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.
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.