Chapter VII

THE RED SUN OVER THE GOLDEN GATE

Too-oo-ot, bellowed the whistle of a big steamer that was proceeding gingerly through the fog which enveloped the broad Bay of San Francisco early on the morning of May seventh. The soft, white mist crept through the Golden Gate among the masts and funnels of the ships made fast to the docks, enveloped the yellow flame of the lanterns on the foremast in a misty veil, descended from the rigging again, and threatened to extinguish the long series of lights along the endless row of docks. The glistening bands of light on the Oakland shore tried their best to pierce the fog, but became fainter and fainter in the damp, penetrating, constantly moving masses of mist. Even the bright eye on Angel Island was shut out at last. Too-oo-ot, again sounded the sullen cry of warning from the steamer in the Golden Gate—Too-oo-ot. And then from Tiburon opposite the shrill whistle of the ferry-boat was heard announcing its departure to the passengers on the early train from San Rafael. The flickering misty atmosphere seemed like a boundless aquarium, an aquarium in which gigantic prehistoric, fabulous creatures stretched their limbs and glared at one another with fiery eyes. Trembling beams of light hovered between the dancing lights on and between the ships, rising and falling like transparent bars when the shivering sentries on deck moved their lanterns, and threw into relief now some dripping bits of rigging, and again the black outline of a deck-house as the sailor hurried below for a drink to refresh his torpid spirits.

The cold wind blew the damp fog into Market Street, forced it uphill and then let it roll down again, filling every street with its gray substance.

Too-oo-ot, came the whistle from the Golden Gate again and further off still another whistle could be heard. Over in Tiburon the ferry-boat had calmed down, as it found itself unable to budge in the fog. One after the other, the tower-clocks struck half-past four, the strokes sounding loud and unnatural in the fog. From Telegraph Hill at the northern end of San Francisco a splendid view could be obtained of this undulating sea of mist. A few of the isolated houses situated in the higher parts of the town looked like islands floating on the ever-moving glossy gray billows, while the top stories of several sky-scrapers rose up here and there like solemn black cliffs. A faint light in the east heralded the approach of day. Too-oo-ot, sounded the whistle of the approaching steamer once again; then its voice broke and died out in a discordant sob, which was drowned in the nervous gang, gang, gang of the ship's bell. The steamer had been obliged to anchor on account of the fog. Too-oo-ot, came from the other steamer further out. Then life in the bay came to a stand-still: nothing could be done till the sun rose and brought warmth in its train.

"This damned fog," said Tom Hallock, a telegraph boy, to his colleague, Johnny Kirkby, as he jumped off his bicycle in front of the Post Office, "this damned fog is enough to make one choke."

Johnny muttered some unintelligible words, for he was still half asleep; the effect of last night's eighteen drinks had not yet quite worn off. "You can't see the nearest lamp-post," he blurted out after a while. "I nearly ran into a company of infantry just now that suddenly popped up in front of me out of the fog. What's going on this morning, anyhow? What are they marching out to Golden Gate for?"

"Oh, you jay," said Tom, "naval maneuvers, of course! Are you blind? Haven't you read the Evening Standard? There are to be naval maneuvers this morning, and Admiral Perry is going to attack San Francisco."

"This war-game is a crazy scheme," grumbled Johnny. They both left their bicycles downstairs in a room in the Post Office and then went up to their quarters on the first story.

"Naval maneuvers?" began Johnny again. "I really don't know anything about them. It was in last night's Evening Standard. It said that the orders had been changed quite unexpectedly, and that the maneuvers would take place outside the bay to-day."

"It looks as though we'd have a long wait before daylight appears," said Tom impatiently, pointing out of the windows, while Johnny tackled the dilapidated tea-kettle in an effort to make himself an early morning drink. Tom stamped up and down the room to warm himself, remarking: "Thank the Lord it's Sunday and there isn't much going on, otherwise we'd all get sick chasing around with telegrams in this beastly fog."

