continue without interference, simply because we felt it couldn't be stamped out anyhow?

The j.a.panese did not resort to the hackneyed piano-cases and farming machinery; they knew better than to employ such clumsy methods. The goods they sent over the line consisted of neat little boxes full of guns and other weapons which had been taken apart. And when a j.a.panese farmer ordered a hay-cart from Canada, it was no pure chance that the remarkably strong wheels of this cart exactly fitted a field-gun. The barrel was brought over by a neighbor, who ordered iron columns for his new house, inside of which the separate parts of the barrel were soldered. It was in this way that, in the course of several years, the entire equipment for the j.a.panese army came quietly and inconspicuously across our borders.