The Battle of the Yalu River
The Impossible—Stage Properties—Outwitted—The Battle Opens—Russians at Bay—Yamaguchi's Experiences
"It is clear, Mr. Fawcett, that you have the bump of locality."
"I am not sure of that, sir. What I remember of these hills is due to the Manchu Chang-Wo. We were continually looking back, expecting to see him on our track."
"At any rate you seem to have brought away a remarkably vivid impression of the country—fortunately for us. This path, bad as it is, has saved us an immensity of labour, and—what is more important—time."
General Inouye pulled up his horse as he spoke, and looked back upon the long line of troops zigzagging up the face of the mountain. The blue uniforms of the Japanese soldiers showed up clearly against the bare ochreous rocks of the hillside, offering a conspicuous mark to the enemy, had the enemy been there to see. But these rugged, precipitous hills had always been regarded as impracticable for troops; the Russians had no fear of attack from this quarter, and had made no attempt to occupy them.
There was an unusually large prospect from the spur overhanging the deep gully on which General Inouye and Bob stood side by side. Above them the road disappeared abruptly round the face of the mountain; below, it wound erratically down the boulder-strewn slope, here and there plunging out of sight in a hollow, to emerge again, it might be hundreds of yards lower down, as a narrow ledge on the face of a perpendicular crag, on which the Japanese troops seemed in the distance like an army of ants on the march.
These were the hills through which Bob and his party had made their perilous journey some weeks earlier. They lay on the left flank of the Russian army drawn up around Kiu-lien-cheng, and on the banks of the Yalu, to hurl back the Japanese when they attempted to set foot in Manchuria. General Sassulitch fondly hoped that these hills would afford a complete protection to his flank: as the event was ordered, it was from them that he sustained his most crushing blow. The Twelfth Division, known to the Japanese as the Sampo Shidan in consequence of its large equipment of mountain-guns, was chosen to make the hazardous passage, and to any troops of less endurance than the Japanese, the task might well have proved impossible; for they were not only required to cross a series of steep mountain ridges, but to do so within a very limited time, and to bring their guns with them. Bob watched the steady progress of the column with many a thrill of admiration, and with pride that he was privileged to bear a small part in this momentous movement. Burdened with its artillery, ammunition, and supplies, the column moved steadily forward; now crawling with infinite pains up almost perpendicular slopes, the willing little soldiers pushing, hauling, at times almost carrying the wretched horses and ponies groaning under guns, gun-carriages, or boxes of shell; then with no less strain staggering, slipping, sliding down the opposite face of the hill, to begin another climb in this unending series of bluffs and chasms.
The march had begun early in the day; it was now late in the afternoon, and Bob more than once saw General Inouye looking anxiously westward. They rounded the shoulder of a steep hill; half a mile or more ahead a small body of cavalry thrown out in advance had halted, evidently in doubt as to their further course.
"To the left," said Bob, answering General Inouye's unspoken question, "across that small spur, and straight up the farther slope."