Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun Part 14

"It appears to me, sir, that there is but one thing to be done, namely, for me to go ash.o.r.e, find General Oku, explain to him our difficulty, and _get_ him to mark on the map the several points mentioned here,"-- touching the dispatch. "As you are aware, I have already been ash.o.r.e here; I spent a whole day among the hills, reconnoitring the ground and making observations. I therefore know the country well, including our own and the enemy's positions; and probably half an hour's conversation with the General will enable me to identify the points mentioned in this dispatch with some of those already marked upon my chart. Thus, for example, this point, the position of which we are wholly unable to identify, may be the position which I have marked 1, or 3, or 7, or, in fact, anything; but it _must_ be one or other of those which I have numbered, for I numbered every one of them."

"Yes, yes," agreed the Admiral, "that is all quite comprehensible; and, if you could only get ash.o.r.e, the matter could very soon be adjusted.

But how are you going to get ash.o.r.e; and--still more difficult--how are you going to get off again? From what I know of this bay, I am prepared to say that there is a surf breaking on the beach at this moment which no boat of ours could pa.s.s through and live. Listen to the wind, how it howls through our rigging!"

True! that was a point which had entirely escaped me, in my eagerness.

How was I to get ash.o.r.e? Or rather, how was I to get off again? I was pretty confident of my ability to get ash.o.r.e, for surf-swimming was a favourite pastime of mine; but as to getting off again--well, I doubted whether even my strength was equal to the task of struggling out through the long lines of surf which I knew must now be thundering in upon Kinchau beach.

The difficulty was finally overcome by the Admiral consenting to my attempting to get ash.o.r.e, upon condition that I would not attempt to swim off again unless I felt absolutely convinced of my ability to accomplish the feat. If I could not, I was to remain ash.o.r.e with Oku, helping him in any manner that might suggest itself, but especially by signalling off to the fleet, from time to time, the numbers of the several positions which they would be required to sh.e.l.l.

This matter settled, I made my way back to the _Kasanumi_, and there prepared for my somewhat hazardous adventure by carefully tying up a marked and figured copy of the map of Kinchau and its surroundings in a piece of thin sheet rubber, to protect it from the wet. Next, I divested myself of all clothing except a pair of swimming drawers and a pair of thin canvas running shoes. Then, tying the map, in its rubber case, round my neck, I signalled our smallest torpedo-boat to look out for me and haul me aboard--for by this time the sea was running so heavily that it was impossible to launch a boat; when, having received a reply to my signal, I simply dived overboard and swam down to leeward to where the torpedo-boat lay. Her crew were, of course, keenly on the alert, and as I came driving down toward them, only visible in consequence of the phosph.o.r.escence of the water, they flung me a lifebuoy bent on to the end of a line, and so hauled me aboard.

We were anch.o.r.ed at a distance of about four miles from the sh.o.r.e, which was, of course, much too great a distance for me to attempt to swim in the sea that was now running, especially as I should need every ounce of strength to fight my way through the long stretch of surf that I knew must now be breaking all along the sh.o.r.e. I therefore briefly explained to the skipper of the torpedo-boat the mission upon which I was bound, and what I wished him to do, and then, while he saw to the doing of his part, I retired to his little cabin, stripped off my wet swimming kit, and gave myself a vigorous towelling to banish the cold of even the brief swim I had already undertaken. Meanwhile, the boat was got under way and taken in toward Kinchau, with the lead going all the time; and when at length she was as near the sh.o.r.e as it was at all prudent for her to approach, she was turned with her head to seaward, and the skipper came down to apprise me of the state of affairs. The boat had taken about twenty minutes to feel her way in, and during that time I had been a.s.siduously practising gymnastics; I was therefore now not only dry but also in a pleasant glow of warmth, and quite ready to undertake the really formidable part of the task that still lay before me.

