Fortifying 203 Metre Hill—Situation at the beginning of November—Mining operations.
On my inspections now I had to run and jump like a goat from traverse to traverse, and even crawl on all-fours. I had indeed good reason for complaining more often perhaps than any one else of the inaction of our artillery.
Not long before this the Japanese smashed up our water-cart as it was wending its way to Division Hill. Well, we ate the horses, but the cart itself was shattered to pieces, and all because our guns allowed the enemy to get too close up to our positions.
Thank God! the Japanese could not see our staff headquarters, or otherwise the structure would have been razed to the ground. Stray shells alone caused a certain amount of damage to it, so one can imagine what would have happened if the opposing artillery had actually ranged on it.
A short time ago, when the Japanese sent up a balloon, I climbed on to the roof of one of the buildings to see if we were visible to the men in its car.
I could see the balloon distinctly through my telescope, but it seemed very doubtful if the Japanese could see the chimneys of our houses, so we no longer worried about their safety.
I have already said that the Japanese sapping operations near 203 Metre Hill were progressing apace, and consequently we were now racking our brains to devise means of impeding their work. I proposed making a sortie on a large scale. In order to ensure its success, I took a photograph from 203 Metre Hill of our own and the Japanese works, and told Major Fofanov, the officer commanding our 5th Company, whom I had selected to lead the sortie, to make a careful study of the ground himself, but in the end our senior officers refused to give us permission to make any sortie on a large scale. We had, consequently, to be content with a series of small ones. Numbers of men always volunteered for these sorties, of whom Acting Ensign Makurin and Rifleman Stoliarov of the 1st Scout Detachment especially distinguished themselves.
One of their sorties was brilliantly successful. The Japanese in the saps and trenches were bayoneted, the trenches were wrecked, and a quantity of digging tools was captured, while our own losses were insignificant. One sortie, however, made by Makurin on the night of October 20–21, was a failure, probably for the reason that the Japanese had anticipated it, and our men were thus met by rifle fire and hand grenades. Our losses were heavy, Makurin himself being severely wounded in the arm.
These sorties were our only means of combating the Japanese sap work, until at last we discovered a new method—one that had been tried by Midshipman Vlassev in the centre of our positions. A description of the procedure was given us when we were all drinking tea (of which we always had a plentiful supply) in the staff headquarters, and we promptly decided to try the experiment ourselves.