Port Arthur

by Richard Barry

Ho-o-zan (the Phœnix Mountain), Manchuria, August 28th:—Ninety-six hours of almost incessant fighting—from sun to moon, from moon to searchlight and from searchlight to dawn—is more than human endurance, backed though it be by Japanese pluck, can stand, and there was nothing to do last night but rest. Only an occasional sentry pop or the roll off to the right of a wheezy cannon whose shot traveled on wheels in need of grease, told us that the sublime panorama of mountains and valleys lying before us hid a hundred thousand armed and warring men.

Until last night the weather has been all sun and moonlight, with dawns and sunsets tinted persimmon russet, and the valleys bright twenty hours out of the twenty-four; fighting conditions ideal for the defense, whose searchlights and star bombs made the other four hours bright and left surprise as difficult as to a poker student playing with his back to a mirror. But mirror or no mirror the Japanese attacked. Night was day to them and daytime hell, as they hurled themselves against that iron chain of forts, only to break as the waves of the sea climb up to shatter upon the rocks. The rocks disintegrate. Yes. Yet hard on the waves—and slow.

Losses? Officially it was admitted that more than twenty-five thousand were done for. Not since Grant hurled his inefficient brigades on Cold Harbor has there been such a slaughter against a fortress. In the Ninth division, which lay in our immediate front and which formed the center of the army, two regiments were entirely decimated and a battalion and a company of artillery put out of action, to a man. For a week the roads at the bases of our mountain dribbled stretchers loaded with masses of flesh, clothes and blood. The soldiers’ “bandaging places” overflowed, and the living were so busy helping others to live, and still others to die, there was no time to bury the dead.

And all for nothing. Not a single permanent fort had been taken, not a prisoner, not a gun from the enemy was in our hands. The opposing mountains, responsive with explosives to the touch, where no art of the engineer was lost, held before us as always, grim, monstrous, calm in mighty strength. On their under-features, between the opposing outposts, lay thousands whom no first aid dared reach, and other thousands whom no burial squad came near. The men of words argued long that week. They could not agree whether it was a reverse or a repulse. The anti-Japanese contended that as we had not gained one point the action was a “reverse.” The lenient were certain that as we had not been driven back no one vain of military technique could call it more than a “repulse.” The fifty thousand interested parents in Japan knew not if it was victory or defeat; presently they are to find that it is death. “Reverse” or “repulse” the commander cared not: he had disobeyed an Imperial order, for the instructions were to enter Port Arthur on the 21st of August. And the caterers of the treaty ports, what cared they of “reverse” or “repulse”? The banquets had been ordered, the five-dollar tickets sold, the day fireworks stored for the fall of the eastern Gibraltar on this pre-ordained day. And now the eggs were no longer strictly fresh, the vegetables were stale, the meats off-color, while the back of Port Arthur was still game and careless in all that brilliant weather.

With us, to meet an officer was to see a face drawn and grave. Useless to utter sympathy, superfluous to express confidence. They had underestimated a great foe, miscalculated his strength, and were paying the price—a fearful one—with the “two o’clock in the morning” courage of desperately determined men. They did not waver or complain, but it was terrible to see them, calm, patient, silent, suffering, still resolute to go on, meeting each salutation with a hollow smile, ghastly with ache.

“What fine weather,” we say, wanting better speech.

“For him—yes. Bad for us.” “Him” is the enemy, on whom the sun shone gayly and for whom the new moon was a few hours off.

Clouds came with last evening. Slowly the houses on the edge of the old town disappeared against the murky hills. Then the new town went. The huge cranes that marked the western harbor, where lay the hunted warships, evaporated, the docks faded away, the stone quarry was lost. At length the tall factory chimney on the outskirts, which for days had been our chief landmark, went out in the haze. That was the last we saw of the complete Port Arthur, whose beleaguered, respected front had mocked us for eight desperate days.

The moon had a hard time. She came up with a huge cigar in her face—shocking in a lady moon!—which choked her till she spewed and sputtered and went out. She was a new moon and died gamely, filling the air with impudence and bravado, so it was some time after midnight before the rain pattered her off about her business with that silly cigar behind the clouds, and filled the valley with mist. Thus, the rain was our friend and we welcomed it, casting happy and fragrant remarks into the rising storm, singing the mountain to sleep with our lullaby of content, for we knew that “his” searchlights could do little, perhaps nothing, against our soldier boys, already sore and tired, but valiant down there in the huge night. Foiled in the light, we looked for them to do something in the dark.