Suddenly, on the farther slope, where near a battalion of men had crawled almost two-thirds of the way up the glacis, a panic seemed to have seized them. The whole crowd ran down and to the right. They disappeared over the scruff of the hill, toward their own trenches, brushed off as a handful of flies might be blown away from a heel of bread. The cowards! to run like that when their comrades are valiantly struggling up the nearer heights!
But no. It is not a panic. Halfway to their trenches they all drop into the ground. Shell holes and gullies swallow them up. As they disappear the scruff of the hill from which they ran is blown into the air, the flame shooting from the center of the rocks and dirt, and the white smoke rising above. A mine has gone off there.
The pioneer ahead found the contact signal—clever fellow—ran back to the advance officer, who led his men in their retreat. So it was not a panic, but a well-ordered movement. Soon the advance goes on, up the nearer angle of the slope, the men deploying carefully as before, the hell shooting down from above, the hopper feeding from below. So I learn to criticise nothing on a field of battle. Who but the commanding officer can ever disclose motives? Not a word of authentic news leaks from this place. Once the citadel is down, say the generals, let criticism rage. Port Arthur will have been taken. Meanwhile, let us have silence, concentration, determination!
Then, under the middle parapet, I find a squad of men hanging, having survived the ordeal below. With no leader so headstrong as the young officer, they halt for supports to go in and capture the fort, for they are but twenty, or at most thirty. No supports come. The shrapnel plays over them, the bullets rain through.
Into the crater torn on the parapet of the fort opposite by one of our Osacca shells, and which with an enfilading fire can command the squad, there marches a company of Russian soldiers, four abreast. The hole accommodates four at a time, and they stand as if on parade, an officer to the left rear, his sword drawn, giving the word of command. Still farther in behind is another officer, pistol in hand, holding the men to their work. They order arms, prepare, aim, fire, wheel to the left, defile, the next squad takes their places, and again comes this drill in manual of arms. A splendid sight; men in the crux of action as if on parade; an object lesson for discipline to the whole Russian army. The Japanese need no such object lesson. Each man is an individual, though he is part of the machine; he has a brain to think, eyes to see, legs and arms to act. Just below the firing squad, within twenty yards, a company of our boys has crawled up and is lying face down waiting for the word to make the final charge. Hid by the angle of the parapet, neither squad nor company sees the other, and the Russians above fire directly over the heads of the Japanese below into the assaulting party on the opposite slope, distant some four or five hundred yards. When the last four have emptied their rifles, the crater becomes again black with emptiness. Evening is falling. The assaulting party creeps on up.
Under the parapet of the north battery, where the forsaken squad was left, I now see the why of the inaction. The twenty or thirty, in half an hour, have thrown up a shallow trench. So this is the meaning of the spade that each man carries at such cost, up those terrific heights. They are fixing themselves for the night. Under cover of darkness the supports will come up, and before dawn the way from valley to parapet will be entirely protected with trenches, so that a whole regiment can be poured up for the final assault without losing a man. As the price of it on the slope there lie thousands of huddled figures.
[Chapter Fifteen]
JAPAN’S GRAND OLD MAN—AN INTERLUDE