Boom! The roar of a distant cannon suddenly made the windows rattle; boom again! It sounded as though it came from the Fort. "There you are," said Tom, "there's your naval maneuvers. Perry won't stand any nonsense. He's not afraid of the fog; in fact, it gives him a fine chance for an attack."

Johnny didn't answer, for he had meanwhile dozed off. As soon as he had with considerable trouble got his tea-kettle into working order, he had fallen fast asleep, and now began to snore with his nose pressed flat on the table, as if he meant to saw it through before his tea was ready.

Tom shrugged his shoulders in disgust, and said: "Those blamed drinks."

Another boom! from outside. The door opened behind Tom and a telegraph official looked in. "One, two," he counted, "two are there," and then he closed the door again.

Downstairs in the street a motor-cycle hurried past puffing and rattling, the rider's figure looking like a gigantic elusive shadow through the fog.

Tom started to walk up and down again as the clock in the hall struck a quarter to five. A bell rung in the next room. Steps were heard coming up the stairs and a colleague of the other two came in, swearing at the fog. He passed Johnny, poured out some of the latter's tea for himself and drank it, meanwhile looking at the sleeper inquiringly.

"It's the drinks," said Tom, grinning.

"H'm," growled the other. Another motor-cycle went by on the street below, and then another.

Later on a group of ten motor-cycles rode past.

"Did you see that, Harry?" asked Tom, who was standing at the window.

"What?"

"Didn't they have guns?"

"They probably have something to do with the naval maneuvers."

At this moment another group of ten men passed, and there was no doubt of the fact that they carried guns.

"I guess it is the naval maneuvers," asserted Tom.

Boom! came the sound of another shot.

"That's queer," said Tom. "What do you suppose it is?" He opened the window and listened. "Do you hear it?" he asked Harry, who admitted that he could also hear a rattling, scraping noise as though drums were being beaten far away or as though a handful of peas had been thrown against a pane of glass.

Tom leaned further out of the window in time to see a bicycle rider stop in front of the Post Office, take a big sheet of paper, moisten it with a large brush, and stick it on the wall near the entrance; then he rode off. Tom shut the window, for the fog seemed to be getting thicker and thicker, and now, in the pale light of approaching dawn, it was almost impossible to recognize the yellow spots of light on the lamp-posts. By this time Johnny had awakened and they all had some tea together.

They were interrupted by a fourth messenger boy, who entered the room at this moment and exclaimed:

"That's a great scheme of Admiral Perry's, and the fog seems to have helped him a lot. What do you think? He has surprised San Francisco. There's a notice posted downstairs stating that the Japanese have taken possession of San Francisco and that the Japanese military governor of San Francisco asks the citizens to remain quiet or the city will be bombarded from the harbor by the Japanese fleet."

"Perry is a great fellow, there's no use trying to fool with him," said Tom. "San Francisco surprised by the Japs—that's a mighty fine scheme."

Outside some one was tearing up the stairs two at a time, doors banged noisily, and several bells rang. "Somebody's in a h—- of a hurry," said Harry; "we'll have something to do in a minute."

A telegraph operator hurriedly opened the door and with great beads of perspiration rolling down his face, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Boys, the Japanese have surprised San Francisco."

A roar of laughter greeted this piece of information.

"Stung!" cried Harry. "Stung! Perry is the Jap."

"Perry?" inquired the newcomer, staring at the other four. "Who's Perry?"

"Don't you know, Mr. Allen, that there are naval maneuvers going on to-day and that Admiral Perry is to surprise San Francisco with the fleet?"

"But there are notices at all the street-corners saying that the Japanese governor of San Francisco begs the citizens——"

"Yes, that's where the joke comes in. Perry is going to attack the town as a Jap—that's his scheme."