My swimming kit had meanwhile been taken down into the stokehole, so that when it was handed to me it was not only nearly dry but, what was very much more to the purpose, comfortably warm. Donning it and a fine warm boat cloak, I accompanied the skipper to the deck and walked aft to take a look at the task before me. I found that they had taken the boat in to the very edge of the outer line of the surf, which stretched away insh.o.r.e of us, line after line, in an apparently interminable procession of breakers, like lines of infantry rus.h.i.+ng forward to the a.s.sault, vaguely visible in their pallid phosph.o.r.escence against the blackness of the starless night. To fight my way to the sh.o.r.e through that wide area of roaring, leaping, and seething breakers promised to be a task that would tax my strength and energy to their utmost limits; but it was a case of necessity, and I had undertaken to do it; therefore, throwing off the borrowed boat cloak, with a word of farewell to the skipper of the boat, I waited for the next oncoming breaker, and dived overboard at the precise moment when it would catch me up in its mighty arms and sweep me, without effort on my part, a good twenty fathoms toward the sh.o.r.e.

_B-r-r-r_! The water struck icy cold to my warm skin as I plunged deep into the heart of the great arching ma.s.s of water, which caught me just as I was rising to the surface and hurled me sh.o.r.eward with irresistible force, rolling me over and over like a cork as it broke into a long line of hissing, pallid foam. But I knew exactly what to expect, and was fully prepared for it. I therefore allowed it to do with me just what it would, holding my breath and waiting until the breaker had pa.s.sed ahead and spent its force. Then, striking out strongly as I came to the surface, I swam on toward the next line of breakers, where the same thing was repeated, but each time a shade less violently, until at length, after what seemed like hours, but which, as a matter of fact, could not have been more than about forty minutes of battling with the breakers, my feet touched ground, and a moment later the last breaker, a very mild and harmless one compared with those in the offing, lifted me up and almost gently deposited me on the beach.

Upon hands and knees I crawled up above watermark and then rose to my feet to look about, recover my breath, and get my bearings. After the stinging cold of the water, the air felt quite pleasantly warm, but I knew that I should soon get chilled if I did not keep moving briskly; so, seeing a line of watch-fires about half a mile away, which, from their position, I guessed must be j.a.panese, I set out toward them at a brisk walking pace, and, the ground being fortunately open in that direction, it was but a few minutes before I found myself unexpectedly halted, with the point of a j.a.panese sentry's bayonet gently pressing against my breast. Of course I hadn't the countersign; but my appearance, and particularly my unconventional garb, must have convinced him of the truth of my story that, being unable to get ash.o.r.e in any other way, I had swum in from the fleet, with a communication from the Admiral for General Oku, for he pa.s.sed me on to the next sentry without hesitation; and thus in the course of another ten minutes I found myself in the tent of a certain colonel who not only had heard of me but had also seen me and now recognised me. From him I learned that the general staff quarters were situated about a mile farther inland, on one of the lower slopes of Mount Sampson, to which he very kindly offered to conduct me. But of course I could not present myself before General Oku in bathing rig, and it was not without difficulty that a suit of clothes was at length found into which I could get; but it was managed at last, and off we went, the colonel and I, my companion seeming to be greatly impressed with my swimming feat. "I wonder," he remarked, "if there is _anything_ that an Englishman would not at least _attempt_ to do!"

Our way led through the j.a.panese camp, so I had a very good opportunity to observe what the domestic life--if I may so term it--of the j.a.panese soldier was at the front; and I was surprised to see how thoroughly every possible contingency had been foreseen and provided for, and how many ingenious little devices had been thought out and included in his kit with the object of adding to his comfort.

In due time we arrived at headquarters; and late though the hour was, the General and his staff were all not only awake and on the move, but were holding a sort of council of war, for the purpose of making the final arrangements for the morrow. As it happened, my arrival was most opportune, for the staff were planning the details of an a.s.sault that could by no possibility be successful without the a.s.sistance of the navy, upon which they were all confidently reckoning, whereas it was my duty to inform them that, unless there came a very quick change of weather, it would be impossible for our s.h.i.+ps to co-operate, and I had to explain at length why. This caused an immediate change of plan, the grand a.s.sault being provisionally postponed, since there was no prospect whatever at that moment of a change of weather occurring in time.

I delivered my message and produced my map, explaining the various markings upon it and describing the work upon which I had been engaged during the past few days; and I was exceedingly gratified to learn that it would greatly simplify and a.s.sist the general's plans.

