Occasionally we can see men moving a heavy gun about, or walking in squads through the town. The Japanese wait to concentrate their fire; they never harass the enemy. On the contrary, the Russians, now when they should hoard every shell, waste hundreds each day. They will fling a six-inch screamer at a mule or an umbrella, and no part of the Japanese rear is safe, though distances are so great that the chances of being hit are one in a thousand.
A reserve regiment leaving Dalny for the firing line eighteen miles away.]
All is quiet except that now and then a Russian shell whizzes. The sound can no longer be called the “boom of cannon,” so savage and rending is the detonation of these mighty modern charges. To hear one explode even half a mile off sets every fiber of the body in action, so angry is the report. Infantry popping can be heard, oftenest in the night, as the outposts come together, or the sentries chaff each other by showing dummy heads or arms. But over beyond that ragged line we know that twenty thousand men, driven into a corner--and what a corner it is!--are fighting like rats in a hole, that they are of the same blood that defeated Napoleon when on the defense a century ago, the same that half a century ago stubbornly contested Sebastopol, the same that a quarter of a century ago, at appalling loss of life, reduced the marvelous Plevna. They sit thus hunted, at bay, well ammunitioned and provisioned, determined to sell every ounce of blood dearly.
To take Port Arthur seems impossible. It takes men drunk with victory and strong in ancient might to dare the task. It is only looking at what the Japanese have already taken that makes one have faith in their ability to do what they are now trying; otherwise, looking across at that six-mile line, one would say as he might have said of the ridges lying behind us: human energy and prowess cannot force them; only madmen would attempt it. But the Japanese have already forced at least five positions, seemingly as difficult as Port Arthur. First, they took Nanshan, which was even worse than this, for the approaches were gradual for two miles, while here precipitous heights and deep ravines give shelter. Nanshan the Japanese took in a single desperate day; Kenzan, where they had to climb hand over hand, they scaled in a night; Witozan, where they broke in over parapets built on rocks seven hundred feet above the sea, they reduced at high noon; Anshirey, where the road climbs up a spiral for a mile, and is raked at every yard, they enfiladed and took in two days; and Taikushan, a saddle of malachite and granite straddling the main road to Port Arthur, they shelled out in thirty-six hours. Thus it is we have faith that some morning the world will wake to hear that the Rising Sun flies over Port Arthur, which the military experts of the Powers have declared impregnable.