Some minor outlying fortifications had been captured the previous afternoon, and the Japanese had divided into two bodies for the main assaults on the north-west and north-east. The Chinese in these two sections appeared to have no combination, and by a feint at the north-east the Japanese kept that part diverted until the west forts had been carried. It is a fact that they fell about an hour and a half after the cannonade commenced. The Japanese infantry advanced against them, and the valiant troops holding them ran away at the sight. The Chinese forts on the other side now began to fire away across the intervening valley, as if that could remedy the disaster. Upon them then became concentrated the whole Japanese fire. The Chinamen here made a far better show, and the fire was vigorous and sustained. About eleven o'clock, with a terrific blast of flame and thunder, which seemed to shake the ground far and near to the shores of the sea, their largest fort, the Shoju, or Pine Tree Hill, blew up; a shell must have alighted in the magazine. At noon the whole Japanese line advanced to the charge, and here, too, the Celestials never waited for the assault, but fled precipitately. There was no fighting at all at close quarters; not a solitary Chinaman stood for a bayonet thrust. Thus pusillanimously were abandoned these two great masses of fortifications, placed in the most commanding situations, on steep mountain heights where attacking forces could keep no sort of regular formation, and could have been mowed down in thousands by competent gunners as they struggled up the impregnable inclines. It was with a feeling of bewilderment that I beheld such powerful defences lost in such a manner, and realized that after three or four hours' bombardment on one side, without a shot fired against the tremendous coast defences, it was all up with Port Arthur.
The victors next turned their attention to the redoubts and walled camps on the lower ground, with the calm method which distinguished all their operations. From the valleys between the hills began to emerge dark columns of infantry, which closed steadily upon the devoted town, rolling to their positions with the mechanical regularity of parade, the sheen of their bayonets glancing here and there through the volumes of smoke which had settled thickly in the hollows. Nearer, spread over the ground to which the forts their cowardice had lost should have afforded ample protection, were the disorganized masses of Chinese, preparing for their last scattered and fruitless efforts. Only one of the inland forts, that nearest to the town, and called, I think, Golden Hill, was still in their possession. The trenches below me on White Boulders' front face, which had been unoccupied during the early portion of the day, now began to swarm with riflemen, whose weapons kept up a continuous roll, swelled from many a rifle-pit and redoubt away forward from the base of the elevation. Steadily the enemy advanced, working their way round on both wings within the captured fortresses. They took skilful advantage of every protection the ground afforded, and the resistance in their front rapidly diminished as they pressed on irresistibly from position to position.
It was now high time for me to evacuate my post, where I had had a solitary and secure vantage-place amidst the rugged inequalities of its summit, which probably I should not have been permitted to attain if I had not set about it so early. Past its front runs a shallow but broad stream, which coming through the Suishiyeh valley, rounds the parade-ground on the south towards White Boulders, whence it flows into a large and deep creek farther west. This stream the Japanese had to cross before they could attack the trenches below me. Two or three times they were beaten back by the hail of bullets poured on them at very close range, but covered by a heavy fire on their own side they were at length over, and then their opponents took to flight round the right-hand side of the hill. I stayed only to see this, and plunged down the rear. It was growing dusk, and I had numerous narrow escapes of breaking my neck in the deep and rugged hollows, some of them almost ravines, which seam that side of the elevation.
The town was now at the mercy of the conquerors. The Chinese were running from the Golden Hill fort as I descended, without an effort at defending it, and the water beyond was covered with boats and small craft filled with fugitives, mostly the dastardly troops, who threw away arms and uniforms as they ran. For incompetence and cowardice commend me for the future to Chinese soldiers. The twenty thousand of them who occupied Port Arthur contrived to kill about sixty of their antagonists on November 21, with all the best modern weapons at their disposal. And these are the men who, according to Lord Wolseley and other critics, are some day to start out to conquer the earth! Let, says Lord Wolseley, a Napoleon arise amidst this vast people, and we shall see. But is an essentially unwarlike nation at all likely to breed a Napoleon, or to supply him with openings for a career? Who ever heard of a Chinese conqueror? Have they ever appeared otherwise than as the most self-centred and unenterprising people in the world, displaying the least possible aptitude for the career of arms? And from what source, after thousands of years of such characteristics, are they to bring forth the material for this sudden burst of conquering militarism?