It was also satisfactory to know that the j.a.panese had never had the slightest suspicion of what I was doing, which was tantamount to an a.s.surance that the Russians were equally ignorant. It was amazing to see the facility with which Oku altered his plans. No sooner did he understand that the chances were all against the fleet being able to help him on the following day than he was ready with an alternative scheme; and in a quarter of an hour he had everything cut-and-dried, every officer present was given clear and concise instructions relative to his duties on the morrow, and we were all dismissed with a hint to get what rest we might, as the morrow was to be a busy day. General Os.h.i.+ma, who was in command of the 3rd Division, const.i.tuting the j.a.panese left, very kindly took me under his wing, and found me sleeping quarters in a tent, the occupants of which happened to be out on duty.

Being greatly fatigued after my swim, I slept soundly that night, but was awakened at dawn by the bugle calls, and turned out to see what the weather was like. To my disgust, and doubtless that of everybody else, it was worse than ever; the sky was overcast and louring, with great rags of dirty grey scud flying athwart the face of the heavens from the westward, while the top of Mount Sampson was completely enveloped in mist, which, notwithstanding the gale, clung to the rugged peak and ribs of the mountain very much as the "tablecloth" does to the summit of Table Mountain. There was no fog down where we were, but, what was even worse, we were smothered with blinding and suffocating clouds of dust, for it was a dry gale, and all hands were devoutly praying that the louring sky would dissolve into rain, if only for half an hour, just to lay the dust and so save us from the unpleasantness of being blinded and suffocated. As for the bay, it was just one continuous sheet of foam, while the breakers leapt and boiled for a s.p.a.ce of a full mile from the beach. A single glance at it was sufficient to make it clear that it would be impossible for the fleet to co-operate so long as the gale lasted, even if the tossing masts and spray-enveloped hulls of our craft in the offing had not told a similar tale. General Os.h.i.+ma and I walked a couple of miles to the northward along the slopes of Mount Sampson, in order to get a good view of the bay, clear of the northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, just to make a.s.surance doubly sure; but it was scarcely necessary to point out to him the wildly plunging hulls of our s.h.i.+ps to make him understand the hopelessness of the case, and that once clearly established, we hurried back to Headquarters to make our report.

Oku, however, was not the man to be deterred by weather, or indeed anything else. Finding that the projected a.s.sault was impossible for the moment, he resolved to begin the bombardment with his own guns, doing the best he could with them, unaided, and accompanying the bombardment with what he termed "a demonstration in force," in order to bring out the Russians and compel them to man their defences while exposed to the fire of our guns. Thus, by a curious combination of circ.u.mstances, it appeared that at last I was to be afforded the opportunity of seeing what a land battle was like.

Naturally, I volunteered my services in any capacity where I could be made useful, and the general eagerly closed with my offer. He was particularly anxious to obtain the exact range of certain of the Russian positions without being obliged to fire any trial shots, and he asked me if I could do this for him, seeing that I had already done similar work quite recently; and I told him that I could, and would, with pleasure, if such a thing as a box s.e.xtant or an azimuth compa.s.s was to be found in camp. Somewhat to my surprise it turned out, upon inquiry, that no such things were to be had. I therefore had recourse to what is known among engineers as a "plane table," which I was obliged to extemporise; and with this apparatus, used in conjunction with a carefully measured line, three hundred yards in length, I was soon able to supply the information required. The whole device was, of course, of a very rough-and-ready description, but I was greatly gratified when the first shots were fired, to see the sh.e.l.ls drop upon the exact spots aimed at.

The task which General Oku had undertaken, and which he must accomplish before an advance could be made by him upon Port Arthur, was an exceedingly difficult one. As has already been said, he effected a landing at a point near Yentoa Bay, distant some sixty miles north-east of Port Arthur as the crow flies. From thence he must needs make his way to Port Arthur overland, since there was no such thing for him as getting there by sea. About half-way on his journey occurred the isthmus of Kinchau, which is only about two miles wide, and which he must traverse on his way. A neck of land two miles wide is no great matter to fortify, a fact which the Russians speedily demonstrated. To march along such a narrow strip of land, with sixteen thousand resolute armed men saying you Nay, would be difficult enough, in all conscience, were that strip of land level; but unhappily for the j.a.panese it was not so, the Nanshan Heights running through it from north to south, like a raised backbone, leaving only a very narrow strip of low ground on either side of it. Nor was this the only difficulty which the j.a.panese had to contend with, for, some three miles north-east of the narrowest part of the isthmus, towered Mount Sampson, over two thousand feet in height, commanding the entire neighbourhood and affording an ideal position for the Russian batteries. Then, at the foot of Mount Sampson lay the walled city of Kinchau, which the Russians had seized and fortified; and, finally, there were the Nanshan Heights, upon the crest of which the Russians had constructed ten forts, armed with seventy guns, several of which were of 8-inch or 6-inch calibre, firing sh.e.l.ls of from two hundred to one hundred pounds weight.

