Meanwhile, aloft, hell reigned. Shells constantly bursting apparently shattered guns and killed gunners, but when the dust cleared all was instantly life again, the gnomish figures busy--busy as ants with eggs. For a minute thus, then all would drop back into the earth simultaneously with the reply, and at the very moment that another Russian shell was in upon them.
Was it the same beyond in Namicoyama and in “203”? Doubtless the Russians were as safe, though with them the shells must have been multiplied by twenties, because the space of a few rods, lying exposed to every range, received the constant fire of every Japanese gun. The Russians had a wider target, a range of hills from which occasionally they could see smoke curling upward. It was far more difficult to hit than the Japanese target, for nothing was plain, all was guesswork. The Russians could not see a thing they were aiming at. A range of hills, seared with autumn, bare of husbandmen, innocent of apparent defense, alive with hissing venom, confronted them. They lashed it desperately as they could, frantically as a boy beset with nightmare. The little men had a plain target, parapets outlined against the sky, trenches clear and distinct. Yet the Japanese were often covered with dust from bursts on the slope beyond, and through the Valley of the Shadow the diabolic screeches mounted with the dying of day. Night came with the wild clamor on in full fury, the little brown squads still at the base of Namicoyama, the reserves creeping around toward “203.”
Could they climb it--that six hundred feet of almost perpendicular rock, where, in daytime, with sticks and hobnailed boots, the best of mountain climbers would have found an adventure? And they must go up dragging rifles, shrapnel dropping among them, shells bursting overhead, bullets mowing them down, not to rest at the top, but, once there, to plunge against troops well rested, superbly intrenched.
The reserves threw up shelter tents and staked down the flaps with heavy rocks, but the wind, howling across from the inlet, flung them to the laugh of the rising equinoctial. Some sought rest on bean straw, under blankets, the September moon streaming in, but there was no rest.