CHAPTER VI
I directed my retreat towards the dockyards, with a view to getting round to the south part of the town, as far as possible from the quarter by which the Japanese were entering it. The idea of a general massacre never entered my mind, and I only thought of getting back to my inn, there to stay until things quieted down. My prevailing feeling was one of satisfaction that I should not after all have to face a long residence in a beleaguered town. I therefore paid little attention at first to the fact that people were flying on every hand, and I did not suppose that there could be any good reason for flight, beyond the desirability of getting out of the way of the conquering troops until the ardour of victory had cooled down. I was not long to be left undeceived. A deadly work of vengeance and slaughter had commenced Down the panic-crowded streets, louder and louder as I advanced, came ringing the volleys of the rifle-fire, the shouts of the infuriated soldiers, and the death-shrieks of their victims. I knew that all armed resistance had been broken, and as these sounds of terror increased, an idea of what might be imminent crossed my mind. I recollected what so often follows the fall of a place carried by storm; I remembered the atrocities committed on the Japanese prisoners; and I remembered, too, the general character of all Oriental soldiers. I paused to consider my situation. I had passed round by the water-side until outside the dock basin, and then turned into the streets, striking across in the direction of the inn, with the route from which to the East Port I was well enough acquainted. There was a rush and hurry of fugitives all around me, and now for the first time I saw the Japanese soldiers in pursuit, pressing on the fleeing throng, and using rifle and bayonet furiously on all and sundry, stabbing and hacking fiendishly at those who fell. I was knocked down in the rush and trampled upon, and it was some time before I could rise. A Japanese soldier was near me as I staggered to my feet, and took aim at me with his rifle. The barrel was within a foot of me, and I struck it aside just in time to escape getting a bullet through my body. I had no weapon but those of nature, but in their use I was, like most of the Anglo-Saxon breed, something of an artist, and before the Jap could recover his piece I gave him a good, straight, British right-hander between the eyes, which sent him down like a nine-pin. In all human probability it was the first sample of the article that had ever come under his notice; he was clearly unused to the method of attack, and lay quite flat as if to think it over, whilst I retreated as fast as my legs could carry me. I resolved to hold on for the inn, thinking that if I succeeded in reaching it, I should be comparatively safe, as perhaps the outbreak of fury might confine itself to the streets. I knew, too, that I had not much farther to go. I made little progress, nevertheless, being frequently turned out of the road by the necessity of avoiding the soldiers, who were spreading fast across the town, shooting down all whom they encountered. One began to stumble over corpses in nearly every street, and the risk of encountering parties of the murderers increased, every minute. Again and again I came into the midst of the work of butchery, and every now and then ran the gauntlet of a flight of bullets fired down the narrow avenues. At length I lost my way completely, and wandered about through the pandemonium around, thinking that each minute would be my last. At length, in emerging from a dark lane leading up an ascent, I came upon a sheet of water. I immediately recognized it as a large shallow fresh-water lake in the rear of the dock basin, and it thus appeared that I had strayed back nearly to the point where I had re-entered the town on descending from White Boulders.
A frightful scene was before me. I have said that the land by which I had come out on the lake inclined steeply upwards, and the water was about fifteen feet below me when I arrived in sight of it. It was surrounded by crowds of Japanese soldiers, who had driven large numbers of the fugitives into the water, and were firing on them from every side, and driving back with the bayonet those who attempted to struggle out. The dead floated on the water, which was reddened with blood. The soldiers, yelling and laughing with vengeful glee, seemed to gloat over the agonies of their victims. It was fearful to see those gory forms struggling in the agitated water, those who still lived endeavouring to extricate themselves from the mass of corpses, falling fast, but often rising again with their last energies, streaming with water and blood, and uttering piteous cries and appeals for mercy, which were mocked by the fiends around them. Many women were amongst them; one I noticed carrying a little child, which, struggling forward, she held up to the soldiers as if in appeal. As she reached the bank, one of the wretches struck her through with his bayonet, and with a second stroke as she fell transfixed the child, which might have been two years old, and held its little body aloft. The woman rose and made a wild effort to regain the child, but evidently exhausted and dying, fell back again into the water. Her body—and in fact it was done with every body that came within reach—was hacked in pieces. Fresh batches of victims were being driven in, until there threatened soon to be no room in the water for any more. I could bear the spectacle no longer, but turned and fled from the ghastly spot.
I now knew my whereabouts, and once more set out for the inn, along the line from which I had strayed. Heaps of dead and spectacles of murder were continually presenting themselves. In one place I saw some ten or twelve soldiers with a number of unfortunates whom they had tied back to back in a batch. With volley after volley they despatched them, and proceeded to mutilate their bodies in the usual horrible fashion. Nobody was spared, man, woman, or child, that I could see. The Chinese appeared to offer no resistance. Many of them prostrated themselves on the ground before the butchers with abject submission, and were shot or stabbed in that posture.