To attempt to pa.s.s these several positions while they were in the hands of the Russians would have been simply courting annihilation; the first task, therefore, was to capture them. This, so far as Mount Sampson was concerned, had been done when I arrived upon the scene; but there still remained Kinchau and the Nanshan Heights to be taken; and each of these threatened to be an even tougher piece of work than the storming of Mount Sampson; for the Russians, after their experience of the extraordinary intrepidity of the j.a.panese when storming the mountain, had adopted every conceivable means to make the heights impregnable.

First of all, there were the ten forts with their seventy guns lining the crest of the heights, in addition to which the Russians had two batteries of quick-fire field artillery and ten machine-guns. Next, in front of the forts, all along the eastern slope of the heights--which was the side from which attack was possible--there was row after row of shelter trenches, solidly roofed with timber covered with earth, to protect the occupants from artillery fire. Below these again the Russians had dug countless circular pitfalls, about ten feet deep, shaped like drinking cups, with very narrow bottoms, each pit having at its bottom a stout, upright, sharpened stake upon which any hapless person, falling in, must inevitably be impaled. They were, in fact, an adaptation of the stake pitfalls employed by many African and other natives to capture and kill big game. These pits were dug so close together that, of a party of stormers rus.h.i.+ng up the slope, a large proportion must inevitably fall in, or be unwittingly pushed in by their comrades. Pa.s.sages between these pits were purposely left here and there, but they were all mined, each mine being connected to one of the forts above by an electric cable, so that it could be exploded at any moment by merely pressing a b.u.t.ton. And that moment would of course be when the pa.s.sage-way was crowded with j.a.panese. And, lastly, at the foot of the hill there was a great maze of strongly constructed wire entanglements, during the slow pa.s.sage of which the hapless stormers would be exposed to a withering rifle and sh.e.l.l fire. Thus the task which the j.a.panese had to perform was, first to pa.s.s through the wire entanglements at the foot of the hill; next, to achieve the pa.s.sage of the staked pits and the mined ground between them--exposed all the time, be it remembered, to a terrific fire from the forts and trenches above; next, to take line after line of trenches; and, finally, to storm the forts on the crest of the heights--a task which, I frankly admit, seemed to me impossible.

I must confess that my first impressions of a land battle were disappointing. I had expected to see the j.a.panese march out and storm the heights under cover of the fire of their own guns. And, as a matter of fact, they did march out, but there was no storming of the heights; I had momentarily forgotten that what I was witnessing was merely a "demonstration." I presume it served its purpose, however, for the General and his staff seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the result; and in any case it had the effect intended of compelling the Russians to man their trenches under the fire of the j.a.panese guns, which, feeble though they were as compared with those of the enemy, must have inflicted severe punishment upon the packed ma.s.ses of infantry who swarmed into the trenches to repel what they had every reason to suppose was a genuine attack. But the j.a.panese--closely watched by a Russian captive balloon, which was sent up directly our troops were seen to be in motion--having compelled the Russians to turn out and expend a considerable quant.i.ty of ammunition in comparatively innocuous long-range shooting, calmly marched back again about three o'clock in the afternoon, about which time the firing ceased. While it lasted, however, it was hot enough to bring on heavy rain, and the day ended with a tremendous downpour, which converted the hillsides into a network of miniature cascades, and must have been exceedingly unpleasant for any of the Russians whom expediency and watchfulness compelled to remain in the trenches.

