DIGGING AND SCOUTING
IT was on the 28th of May that we went to Changchia-tun from Yenchia-tun to take the place of the defense corps of the Third Division. After Nanshan our division was separated from the Second Army under Oku, and attached to the newly organized Third Army for the siege of Port Arthur. It was not a long march from Yenchia-tun to Changchia-tun, but whenever I think about marching I cannot help remembering this particular occasion. Round about Port Arthur the ground is covered with rocks and pebbles; all the other places on the peninsula are covered with earth like rice bran or ashes, which fills the mouth, eyes, and nose. Swift winds stirred up clouds of dust, filling the throat and threatening to swallow the long snake-like line of marching men. Often we could not see an inch ahead and our line of men was in danger of disconnection. Even the cooked rice in our lunch boxes was filled with the dust. On other occasions we had marched ten or twenty ri’s without resting day or night, had covered sometimes a distance of more than ten ri’s on the double-quick, had made a forced march without a drop of drinking water, or had marched in pitch darkness; but all our previous experiences of this kind were nothing compared with the hardships of this dust-covered march. If this is the price for the honor of taking part in a real war, we have certainly paid it. Toil and hardship of course we were ready for, but while our minds were prepared for bayonets and bullets, at first we felt it a torture to fight with Nature herself, to cross the wilderness, climb the mountains, fight with rain and wind, with heat and cold, and sleep on the beds of grass. But very soon we began to philosophize, and to think that this was also an important part of our warfare, and this idea made us take kindly to the fight with the elements and with Nature. Eventually we learned to enjoy sleeping in the spacious mansion of millet fields, or in rock-built castles, viewing the moon and listening in our beds to the singing of insects.
Marching without a halt, we reached Changchia-tun and took the place of the Third Division men. When we saw these men for the first time, we felt ashamed of our own inexperience and wished to sneak out of their sight. They seemed to us crowned with glory for their great achievement at Nanshan, and we felt like country people who had missed the train, looking at the trail of smoke with mouths wide open in disappointment. We envied them, picturing to ourselves their clothes torn and bloodstained and their skins covered with fresh wounds of honor. We looked up to them with love and reverence, admiring their dust-covered caps and bloodstained gaiters. Their very countenances, their very demeanor, seemed to recount eloquently their glorious exploits.
The right centre of our line of defense was an eminence facing the enemy’s front. But our whole line covered a distance of twenty-five kilometres from Antsu-shan at one end to Taitzu-shan at the other, with the pass of Mantutsu in the middle. Just north of this pass is the village of Lichia-tun, and our own battalion occupied a line extending from this village at its right to the village of Yuchia-tun the other side of the river, beyond which lay a range of hills. There we raised strong works, diligently sought our enemy, and busily engaged ourselves in preparations for defense and attack. In the meantime General Nogi and his staff landed at Yenta-ao and reached Peh-Paotsu-yai, a village about three ri’s to the northwest of Dalny. With his arrival the organization of the Third Army was completed. How eagerly, then, did we wait for the first chance of fighting!
The enemy, though defeated at Nanshan, had of course been reluctant to give up Dalny; but they had been obliged to run for their lives, and they and their wives and children escaped toward the bottom of the bag, that is, Port Arthur, burning down the village of Sanshihli-pu on their way thither. They had fortified a strong line, connecting the hills, Pantu, Lwanni-chiao, Waitu, Shwangting, etc. The distance between the Russian and Japanese lines was between three and five thousand metres. This much of the enemy’s condition and position we ascertained through the hard work of scouts and scouting parties.
As soon as we were stationed on the line of defense, we began on the very first day to work with pickaxes and shovels. A special spot was assigned to each cavalry battalion and infantry company, and each group of men, in its own place, hurried day and night, digging trenches for skirmishers. The officers acted as “bosses,” the non-commissioned officers as foremen, and the men themselves as coolies,—all were engaged in digging earth. All the while scouts, both officers and non-commissioned officers, were being dispatched to find out the enemy’s movements. No alarm had come yet; the engineering work made daily progress. The trenches for skirmishers and bomb-proofs for the cavalry, forming the first line of defense, grew steadily, their breastworks strengthened by sand-bags the sacking for which had been brought from Dalny. A simple kind of wire-entanglement was also put up, a good road was made, short cuts connecting different bodies of men were laid out like cobwebs; thus our defenses assumed almost a half-permanent character. The soldiers either utilized village dwellings, or pitched tents in the yards or under the trees. When all these necessary preparations were fairly complete, more scouts and scouting parties began to go off to find out the movements and whereabouts of the enemy.
At a military review or manœuvres in time of peace, the men look gay and comfortable, but on the real battle-field they have to try a true life-and-death match with the enemy. In the readiness and morale of the men while on the outposts lies the outcome of the actual encounter. Therefore men on the line of defense cannot sleep at ease at night, or kindle fires to warm themselves. The night is the time when they must be most vigilant and wide-awake. The patrols on the picket line and the scouts far in front must try to take in everything. However tired they may be from their day’s work, at night they must not allow even a singing insect or a flying bird to pass unnoticed. Holding their breath and keeping their heads cool, they must use their sight and hearing for the whole army behind them, with the utmost vigilance. When people talk of war, they usually forget the toil and responsibility of the men on the picket line, they talk only of their behavior on the field of battle. Because this duty was neglected, three regiments of the English army in the War of Independence, 1777, were annihilated by the Americans through the fault of one single sentinel.
“Halt! Halt! Who goes there?”
The sentinel’s cry adds to the loneliness of an anxious night. One or two shots suddenly sound through the silent darkness; it is probable that the enemy’s pickets have been discovered. Quiet prevails once more; the night is far advanced. A bank of dark clouds starts from the north, spreads quickly and covers the whole sky with an inky color, and the rain begins to fall drop by drop. This experience on the picket line, keeping a sharp eye on the enemy all the time, continued for about thirty days.
By the time our line of defense was in proper order, the enemy began to show their heads. Every night there was the report of rifles near our line of patrols.
“Captain, five or six of the enemy’s infantry scouts appeared, and then suddenly disappeared, in a valley five or six hundred metres ahead.” Such a report was repeated over and over again in the course of one day and night. Soon we began to try various contrivances to capture the enemy’s scouts on our line of patrol. One of them was this: about twenty ken[36] away from our line a piece of rope was stretched, to that rope another piece was fastened, one end of it leading to the spot where our patrol was standing. The idea was that if the enemy walked against the first rope the second would communicate the vibration to the patrol man. Once when the signal came, and the men hurried to capture the enemy, no human being was in sight, but a large black dog stood barking and snarling at them.
Ch. IX.