General Kondratenko brought up two more companies to the reserve and sent two companies of the 13th Regiment to the hill to work at the trenches.
We laughed at the Japanese who had taken the 10th Company’s trench, and must by now be feeling like rats in a trap. The half of the 1st Company of the 13th Regiment who had been left there, and the ten men of the 10th Company, prevented them from spreading along the trench, while in front their road was barred by those standing on the hill, so that it appeared inevitable that they must all be killed that night.
Meanwhile night had already fallen. The usual night firing had started between the outposts at the foot of the hills, and the resulting noise would cover the advance of our attacking companies. I sent to ask why the attack had not commenced, and was kept waiting for an answer for a very long time. The night was very dark. Everything was quiet, till now and again the enemy’s bullets, like birds of the night, hummed high overhead, or our star-rockets, strange hissing monsters, like fiery snakes shot up into the sky and burst into a thousand dazzling stars, brilliantly illuminating the dark hills and valleys.
“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” This proverb was exemplified in us and in our men. How many times have we not been witnesses of the truth of it! how many times have not the Japanese taken advantage of the utter exhaustion of our troops, fallen upon them when they lay asleep, and captured important points in our position (as at Ta-ku Shan, Miortvaia Sopka,[64] and other places)!
We realize now what it means to defend a fortress lacking a main line of defence and having an insufficient number of permanently fortified positions. Now I can clearly see that open field works, even though prepared for some time in advance, and with trenches strengthened with glacis parapets (as Glinka-Yarnchevski proposed at one time), will not give the defenders facilities for sufficient rest; and rest is a very important factor.
We were so tired that day—a fact not to be wondered at—that we lay down where we were and went to sleep. Heavy rifle firing brought us to our feet again. Star-rockets shot into the air and lit up the place, and caused the firing to die down once more. We received word from those on the hill that they had been firing on the Japanese, who had destroyed some of the wire entanglements. There were not many of them, but they had nevertheless caused a good deal of damage, and then had crouched down near the line of wires. It was unfortunate that they had succeeded to such an extent. I sent orders for the damage to be repaired as far as possible, but I knew our men on the hill were handicapped owing to lack of barbed wire.
This barbed wire was literally worth its weight in gold, and I was always delighted when we succeeded in getting some for the defence of this or that point, but there was great need of it everywhere.
There were several of these alarms during the night, but all this time Major Goosakovski’s attack on the Japanese failed to come off.
However, I received a note at last, saying that he had decided to attack at daybreak.