The two leaders, grappling for an opportunity that each sought, bumping against the walls of the narrow moat, reached, without knowing it, an embrasure which led to the rear of the fort and into the gorge. Tripping over this, not knowing where they were going, the two plunged headlong down the slope. Above frowned two Russian batteries. Beyond rose the great red-capped sky line of the Cock’s Comb. A hundred yards, scratched by the stones, smashed by the shale, they slipped and writhed, until they struck a tiny plateau halfway down the mountain. Here the two, clinched, stopped as might a dislodged stone toppling from its socket. In the struggle Oda had been able to get his right arm free, which he reached over across his enemy’s back, grasping the hilt of his straight, samurai sword. Pulling it halfway out of the scabbard, which was tightly lashed to his waist, he sawed and pulled until the slender, tapering steel had gashed through the Russian’s clothing, full to his backbone.
Late the following night, after the sun had gone, Oda crawled into his own trenches at the base of the mountain. His men had been repulsed by a second party of Russians who had made a sortie to relieve the first. But, still the Japanese held the two caponieres in front and the Russians the two in the rear. Oda got no medals nor applause. Two days later a breast-wound which sent him to a hospital in Japan saved his life, for had he stayed he would have certainly gotten himself killed.
The Japanese during the first two nights hastily dug out approaches and had a partially covered way from the base of the mountain to the moat. This gave them their vital hold on the north battery of the Cock’s Comb. So resolute were the Russians in holding every inch of ground that it was a full month and a half after that before the Japanese could take the complete fortification. And when the complete fortification was taken it availed but little, for it was but one of three great batteries which formed the series known as East Keekwan, which was itself but a portion of the eastern line of permanent defenses.
To see how the rest of the great Northeast Keekwan (Cock’s Comb) Battery was taken is to see how Port Arthur was taken, for all the forts were reduced in the same way. 203-Meter Hill, the Two Dragons, the Eternal Dragon, Quail Hill, Wangtai, and the Pine Tree fell as did the Cock’s Comb. The only difference lay in incident.