Up they went cautiously, a squad of twenty at a time, slinking along the ravines, their rifle-butts dragging the ground; one file of twenty, then another and another, until the slopes were dotted with figures colored like the earth—silent, nimble, tiny.
Now the artillery was at it heavily. Beginning with the battery we had seen go into action, the pieces spoke up, one by one, until near a hundred guns were spitting fire from the nooks behind; astonishing to an eagle, but the Russians seemed not to mind. The shots increased, the din augmented. A shell appeals to the imagination—snarls like a wild beast, flings fierce shrieks into unwilling ears, rends tooth and claw at fear. The place might have been a nest of demons with the old devil hen hatching them out. The Japanese kept those two ridges so hot with shrapnel that not a man dared show himself. For twenty yards below the parapet the slope bubbled as does a pot boiling above the kettle’s brim. Not a sound from the nearer Russians. From Anzushan, from Etzeshan, from “203,” and even from far-off Liaotishan the replies spoke distant and absurd, but Namicoyama, slated for assault, was silent, silent as though no brass cannon were mounted in the sight of all men, as though no twenty companies of sharpshooters were lying low with Maxims and repeating rifles waiting to receive the final charge. Were there cowardly Japanese it was a secret shared by no man with his neighbor. Sound to the core or not, they went on with the precision of a clock. As the infantry advanced, occasionally a huddled figure, inert, was grouped here and there with others who moaned piteously. At times a squad, sinking, would lose itself in a hollow, only to climb presently up the opposite slope, there to sink on one knee, rifles at fixed bayonets, while the lieutenant in command reconnoitered to right or left, searching for the line of best deploy. Then on, skurrying another few rods, to another halt, until they came to the precipitous rocks up which it seemed a goat would have skinned his shins in climbing. Here, hugging the mountain proper, having lost but few, considering the advance made, they waited for night.
Meanwhile, aloft, hell reigned. Shells constantly bursting apparently shattered guns and killed gunners, but when the dust cleared all was instantly life again, the gnomish figures busy—busy as ants with eggs. For a minute thus, then all would drop back into the earth simultaneously with the reply, and at the very moment that another Russian shell was in upon them.
Was it the same beyond in Namicoyama and in “203”? Doubtless the Russians were as safe, though with them the shells must have been multiplied by twenties, because the space of a few rods, lying exposed to every range, received the constant fire of every Japanese gun. The Russians had a wider target, a range of hills from which occasionally they could see smoke curling upward. It was far more difficult to hit than the Japanese target, for nothing was plain, all was guesswork. The Russians could not see a thing they were aiming at. A range of hills, seared with autumn, bare of husbandmen, innocent of apparent defense, alive with hissing venom, confronted them. They lashed it desperately as they could, frantically as a boy beset with nightmare. The little men had a plain target, parapets outlined against the sky, trenches clear and distinct. Yet the Japanese were often covered with dust from bursts on the slope beyond, and through the Valley of the Shadow the diabolic screeches mounted with the dying of day. Night came with the wild clamor on in full fury, the little brown squads still at the base of Namicoyama, the reserves creeping around toward “203.”
Could they climb it—that six hundred feet of almost perpendicular rock, where, in daytime, with sticks and hobnailed boots, the best of mountain climbers would have found an adventure? And they must go up dragging rifles, shrapnel dropping among them, shells bursting overhead, bullets mowing them down, not to rest at the top, but, once there, to plunge against troops well rested, superbly intrenched.
The reserves threw up shelter tents and staked down the flaps with heavy rocks, but the wind, howling across from the inlet, flung them to the laugh of the rising equinoctial. Some sought rest on bean straw, under blankets, the September moon streaming in, but there was no rest.
A flash in the eyes and the mountain is thrown into a silhouette of fire, then plunged into blackness. From the extreme Russian left the searchlights are wheeling into position, one by one, until the whole seven are out, playing day over the battlefield, throwing suspicious investigation into the little squads of brown. Science has intensified war. Formerly men could get their fill of fighting by day, but now they needs must flare the candle at both ends. Like Joshua, these generals are deciding their empires’ fates under light of their own ordering.
The second searchlight comes out of the right. In between, the others dance, now a minuet, now a tarantella. Then a red line streaks the air, parabola-like, and its end breaks into molten balls, illumining the Valley of the Shadow of Death as by candelabra of stars. Its path is crossed by another. Still a third leaps into life till the night is frightful with fireworks. Processions peaceful and gay have danced through the cities to such salvoes fostered by Pain. You have seen them on Coney Island, you have watched for them on Manhattan Beach, you have romped through merry summer nights canopied by their dazzle; you have seen them split into golden bursts and rain diamonds of child joy; but do not wish to see them bred by the Russians, grisly and deadly, laying bare every joint of action and throwing into ghastly relief every hope of surprise.
A growl among the mountains rolls into power, and a naval shell from our left has burst in “203.” The forts respond, the mountains reply. The small arms open up, the machine guns rattle, the pompoms clatter in. Pitch, fuzz, dingle and pop are drowned. Crash, roar, hurtle and boom are out. The devil is loose.