Behind us Zaliterny Battery, high up on the hill, opened fire, as did one other battery on the left. But further to the left and on the right there was silence; either these batteries did not see the enemy, or they were asleep. Colonel Tokhateloff, despairing of transmitting the necessary order by telephone, ran out to the gorge of the battery and shouted as loudly as he could and semaphored to them:
'Fire on the column—on the C-O-L-U-M-N—F-I-R-E!'
The fire gradually increased, and shrapnel after shrapnel tore after the Japanese, but it was late; they had got cover behind an outlying spur. Our men were still climbing up—on and on—they would soon be near the top! But they never reached it, for the enemy were too cunning. The moment the attackers became exposed, a ring of musketry fire burst out from the summit. Some of our men fell back, retreating right away down the hill; others could be seen to halt, take cover behind the rocks and folds of the ground, and to crawl along the hollows. More men came up from behind, but it was no good; they stopped gradually, and crawled downwards one by one. The attempt had failed.
The attack of this huge hill could never have succeeded by daylight, nor should it have been undertaken with so few men. To take it, a much larger force—at least one regiment—should have been sent; but although advised of this, General Stössel would have his way. He considered that he knew best, and he alone was responsible for the failure.
Evening came on, and, according to the intelligence reports of the Chinese, there seemed every reason to believe that the Japanese would make a general attack that night. This information was common knowledge, and no one looked forward to the coming of night; we expected an assault, but knew not where the chief blow would fall. However, Chinese information was always most inaccurate and confused, and did not justify the reliance we placed in it.
The morning after this fight the Japanese did a thing which surprised us: they fired on a small party of our stretcher-bearers which had gone out to pick up a wounded man who had lain all night on the slope of the hill, and succeeded in again wounding him and also one of the bearers—an action as disgusting as it was incomprehensible.
The bombardment of Arthur by land was now systematic, lasting generally from 7 a.m. till 11 or 12 noon, and then again from 2 or 3 p.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. The shooting was apparently carried out by 'squares,' as all shells fired at the same time, fell into a comparatively small space. They did their best to destroy the fleet, the port, and the harbour workshops, and their shooting was so good that after two or three 'overs' and 'shorts' they were able to get on.
And now a word as to the press censorship in the Fortress. From August 9 right up to September 8 the Novy Kry printed my notes, under the heading 'News of the Novy Kry.' These notes were based entirely on personal observations or on information received by me in the Fortress Staff Office. By the direction of the Commandant and with the knowledge of Stössel and Reuss, the following procedure was observed.[15] Every day, after going round the line of defences, I went to the Fortress Staff Office, where I was given all the telephone messages of the preceding twenty-four hours up to twelve noon that day. I busied myself with this budget in the office of the Chief of the Staff, in his presence, and under the supervision of Lieutenants Kniazeff or Hammer.
When my account was ready I handed it to Colonel Khvostoff for him to see, and everything that I said relating to the operations of the fleet was given to Lieutenant Mackalinsky of the Navy, attached to the Fortress Staff, to look through. These two then deleted such parts of it as, in their opinion, ought not to be published, and at once returned it to me with permission to send to press. I then despatched it by my orderly to Colonel Artemieff in the Editor's Office, who in his turn cut out such parts as seemed to him suspicious—i.e., parts to which objection might be taken by the censors. After he had done this—it always had to be done by him personally—the manuscript was sent to be set up. Two corrected proofs were sent, one to General Stössel's Office and one to the Naval Office, to be censored. The proofs, when signed by the censors, were returned to the printing-offices, where they were checked by the assistant editor, and sent by him to the type-room to be amended. Thence a revised proof was sent to the editor for checking with the censors' original remarks. It was only after very careful checking of this revised proof with the original that Colonel Artemieff permitted it to be printed.
See what an amount of correction and checking my 'News' was subjected to before it reached the reader. However, notwithstanding all this absurd severity—the almost impossible requirements of two censors, naval and military—General Stössel deemed it so dangerous that he stopped the publication of the Novy Kry for one month!