But even before that we knew the night was big with promise, for eight officers climbed up at dusk to stay the night with us. We lay at length under rubber blankets and rough oiled paper used in Japan for cart covers, with our noses stuck between the rocks, scenting for excitement as deer are fire-stalked in the great woods.
This mountain, the Phœnix, is directly in the rear center of Nogi’s army and about a mile from his advance posts. Thus, with little danger, we command as grand a battlefield as the world has yet produced. From here we have seen, at the same time, exasperating as a three-ring circus, two infantry assaults, three artillery duels, and a naval engagement. The human impetus we knew not until last night. Until then we knew only the sound and color of battle, and its wild glory. So we fell asleep, the rain pattering.
Past midnight and only stray sentry shots have carried out that promise of something big. With difficulty we keep awake, yet the officers behind lie expectant and the night is young. The fresh rain dapples delicious coolness and filters mosquitoes—tiger mosquitoes—more terrible than war. I hear deep breathing—then quiet—and dreamland.
Rain pelting in my face wakes me to greet a flash of lightning. I tuck in the rubber blanket, reach for my watch and by the next flash see the hands at seven minutes past three. I snuggle myself into a ball and crunch the rocks closer. Another flash behind and I spasmodically close my eyes, but open them in time to see the mountain side and road below livid. Two horses are lying in the road, killed, I suppose, by the flash. But, no, I remember that a shell laid them out yesterday. Ricalton cries:
“They’ve begun.”
“No,” I yell, “it’s the storm,” and my voice is lost in the thunder.
Is it thunder? Is it cannon? Who can tell? The vivid flashes, too great for artillery, lighting up the whole mountain, come in now on all sides and as fast as the lanyards of a battery could be pulled.
The horrid grandeur rises. Prayerfully thankful to be in it I desperately resolve not to run. How the molten sheets drag me from that hole in the rocks! Surely every glass in Port Arthur is leveled here! The next instant the Russian fire will concentrate on the Phœnix. Yes. There it is—a flash from Golden Mount, like a dynamic spark from one electrode to another, pointed this way, lost in the ink of night.
A double fear—the fear of shame and the fear of death—consumes me. I shiver. But I grow brave, for I am not alone. Ricalton leaps to his feet, wrapped in the trailing cart cover.