With nightfall the gale increased in fury; but the rain had produced at least one good result; it had laid the dust most effectually while it had made but little mud, for the thirsty earth seemed to absorb the water almost as fast as it fell; also it cooled the air considerably, which was all to the advantage of the j.a.panese, who would have the strenuous work of climbing the hill, while it would tend to chill and benumb the Russians, who would be compelled to remain comparatively inactive in the sodden trenches. Whether it was this consideration, or the fact that the barometer was rapidly rising, or a combination of both, I cannot say, but about ten o'clock that night the word went round that a general attack upon the Russian works was to be made as soon as possible after midnight.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE STORMING OF NANSHAN HEIGHTS.

By midnight a change of weather had occurred; the wind, which at ten o'clock in the evening had been blowing harder than ever, suddenly subsided, the air grew close, almost to suffocation, and an immense black cloud settled down upon the summit of Mount Sampson, where it rested broodingly, the sure precursor of a thunderstorm, if I was any judge of weather lore.

The first troops to move consisted of a detachment of the 4th Engineers'

Battalion, who were a.s.signed the perilous duty of blowing down the gates of Kinchau, of which there were four, corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compa.s.s. I volunteered to accompany this party, for the task which devolved upon them was one that rather appealed to me; but Oku was most emphatic in his refusal, explaining that he would more than probably require my services at daylight, or shortly afterward, to communicate with the squadron in the offing. Accordingly, I had to stand aside, somewhat unwillingly, and see them march off without me; which was perhaps just as well, for the attempt resulted in failure, and every man who partic.i.p.ated in it was killed.

Just as the Engineers marched out of camp on their way to Kinchau, the brooding cloud on the summit of Mount Sampson began to send forth flash after flash of vivid lightning, green, blue, and sun-bright, which lighted up not only the rugged slopes of the mountain itself, but also those other and more deadly slopes of the Nanshan Heights, while peal after peal of thunder crashed and rolled and reverberated among the ravines which scored the sides of the mountain. It was a weird enough scene of itself, but its weirdness was intensified by the Russian searchlights, which were turned on with the first crash of thunder, which the Russians appeared to mistake for the roar of j.a.panese guns.

As a matter of fact they appeared to be a bit panicky that night, for not only did they turn on the searchlights at the first sound of thunder, but the occupants of the forts and trenches on the crest and side of Nanshan Heights at once opened a terrific fire from every piece, great or small, that could be brought to bear upon the foot of the slope, which was instantly swept by a very hurricane of shrapnel and rifle bullets, while the j.a.panese, safely under cover, looked on and smiled.

For two hours that storm raged with such fury that the volleying peals of thunder quite outroared the booming of the Russian artillery and rifle-fire, which gradually died down as the Muscovites began to realise that there was no attack; and about two o'clock in the morning the storm pa.s.sed away, still rumbling and muttering, to the eastward. But during that two hours of elemental fury, a Chinese village in the neighbourhood was set on fire and practically destroyed, while several j.a.panese soldiers were struck by lightning, and either killed outright or more or less seriously injured.

With the pa.s.sing of the storm a thick, white mist arose from the low ground, completely blotting out everything beyond a few yards distant; and under the cover of this mist the j.a.panese made their dispositions for the coming battle, entirely unseen by the enemy, and probably unheard also, for it was a revelation to me to see how quietly large bodies of men could be moved when the necessity for silence had been fully impressed upon them.

As the dawn gradually brightened the sky behind the ridge of Mount Sampson, the Russians again became uneasy, and their rifles once more began to speak from the trenches, a shot here, then another shot yonder, followed by quite a spluttering here and there all along their front; but their artillery remained silent, for the fog was still so dense that nothing could be seen at which to aim.

Protected by the cover of the fog, the j.a.panese soldiers went to breakfast, fortifying themselves with a good meal, in preparation for the arduous labours of the day that lay before them; and I did the same, for I knew not how long it might be before I should again have the opportunity to eat or drink; also, following the example of several of the officers and men, I filled my jacket pockets with biscuit, and provided myself with a good capacious flask of cold tea, having done which, I felt ready for anything.

We had barely finished breakfast when the sun showed over the ridge of Mount Sampson; and almost immediately the thick curtain of fog, which had thus far so effectually hidden the movements of the j.a.panese troops from the enemy, began to lift and thin. This was the signal for the final movement prior to the storming of the Nanshan Heights; and that movement was directed against the city of Kinchau, it being known by this time that the devoted band of engineers who had been dispatched at midnight to blow in the gates of the city must have failed in their mission, otherwise some of them at least would have been back to report.

