“Liaoyang is on! And what are we doing away off here?”
“Smokin’ our pipes in the mountings,” Feeney answered huskily, reaching for a match, “‘an’ breathin’ the mornin’ cool.’”
“We’re lost,” Finacune declared bitterly. “I can hear the London experts howling, ‘Where’s Kuroki and his lost army?’”
“Lost, is it? Hush! Come near me, young man. We’re lost, but destined to appear in good time,” Feeney whispered. “I’ll bet you an oyster-stew to a dill-pickle that we are the flankers. We’re relegated off here to cross the river when the moon’s right, and to bore in at the railroad behind the city, while Oyama and Kuropatkin are locking horns in front.”
Old Feeney, wise in war, had hit upon the strategy before the others; although any expert familiar with the terrain would thus have planned the taking of the city. That night Kuroki camped on the south side of the Taitse; and on the morning of the second day following was across with seventy thousand men. This by the grace of a corps of insignificant-looking engineers, busy little brown chaps who worked a miracle of pontooning—conquered a deep and rushing river without wetting a foot in Kuroki’s command. There had been rains, too, and between the showers, far salvos of cannon rode in from the west on the damp, jerky winds.
There is no place so good as here to drop a conventional figure of the Liaoyang field. The strategy of the battle is simple as a play in straight foot-ball. Japanese and Russian linesmen are engaged in a furious struggle south and southeast of the city. Imagine Kuroki, the Japanese half-back, breaking loose with the ball and dashing around the right end (crossing the Taitse River) and boring in behind toward the Russian goal—the railroad. This threatens the Russian communications. If the Russian full-back, Orloff, cannot defend the goal, the whole Russian line will be jerked up and out of the city to prevent being cut off from St. Petersburg. This leaves the field and the city to the Japanese. Here is the simplest possible straight line sketch of the city, river, railroad, and the position of the fighters when the battle began; also, shown by the arrow, the sweep of Kuroki’s now-famous end-run. [See drawing on next page.]
The midnight which ended August found the intrepid flanker launched straight at the Russian railroad at the point called the Yentai Collieries, nine miles behind the city.
“We’re locked tight in the Russian holdings this minute,” Finacune whispered, as he rode beside the grim veteran.
“Where did you think we were—on some church steps?” Feeney asked.
