"Ahem… Investigations are proving challenging. It appears to have been a mishap during Japanese fleet training exercises," Herbert said, though the explanation was utterly implausible. No one would believe such a farce, but the weight of the British Empire silenced dissent.
"Well, these things happen. We understand," Weber replied, sipping his tea with an air of tranquility.
But the implications of his words were anything but light.
The day before this meeting, war correspondents had published harrowing images of the Far Eastern Army's recent battle. Official statements mourned the horrors of war, but the images told a darker story: the corpses of thousands of Manchu prisoners, stripped to their undergarments, piled in mass graves with unmistakable signs of execution. This was the Far Eastern Army's grim reply to the bombardment of Lüshun.