To the 1st Division was a.s.signed the task of taking the city; and they did it in brilliant style. Marching upon the southern gate, a party of four engineers was sent forward to blow in the ma.s.sive barrier, which was protected by steel plates and bands, secured by heavy steel bolts, and loopholed for musketry. The devoted quartette succeeded in placing their blasting charges and igniting the fuses under a heavy fire, not only from the loopholed gate, but also from the walls, but in so doing they were so severely wounded that after they had lighted the fuses they were unable to effect their escape, and received further severe injuries when the explosion occurred and the gate was blown off its hinges. Then the waiting 1st Division, straining like eager hounds held in leash, rushed forward through the thick, acrid smoke, with levelled bayonets, yelling "Banzai Nippon!" as they ran; and as they charged impetuously in through the south gate, the enemy went streaming as impetuously out through the west gate, about half a mile away.

Kinchau was now in the hands of the j.a.panese; but this was not sufficient for them, they must needs pursue the flying Russians; and they did so with such furious impetuosity that they literally drove them into the sea--that is to say, into the waters of Kinchau Bay, where the luckless Russians, to the number of five hundred, were either shot down or drowned, almost to a man, only ten of them surviving and being taken prisoners. I had a distant view of the whole affair from a knoll on the northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, where I had taken up a position which commanded a view, not only of practically the whole of the ground over which the stormers would have to pa.s.s, but also of the bay and our fleet, to which I should probably be required to signal from time to time as the fight progressed.

Meanwhile, the mist had by this time lifted, revealing a flotilla of our torpedo-boats and destroyers feeling their way into the bay and keeping a bright lookout for possible mines. Well astern of them came the _Akagi_ and _Chokai_; and still farther out were the old _Hei-yen_ and the cruiser _Tsukus.h.i.+_, cautiously creeping in, with leadsmen perpetually sounding on either beam. The bottom, about where they were required to be, was flat, and the tide was on the ebb, the great fear of the skippers of those two craft, therefore, was that they might touch the ground and hang there, left by the tide, exposed helplessly to the fire of the Russian guns. Thanks, however, to my labours of a few days earlier, they were all able to get close enough in to open upon the Russian works at extreme range, although, until the tide should rise, they could not bring a thoroughly effective fire upon the Russian batteries and so put them out of action.

But if we had s.h.i.+ps, so, too, had the Russians, in the shape of the gunboat _Bobr_ and five small steamers in Hand Bay, on the side of the isthmus opposite to Kinchau Bay, the Nanshan Heights being between them, so that each was hidden from the sight of the other. The _Bobr_ was likely to prove a very awkward customer for us; for she mounted one 9-inch and one 6-inch gun, which, although they were a long way from being up-to-date, were still quite good enough to out-range the j.a.panese field-guns and severely pepper our left, which occupied the ground at the head of Hand Bay. The steamers which accompanied her were, our spies discovered, fitted up expressly for the purpose of quickly ferrying troops across from one side of Hand Bay to the other, according as they might be wanted, instead of being obliged to march round the head of the bay in the face of our troops. Thus the Russians were in a position to either hara.s.s our left flank and rear, or to rush reinforcements across the head of the bay--a distance of about a mile-- as circ.u.mstances might require.

The _Bohr_ began the day's proceedings by opening fire with her 9-inch gun upon the artillery of our 3rd Division, which had taken up a position upon the lower slopes of Mount Sampson, from which it could reach the Russian batteries established upon the crest of the Nanshan Heights. The gunboat's fire did very little mischief, but it seemed to be regarded by both sides as a signal to begin the fight, for at once our batteries got to work, their sh.e.l.ls dropping with most beautiful precision upon the guns and trenches of the Russians. I was so stationed that I had a most excellent view of practically the entire scene of operations, and no sooner did our artillery open fire than the Russian batteries replied with a crash that seemed to make the very air quiver.

