The "Medusa" moved up and threw a few shells in among them, while the "Perseus," "Amsterdam," and "Argus" fired over the hill from their station before Tanoura. This quieted the zeal of our warrior foes for a while, and we returned to the first battery we had dismantled, for the men to have their dinners. Crowdy of the Engineers, McBean the assistant-surgeon of the flagship and I divided a loaf of bread and a tin of sardines, which we opened with Crowdy's sword. There were no knives or forks handy, but that did not hinder us from satisfying our well-earned appetite as we sat on the steps of the magazine in the traverse. After dinner we helped the French to overturn the guns in their battery, which were four in number, very long 32-pounders, mounted on field carriages. The enemy still continued annoying us from their position up the valley, while some of our men kept up a fitful musketry fire in reply, without much damage on either side.
The afternoon being already far advanced, the signal to re-embark was made from the "Euryalus," and the French and Dutch detachments, some of the marine detachment, and the "Conqueror's" small-arms men, were already in their boats, when about six o'clock we saw Colonel Suther's battalion of marines returning from the Maeda mura 15-gun battery through a heavy fire from the Japanese. The Japanese on perceiving them threw a round shot in among them, but without doing any harm; our men replied, and for fifteen minutes there was nothing but ping, ping, ping on both sides. At last the Colonel came up to Captain Alexander and said:--"Where are these men who are annoying us. I've enough men to take any battery." "All right," replied Alexander, "I'll take the left side of the valley and you the right." So the marines clambered up into the French battery (the eastern-most one) and proceeded up the covered way, while the "Conqueror's" men disembarked again, and the advance commenced. Beato and I stuck close to Alexander, and followed the bluejackets across the paddyfields by the narrow "bunds," and then along the path on the western side of the valley. How the bluejackets shouted and cheered, each man running on by himself, now stopping to take aim at an enemy from behind one of the pine trees that lined the edge of the road, and then on again. There was no order or discipline. Some of them wasted their ammunition on imaginary foes on the hillsides. I passed several wounded men as I went up, some seriously hurt, and the corpse of a sailor who had been killed by an arrow.