"You haven't had enough sleep," cried Tom. "If all the Japs looked like Admiral Perry, then——"

Tom broke off short and dropped his tea-cup on the floor, staring blankly at the door as if he saw a ghost. Just behind Mr. Allen stood a Jap, with a friendly grin on his face, but a Jap all the same, most certainly and without the slightest doubt a Jap. He looked around the bare office and said in fluent English: "I must ask you to remain in this room for the present." With these words he raised his revolver and kept a sharp eye on the five occupants.

Johnny jumped up and felt instinctively for the revolver in his hip pocket, but in a flash the muzzle of the Jap's gun was pointed straight at him and mechanically he obeyed the order "Hands up!"

"Hand that thing over here," said the Jap; "you might take it into your head to use it," and he took Johnny's revolver and put it in his pocket. Several Japanese soldiers passed by outside. Mr. Allen sank down on a chair; not one of them could make head or tail of the situation.

They were kept waiting for half an hour. Down below in the street, where the wagons were beginning to rattle over the pavement, could be heard the steady march of bodies of soldiers, frequently interrupted by the noise of motor-cycles. There could no longer be any doubt—the affair was getting serious.

The lamps were extinguished and the gray light of dawn filled the rooms as the head Postmaster made his rounds, guarded by a Japanese officer.

The official was perspiring profusely from sheer nervousness. He begged the employees to keep calm, and assured them that it was no joke, but that San Francisco was really in the hands of the Japanese. It was the duty of the employees and the citizens, he said, to refrain from all resistance, so that a worse misfortune—a bombardment, he added in a whisper—might not befall the city.

The men were obliged to give up any weapons they had in their possession, and these were collected by the Japanese. At seven o'clock, when these details had been attended to, and the few telegraph instruments which were kept in commission were being used by Japanese operators—all the others had been rendered useless by the removal of some parts of the mechanism—one of the regular operators asked to be allowed to speak to the Postmaster. Permission having been granted by the Japanese guard, he told his chief, in a low voice, that the moment the Japanese soldiers had taken possession of the telegraph room he had hurriedly dispatched a message to Sacramento, telling them that San Francisco had been surprised by the Japanese fleet and that the whole city was occupied by Japanese troops.

"I thank you in the name of our poor country," said the Postmaster, shaking the operator's hand, "I thank you with all my heart; you have done a brave deed."

Just at the time when the operator sent off his telegram to Sacramento, a little, yellow, narrow-eyed fellow, lying in a ditch many miles inland, far to the east of San Francisco, connected his Morse apparatus with the San Francisco-Sacramento telegraph-wire, and intercepted the following message: "Chief of Police, Sacramento.—San Francisco attacked by Japanese fleet this morning; whole city in hands of Japanese army. Resistance impossible, as attack took place in thick fog before dawn. Help imperative."

The little yellow man smiled contentedly, tore off the strip, and handed it to the officer standing near him. The latter drew a deep breath and said: "Thank Heaven, that's settled."

At the time of the occupation of the Post Office building, the Japanese outposts had already spun their fine, almost invisible silver threads around all the telegraph-wires far inland and thus cut off all telegraphic communication with the east. The telegram just quoted therefore served only to tell the Japanese outposts of the overwhelming success of the Japanese arms at the Golden Gate.

But how had all this been accomplished? The enemy could not possibly have depended on the fog from the outset. Nevertheless an unusual barometrical depression had brought in its train several days of disagreeable, stormy weather. The Japanese had been fully prepared for a battle with the San Francisco forts and with the few warships stationed in the harbor. The fact that they found such a strong ally in the fog was beyond all their hopes and strategical calculations.

When the sun sank in the waves of the Pacific on the sixth of May, every Japanese had his orders for the next few hours, and the five thousand men whose part it was to attend to the work to be accomplished in San Francisco on the morning of the seventh, disappeared silently into the subterranean caves and cellars of the Chinese quarter, to fetch their weapons and be ready for action soon after midnight.