A land battle is a very different spectacle from a sea battle, in this respect: that, in the latter, a sh.e.l.l either hits or misses its mark, and if it misses there is a splash or two and that ends the matter, so far as that particular sh.e.l.l is concerned. But ash.o.r.e, every sh.e.l.l, whether or not it finds its mark, hits something, though it be only the ground, and immediately there is a violent explosion, a flash of fire, a great cloud of smoke, and a violent scattering of dust, clods of earth, and stones--if nothing worse. Thus, I must confess that for a few seconds I was perfectly amazed to see the slopes of Mount Sampson, on the one hand, where our artillery was placed, and the Nanshan Heights, on the other, where were situated the Russian batteries, suddenly burst into great jets of flame, clouds of smoke, and flying debris, as the sh.e.l.ls showered down upon them. The explosions of shrapnel were easily distinguished from those of common sh.e.l.l, for the former almost invariably burst in the air, the smoke from the explosions standing out against the background of sky or hill like tufts of cotton-wool that had suddenly sprung into existence from nowhere.

Very shortly after the artillery duel began, I saw the j.a.panese infantry moving out to storm the Nanshan Heights, and I smiled to myself at the acuteness of their leaders, for the men began their advance in such open formation that a shrapnel sh.e.l.l seldom succeeded in accounting for more than one man, and often enough it failed to do even that. Of course they were seen from the trenches, and a terrific rifle-fire was opened upon them, but for the same reason it was very ineffective--at the outset at least, for a rifleman had to be a crack shot to bowl over his man at a distance of close upon a mile. And if one wished to get his man, he had to aim at him, and correctly judge the distance too. This, of course, was at the beginning of the attack; later on, matters became a good deal more favourable for the defenders and correspondingly adverse to the attacking force.

I was interestedly watching the development of the attack upon the heights, when a galloper dashed up to me with a message from the General requesting me to signal our s.h.i.+ps in the offing to concentrate their fire upon the Nanshan ridge; and so smart were our men, and so keen a lookout were they maintaining aboard our s.h.i.+ps, that within three minutes of the receipt by me of the order, their 10-inch, 5-inch, and 6-inch sh.e.l.ls were dropping all along the ridge, busily searching it for the Russian batteries, the positions of which, unfortunately, could not be seen from the western side.

For the next half-hour I was kept incessantly employed in signalling our fleet, directing their fire; but the shoal water of Kinchau Bay was all against us, and although our s.h.i.+ps drew in so close that they touched the ground several times, they were still too far off to actually silence the Russian batteries, although they contrived to give them a very severe punis.h.i.+ng and, to some extent, distract their attention from the stormers. Unfortunately, they could only muster six heavy guns between them, and these, at the extreme range at which they were obliged to fire, were not nearly enough, though they certainly helped.

When at length I was once more free to turn my attention to what was happening on the eastern side of the heights, I saw that our foremost line of skirmishers had reached a spot about a mile distant from the first Russian defences, consisting of a perfect maze of wire entanglements, and were signalling back to the main body. Almost immediately a detachment of Cossacks appeared, advancing at a gallop toward the signallers, from the direction of Lins.h.i.+atun, a village on the sh.o.r.e of Sunk Bay, and as the hors.e.m.e.n appeared every j.a.panese soldier vanished, as if by magic, having flung himself down upon the ground and taken cover. On swept the Cossacks, yelling, las.h.i.+ng their horses with their whips, and brandis.h.i.+ng their long lances. Suddenly, down went a horse and rider, the next instant a Cossack flung up his arms and collapsed inert upon his horse's neck, then another reeled and fell, then two or three went down almost at the same instant, then half a dozen. And the curious thing about it was that there was nothing, no sudden spurt of flame, no smoke wreath, no crack of a rifle, to account for these casualties. That is to say, I could neither see nor hear anything; but the fact was that those Cossacks were going down before the calm, deliberate rifle-fire of the concealed j.a.panese infantry-men.

Then a flash from one of the field-guns of our 3rd Division caught my eye, and before the sharp bark of it reached my ear, a white tuft of cotton-wool-like smoke suddenly appeared in the air above the galloping Cossacks, and more of them went down. Another flash, and another, and another, more tufts of cotton-wool leaping into view, tremendous disorder and confusion among the Cossacks, men and horses falling right and left, and then the survivors suddenly wheeled outward and galloped back at headlong speed, leaving behind them a mangled heap of men and horses, the greater number dead, but here and there a prostrate, kicking horse might be seen, or a wounded Cossack crawling slowly and painfully away from the scene of carnage.

