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And you will honourably accompany us, will you not, Captain? A Russian prison has no attractions for you, eh?" "You are right, my friend, it has not," I answered; "for which reason I must decline to accompany you. Because you will never get away, Yagi. How can you, with those searchlights turned full upon us, and those destroyers where they are?"
It is the only thing you can do. If you don't, the beggars will sink us out of hand." "They will probably do that in any case," growled Yagi, as he laid his hand on the engine-room telegraph and rang down an order to stop the engines. "But, as you honourably say, Captain, it is the only thing to be done, although it means the interior of a Russian prison for all hands of us."
This is 15,000 kilometres more than the short path between the two stations, over which there was absolutely no propagation at that moment in time. A simple 5 element Yagi and a power of 100 watts was used at SZ2DH. The contact was on CW but the signals were so strong that it might well have been on SSB. It is estimated that 8 hops were needed to cover this record distance.
Finally, the matter ended by each of them having his own way that is to say, Yagi decided to leave for Gensan forthwith, unescorted, taking such trifling risk as there might be which, they both agreed, amounted practically to none at all while Takebe determined to study the safety of his command by remaining where he was and awaiting developments.
The weather still continued overcast, and the play of sheet lightning gradually grew more vivid and frequent; but there was no wind, and not much sea; and as time went on I began to think, with Yagi, that Takebe's apprehensions had been groundless, and that we were in for nothing worse than, may be, a thunderstorm, after all.
The Rossia, with the way she had on her, had by this time closed to within about twenty-five fathoms of us; and at this juncture an officer on her bridge hailed, ordering our skipper to send a boat. "Good!" ejaculated Yagi. "We will do so. But we will not go aboard the Rossia. Oh, no. We will slip away in the darkness and make for the land.
The ship was then heading south-east, with all her lights burning brightly, as in duty bound, and I was sitting astride a camp-stool, with my shoulders resting against the port rail of the bridge, while Yagi, also occupying a camp-stool, sat facing me.
Thus, in the leading ship of the squadron in sight, a moment's reflection enabled me to recognise the Rossia, with, astern of her, the Gromoboi, then the Bogatyr, and finally the Rurik. "Jove!" I exclaimed. "We've done it now, with a vengeance, Yagi. Those four ships comprise the Russian Vladivostock squadron; and we are right under their guns! Stop her, man, for heaven's sake.
In the first place, Yagi did not believe that the portents indicated anything more serious than, at worst, a sharp thunderstorm, while at the same time his instructions from Kamimura were that the reconnaissance was to be executed with the utmost dispatch, and that, this done, he was to immediately return to Gensan, so that he might be on the spot in the event of the cruisers needing to re-bunker.
I had no computer at the time and no Keplerian elements. I mounted a small video camera in the centre of four 16-element Yagi antennas and rotated the elevation and azimuth motors until I could see the moon in the centre of the monitor in the shack. Of course when the sky was overcast I was out of business. Much later when I obtained a little Sinclair ZX80 computer life became easier.
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