In the Yellow Sea

by Henry Frith

There was a pause for a little, and some arrangement appeared to be made by the Japanese troops, who kept climbing, climbing. Then came a sudden rush upwards and sideways, and I could see no result until the cannon ceased firing gradually. Then I saw the defenders rushing away, pursued by the Japanese, who shot and bayoneted them unmercifully. The fugitives fell by dozens, and were killed. Dark spots lay thickly upon the summit of the hill, and in the ravines near, while the Dragon standards were displaced, and the Rising Sun uplifted in their place. Such a stampede I never expect to see again, and the killing was done systematically, because when two advancing bodies of Japanese troops took the entrenchments by storm, a third company did not enter the redoubt, but went on in chase of the flying enemy.

While I was thus sheltered, the soldiers in the town were all in readiness to repel the expected attack. The dispersed Manchus, or Chinese, were cut off from the gate; and it seemed to me that a strong column, with guns, was approaching from Fuchow. The question was now serious for me. I did not dare retire because the Chinese were immediately below. I did not venture to go up higher because I must at once have been seen and shot as a deserter; or perhaps cast down from the walls. Meantime time was pressing. The exterior defences of the town and citadel had been taken, and after all I had witnessed it seemed to me that Kinchow was doomed. The assailants were converging upon the town, in which uproar and dismay were already rife, while the advancing troops were being shelled by the Krupp guns mounted upon the Chinese fortifications. The situation was, at least, embarrassing.

It was, I suppose, about nine o'clock that morning, when I grasped the fact that the artillery was getting into position. It was difficult for me to make out these arrangements, situated as I was a full mile from the advancing troops, though in an advantageous position for witnessing the attack from the top side of the north gate, built like a railway arch in the surrounding wall of the town, a wall twenty feet high, and surrounded by the edifice already mentioned—a kind of pagoda erection. But when I beheld puffs of steely smoke rising from the hillside, and heard the shells—at first a few, and then incessantly, I crouched behind the masonry, and did not dare to look out.

My head seemed to swim as these furious missiles came hurtling along over the wall and gate, crashing, bursting, killing, and maiming all out of shelter in the streets, and even in the hospital buildings erected inside the gate, which yawned like a small tunnel in the wall. The unfortunate donkeys, and more unfortunate men in attendance, were blown into atoms at times, the streets were filled with dead and wounded, and on them lay ruins of the town; while the defenders, though firing steadily, could do little because the black smoke of the bombarding guns shut out all except the ploughed-up earth, the shrieking shells, the dead and wounded by the wall, and within the "castled city." Outside, the ground was ridged by shot, and the noise of the contest was simply indescribable. The bursting and cracking, mingled with the fearful detonation of the guns, of which I should say forty assailed us, at once gave me a sensation of splitting headache and a giddiness which I had never experienced. Stones split and fractured, wood disappeared in gigantic matches and splinters, the iron gate resounded and shook, the noise of the arch below being thunderous—yet it stood; and when the salvoes ceased a while, and the smoke cleared a bit, I looked out and saw some soldiers advancing closer amid the furrowed ground, and the dead Japs who lay outside.

The Chinese in shelter fired still from the loopholes at the Japs, and the Japanese came running up to the gate, while the guns again sent messages of iron into the town. The Japanese soldiers managed to reach a small cluster of houses—a deserted kind of village, if one may so call it—facing the gate. One of these huts was standing in advance of the rest, a peculiar position for a house, and so the Japanese thought, because the officer in command must have sent a party to examine it, right before me, and some of the venturesome ones never reached it. The men ran up amid the rifle fire from the wall, and judging by the time it took to gain entrance, the hut was barricaded. The men fell fast, but at length the survivors gained admission, and apparently found nothing.[[1]]

[[1]] It was ascertained afterwards that the wires of the "mines" were cut there.—H.F.

My attention had been directed to this hut, but then the Japanese troops advanced in masses, rushing at the walls. But they could do nothing. Chinese of all sorts, soldiers and coolies, rained bullets and missiles at them when they reached the walls and attempted to climb up. It was impossible to scale these smooth surfaces, great masses of brick eighty feet thick, from the summit of which the people were hurling stones, and firing guns and rifles. In this I saw my opportunity, and joined the defenders on the ramparts.

What immediately followed is a little confused in my mind. We could see the soldiers retreating, leaving their dead and some wounded on the field, while crashing shells came, again devastating the defenders' ranks. But the Chinese stuck to it and replied in kind. We all seemed wild, and even I became careless in showing myself in the excitement and the roar of the battle. I actually saw men cut across their blue clothing in an instant, steeped in blood, and yet they seemed to move and writhe. Their associates took no notice of them. Life in China is of no value apparently, and when the spectator in his turn falls in silent anguish, the survivors thrust him aside, and seize the weapon they themselves require. Many fell over the wall and died amid the enemy, when they slipped from the ensanguined battlements, or platform.

At length the defeated stormers retired baffled. But while the defenders were perchance congratulating themselves, another band rushed up. The crowd of assailants had been defeated, the yelling multitude at the base of the smooth walls were chagrined, but they sent another force. Meanwhile we kept up the fire, and I saw a few Japanese lying close to the west end of the wall, apparently dead, but occasionally stirring as if in pain. I pointed them out to some soldiers, who glanced and took no further notice, because the attack was about to be renewed; but I wished I could have put the poor fellows in safety, or tended them. A vain wish, and one later repented.

Again the Japanese advanced carrying boxes. Some of them then ran in close to the great iron-lined gate, and, notwithstanding the furious firing, remained under the shelter of the arch until they had accomplished their design. It was evident. These were engineers, and they intended to blow up the gate. It was a most terribly anxious moment when the men hurried off, not unscathed, and some of us waited for the result. The Chinese mines had failed, would the Japanese be successful? I retired to the west side, where the bricks of the wall at the corner project a little, as we see in isolated brick houses. To my consternation, at that moment I perceived three Japanese mounting the "ladder" of bricks to gain the summit of the walls. I shouted, but at that moment my voice was drowned in the uproar of the explosion under us, and I, with others, was thrown down amid the ruins of the masonry.