The flight of the Cossacks was the signal for the resumption of the advance by the j.a.panese, whose skirmishers reappeared, still in very open formation, a man here and a man there showing for a few seconds as, in a crouching att.i.tude, he rose to his feet, scurried forward a few yards, and then again took cover, while the fire of the Russian guns swept the ground over which he was pa.s.sing. As yet, however, there appeared to be very few casualties among our men; here and there I noticed a prostrate form lying motionless, while others crept up and scuttled past him; he had been found by a shrapnel sh.e.l.l, and his share of the work was done; but even shrapnel cannot do much harm if the formation is kept sufficiently open. And as man after man pushed forward, others crept out, following, until the whole of the ground between our lines and the base of the heights was dotted with j.a.panese infantry-men creeping ever closer up to the first line of the Russian defence, the terrible maze of barbed wire entanglements.

Meanwhile, the whole of the j.a.panese field artillery, as well as that of our s.h.i.+ps, was concentrating its fire upon the crest of the heights, covering the advance of the stormers; and now my attention was once more diverted from that advance by the necessity for me to signal directions to the fleet. And now it was that the full value of my previous labours began to be manifested; for I had but to signal the s.h.i.+ps to direct their fire upon such and such a point--wherever, in fact, a Russian battery was proving especially troublesome--and all that the gun-layers had to do was to refer to the maps with which I had supplied them, and they were at once informed of the exact range of that point, with the result that a hail of sh.e.l.ls instantly began to fall upon that particular battery with the most deadly precision. Thus, after a little while, every battery on the heights became in turn the focus of a terrific crossfire from the s.h.i.+ps and the field batteries, the effect of which soon became manifest in the silencing of several of the Russian guns, either by dismounting, or, as we afterwards discovered, by the complete destruction of the men working them.

With the guns of our fleet playing such havoc among the ten forts which crowned the heights, it now became possible for our field artillery to turn its attention upon the trenches, tier after tier of which lined the eastern slope of the heights, up which our stormers would have to pa.s.s.

Those trenches were quite formidable works, roofed over with timber and earth to protect the occupants from artillery fire, and loopholed for rifle-fire; yet, thanks again to my labours of the previous day in determining the exact range of them, our guns were able to search them from end to end, blowing the parapets to dust and matchwood, and hurling the wreckage among the gunners who were working the Russian quick-firers and machine-guns, many of whom were thus killed or wounded. The carnage must have been--indeed was, as we later saw for ourselves--frightful, yet the Russians maintained a most gallant defence, and clung to their trenches with unflinching determination. A lucky sh.e.l.l from one of our field-guns fell upon and exploded one of the many Russian mines which were scattered pretty thickly over the hillside, and the explosion blew a big gap in one of the lines of wire entanglements, a circ.u.mstance which without doubt resulted subsequently in the saving of many lives.

Hour after hour the artillery duel proceeded, our gunners doing their utmost to cover the slow advance of the stormers, while the Russian artillery systematically swept with a crossfire every inch of the ground which our men would have to traverse. The crash of the artillery was continuous and most distracting, and the effect was intensified by the incessant scream of the sh.e.l.ls and the sharp thud as they burst, interspersed with the everlasting hammering of the machine-guns and quick-firers; Nanshan was ablaze with the fire of the Russian guns and the bursting of our sh.e.l.ls, and the entire hill was enwrapped in fantastically whirling wreaths of smoke which were every moment rent violently asunder by the explosion of bursting sh.e.l.ls.

Thus far I had occupied my position undisturbed, but about mid-morning certain Russian sharpshooters chanced to detect me and my a.s.sistant in the act of signalling to our s.h.i.+ps, and they at once favoured me with their undivided attentions, to such purpose that I was compelled to beat a hasty retreat. The change of position which I was compelled to make was, however, advantageous rather than otherwise, for I found a perfectly safe spot behind two tall boulders standing close together, which, while effectually s.h.i.+elding me from the Russian bullets, still enabled me to see all that was happening.