'General Stössel directs me to request you immediately to arrange for the blowing up of the southern wall of the town of Kinchou. It should be carried out at once.
'Kondratenko.'
The next morning Jerebtsoff went with his subaltern to inspect this wall. Kinchou was situated in front of the left flank of the position of that name. Like the majority of Chinese towns, it was surrounded with a loopholed stone wall, like a tower of mediæval times. Upon inspection this wall proved to be a solid erection of stone laid in mortar, 19 feet high, 21 feet thick at the bottom, and 19 feet thick at the top. This was what Stössel wanted blown up 'immediately.' To demolish it meant blowing up some 1,435,000 cubic feet of stone masonry!
When Colonel Jerebtsoff went into Arthur to report the impossibility of demolishing this wall at once, he was told:
'We will give you as many men from the 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment as you like.'
'But, sir,' said the Colonel, 'I shall want more than two men to lay the charge in every chamber. For 1,200 yards of wall I should want not less than 500 chambers—that is, about 1,000 men—and anyhow, even if you give me the men, it is impossible to do the work at once.'
The answer was amusing.
'There's no time to talk, Colonel; you must please go and carry out General Stössel's order.'
Jerebtsoff left by rail that night, but the train was unable to proceed beyond Inchenzy, as the line was fired at by the enemy's gunboats. He therefore had to ride from there to Nangalin, whence he again proceeded on by train. But he never even reached the position at Kinchou, for it was already in the enemy's hands.
Without understanding the rôle of sappers, Stössel during the whole siege threw the Sapper Company about like a ball from hand to hand. It was within this period put under the orders of four separate officers, without rhyme or reason. This anomaly of passing a most valuable technical unit from one officer to another was not only not called for, but did absolute harm, as it enabled people who were totally ignorant of its duties, qualifications and capabilities to issue to it utterly irregular and impossible orders.
That the organization of the sappers in the Fortress in the event of war was not sufficiently thought out and foreseen is shown by the fact that this company, though 'a Fortress Company,' was allotted to work not only in the Fortress, but in the whole district (which was the reason it was not called the 'Port Arthur' Company). It was therefore given a civilian complement, which put it on a different footing to other fortress companies—i.e., it consisted of a field sapper company supplemented by a telegraph detachment of half the strength of a field telegraph company. In consequence, when hostilities commenced, there were neither fortress nor telegraph sappers in the Fortress itself.