This little ceremony over, I received the General’s permission to rejoin my ship as soon as he had penned a dispatch to Admiral Misamichi, who was in command of the squadron, and which he requested me to deliver. This dispatch I received about half an hour later, from Oku’s own hands, whereupon I bade him and the members of his staff farewell, wished them the best of luck in their further encounters with the enemy, and then hurried away to the little cove on the north side of the bay, which I had used on two or three previous occasions, and where I had a shrewd suspicion that I should find my boat awaiting me. I was not mistaken, and shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch I was aboard the Tsukushi, handing over General Oku’s dispatch to the Admiral. The latter at once read it, and seemed much gratified at its contents, which, however, he did not communicate to me. But I shrewdly surmised that it was a letter of thanks for the services rendered by the squadron and an intimation that our presence was no longer needed. And, so far as the latter part of my assumption was concerned, I was doubtless right, for after a little chat, during which I briefly related my experiences of the previous day—learning in return that the Chokai had lost her commander and two men killed, with two lieutenants and five men wounded—I received instructions to return to my ship, as the squadron would presently proceed to rejoin Admiral Togo at his base. And an hour later we were all steaming out of the bay.
Two days after our arrival at the base, the destroyer Kagero arrived with mails for the fleet, and, to my great surprise, she brought for me a letter from my Uncle Bob, as well as one from my chum, young Gordon, and another from Sir Robert.
Naturally, I first opened the letter from Uncle Bob, for not only was it the first letter which I had received from any of the family since my “disgrace,” but also the envelope was deeply edged with black, and my first fear was that it might contain the announcement of the death of dear Aunt Betsy. But upon extracting the contents of the envelope I was at once reassured, for I saw that it really consisted of two letters, one from Uncle Bob, and the other from my aunt. There had been a death in the family, however, that of Cousin Bob, the author of the trouble which had resulted in my dismissal from the British Navy. It appeared that while engaged in battle practice there had been a bad accident on board the Terrible, one of her quick-firers having burst, killing two men and wounding five others, one of the latter so seriously that he had subsequently died. That one was Bob; and when informed by the ship’s surgeon that he had but a few hours to live, he had sent for the chaplain and to him had made a full confession of his crime, declaring that he had been spurred to it by blind, unreasoning jealousy of me. The chaplain, horrified at what he heard, took down the confession in writing, and poor Bob had signed it after the chaplain had added, at the dying lad’s request, an expression of deep contrition for his misdeed and a prayer to me for forgiveness of the wrong which he had done me. The two letters were sad reading, for they had been penned by heart-broken people who had not only lost their only son, but had learned, at the very moment of their loss, that all their pride in him had been misplaced, and that he had been guilty of a deliberate, despicable, cruel crime. Their shame and sorrow were patent in every sentence of the letters, indeed they made no effort to conceal them, and they finished up by saying that, Bob being gone from them, and gone so tragically, they hoped I would forgive them for any hard thoughts they may have had of me, and would be a son to them in place of the one they had lost. They further begged that, my innocence now being established, I would lose no time in hastening home to them, to comfort them in their bitter bereavement, and to take steps to procure my reinstatement in the British Navy, which, they had been informed, might probably be accomplished without much difficulty under the circumstances.
The letter from Sir Robert Gordon was also chiefly in reference to Bob’s death, the particulars of which, and of his confession, he had learned from his son Ronald. He also was of opinion that, in view of Bob’s confession, it ought not to be very difficult to secure the cancellation of my expulsion, whenever I might choose to return to England. But he said no word suggesting that I should return at once; on the contrary, he offered his own and Lady Gordon’s very hearty congratulations upon the frequency with which my name had been mentioned in the papers as having been specially referred to by Togo in his dispatches, and they both expressed the hope that before the end of the war I should have many further opportunities to distinguish myself.
The letters from my aunt and uncle moved me profoundly; their grief for the loss of their only son, and, even more, their shattered faith in him, was pathetic in the extreme, while it was easy to see how yearningly their hearts turned to me for comfort and consolation in their bitter bereavement. They were smarting with shame at the thought that it was their son, the lad of whom they had been so proud and upon whose future they had built such high hopes, who was the author of my undeserved disgrace and ruin, so far as my career in the British Navy was concerned; and they wanted me at home in order that they might have the comfort of doing what they could to make up to me for their son’s treachery. And in the plenitude of my affection I was, for the moment, more than half inclined to yield to their entreaties, resign my commission in the Japanese navy, and go home to them forthwith. But in the course of an hour or two calm reflection came to my aid; I would certainly return to England and endeavour to secure reinstatement in the navy of my own country, but not until after the war was over, if I lived so long. I had put my hand to the plough, and I would not turn back, although, of course, I knew that there were plenty of Japanese officers quite as good and useful as myself, and quite ready to step into my place, should I choose to vacate it. I came to the conclusion, however, that, let the authorities at home be ever so ready to remedy what had proved to be a miscarriage of justice, I should in nowise help my case with them by forsaking the cause which I had espoused, at the moment when the decisive events of the war were beginning, as we all then believed, to loom faintly upon the horizon. No, I told myself, if I wished for reinstatement—and I wished for nothing else half so ardently—I must remain until the issues of the war were decided, when I could go back home with a good grace, taking with me a fairly creditable record with which to back up my application. Meanwhile, I sat down and wrote a letter to my aunt and uncle, excusing myself for not at once acceding to their request to forthwith return to England, explaining the reasons which had urged me to that decision, and pouring out in a long, passionate declaration all the pent-up affection of my heart for them, and my sympathy with them in their bitter sorrow. I also wrote to Sir Robert Gordon, telling him that my aunt and uncle had expressed the desire that I should return to them forthwith, and reiterating the reasons which impelled me to decline.
On the following day my signal was made from the flagship; and upon proceeding on board I was informed by the Admiral that General Oku’s report as to the assistance rendered by the ships during the battle of Nanshan, and especially of the important services which I personally had rendered on that particular day and those which immediately preceded it, had been particularly gratifying to him, and that it had afforded him the utmost satisfaction and pleasure to forward that report to Baron Yamamoto, the Minister of the Navy, with a covering letter from himself which he hoped would be of service to me. Meanwhile, I was instructed to proceed forthwith to Port Arthur with my ship, to assist in the blockading of the port.