while Togo
was naturally anxious that the Port Arthur fleet--and the Vladivostock
fleet also, if possible--should be effectually disposed of before the
arrival of so powerful a reinforcement in Japanese waters. Therefore,
great as was the risk attending the attack of a powerfully armed ship at
anchor under the cover of several formidable forts, and careful as our
Admiral was, both of his ships and of his men, no attempt was made to
discourage us of the torpedo flotilla when our desire to attack was made
known; on the contrary, the desire was smiled upon, as I have said, and
nothing more than a word of caution was given against the incurring of
unnecessary risks.

Perhaps I ought to explain precisely what I mean by saying that the
desire of the commander of the torpedo flotilla to attack these ships
was "smiled upon" by the Admiral. He had not only "smiled upon" but had
given imperative orders that the torpedo fleet was to be employed upon
every possible occasion for the harassing and discomfiture of the enemy;
but hitherto the tactics employed had been for the destroyers and
torpedo-boats to attack in numbers, a division or even two or three
divisions being sent in at a time. It was due to my initiative that
these tactics were now to be altered, and that attacks were now to be
permitted by as few as two boats only. Up to now it had been our
regular practice for a large number of craft to creep in toward the
roadstead at a low speed until discovered by the enemy's searchlights,
and then dash in upon the foe at our utmost speed, through a hail of
shells, discharge our torpedoes as we circled round our quarry, and then
dash out again, trusting to our speed to carry us back into the zone of
safety. Of course this plan had its advantages, inasmuch as that the
more there were of us, the greater--in theory--the chance that some of
us would score a hit. But against this there was the fact that during
the final rush of the torpedo craft upon the enemy, the necessity to
maintain our highest speed throughout the entire period of the attack
involved forced draught, and consequently flaming funnels, which latter
of course immediately attracted the attention of the enemy and nullified
all our efforts to take him by surprise.

Now, I had by this time gained a considerable amount of experience of
torpedo warfare, and I had not failed to observe that in the majority of
cases where our attacks had failed, the failure had been due