'As all the members of the sortie parties knew beforehand where to go and what to do, everything turned out almost as we had hoped. The sortie was a complete surprise to the enemy, and, when our men dashed on to the heads of their approaches, they were seized with panic. From the glacis I could hear their shouts of fear distinctly, and their fire was comparatively weak, no machine-guns being used. After these shouts we heard a few cheers, and then, after five or ten minutes, our men appeared at the caponier, where they rushed, fearing that the Japanese would recover themselves and get to work with their machine-guns. However, they successfully went down the ladders into the ditch and got round the caponier. They had ascertained that the Japanese were making galleries under the caponier of the fort. The direction of one was along under the axis of the caponier; the direction of the other we did not discover. The heads of their galleries were found covered by bomb-proofs, into one of which a sapper managed to throw a six-pound bomb. We lost 3 killed and 7 wounded, amongst whom, to our great regret, was Marchenko, very dangerously wounded. The result of the sortie was so far very successful, and our countermining will now no longer consist of groping blindly.'
Colonel Raschevsky was inclined to judge our men severely, because they dug slower than the Japanese; he called them absolute children. I cannot agree. The Russian soldier, when he came to Port Arthur, was physically strong, though intellectually starved. By this time he had become physically starved as well. No soldiers of Western Europe would have done what he did.
Extracts from Colonel Raschevsky's Diary.
October 22.—'The Japanese approaches are being particularly developed these days in front of Kuropatkin Lunette. There are scarcely any new ones in front of Chi-kuan-shan, but the men saw from Caponier No. 2 that stones were being carried out from under the glacis; they were evidently from mine-galleries.
'To-day, for the first time, was heard a suspicious knocking in our counter-mines. I myself listened for a long time from both galleries, but could hear nothing. I think it must have been a mistake, and the noise was probably made by some one in the caponier. However, I have told the miners to listen oftener and more carefully.'
'October 23.—The enemy have not yet done anything to seize Open Caponier No. 3, and the position there is most curious. We have dug a trench and are holding two branch ends. At these ends are our sentries; the Japs are behind the sand-bag traverse. Occasionally our men throw hand-grenades at them, but they haven't as yet replied. At this close range it is impossible to prevent constant firing, each trying to spot the other and shoot first.
'Our men resort to the following ruse: one fastens a pole on his back, on this is put a fur cap and round it a great-coat. He then crawls on all fours along the trench. The Japs at once open fire on what they think is a man, and, exposing themselves, give us a target. Generally speaking, the men are in excellent spirits, though things are daily getting worse. It is becoming colder—almost freezing at night, and in the thin bomb-proofs it is uncomfortable, and in the trenches horrible. The danger from the enemy's fire is daily increasing and the food is wretched. But our men don't seem to notice it; on the contrary, they seem to be more light-hearted and full of life.
'A chicken costs 12 roubles, a goose 20, an egg 1, a pound of flour 1, a pound of horse-flesh ½ rouble.'[27]
The Colonel was to-day kinder to the men. His engineer heart had grieved at the slow progress made with the works, and it was quite comprehensible. His one desire was at all costs to interfere with, to delay, the enemy's works, not to give him a chance of seizing the trenches of the fort. In Chi-kuan-shan the men felt uneasy, expecting an explosion, but the countermining was in Raschevsky's capable hands.