It must be remembered that the fight was never over with the taking of the outer parapet. Inside the forts, beyond the parapets, well protected by moats and caponieres, was a sheltering earthwork called the contrascarp, crossing which, storming parties met a close and unerring fire from men concealed beyond, in ways formed of timber balks and sandbags, and called traverses. Below these traverses were galleries where the garrison lived; and below the galleries were the bombproofs protecting the ammunition. Under the traverses, covering the galleries and bombproofs, was heavy masonry from two to three feet thick.
To undertake the capture of the whole chain of fortifications by such sacrifices as those which gained a single one of the Keekwan forts might have entailed the extermination of the whole besieging army and of all the reinforcements which could have been sent to its support. But with one fortress in the chain in Japanese hands there was another way--sapping.
Through November the Japanese engineers were busy digging underground from the advantageous hold they had on the north battery. They started straight down through the solid rock. Only a few men could work at a time, and these could dig only while the trench protecting them, which was a few yards in advance, was held by their comrades, vigorously firing, to keep down the Russian garrison, now not more than a hundred feet away. Moreover, sometimes when the Japanese sappers were half concealed in the earth, sometimes when they were wholly underground, companies of desperate Russians would suddenly break forth on them, spurred by Stoessel’s promise of the Cross of St. George and a money prize to whoever should break up any Japanese work. Thus at night, hounded by shells, sleuthed by searchlights, and harassed by heroes from across the way, the hole was dug. Forty feet down it had to go to get below the level of the galleries and bombproofs, then another twenty feet forward to find a spot under the vitals of the fortification.
Stupendous as the task was, the tunnels were finished at last, and on December 18th a quarter of a ton of dynamite was placed in two such mines, and the galleries and bombproofs of the north battery were blown into the air, with the demolished bodies of some forty-five men of the garrison.