It seems ages and ages before the line-sergeant and his deploying figures leap to the skyline, reel for an instant, and disappear. The grist from the hopper below hastens and the rifle-butts spring from ground to shoulders. It was the first man who was needed. Now that the charm is broken, they no longer skulk, but run eagerly to the crater and tumble in. The hopper has fed well-eared corn into the mill, and it has come out ground meal. The grits lie scattered all along the slope. Some move. The most lie still, their battle with cold nights in exposed trenches finished, sentry duty done. And in many a thatched cot among the rice paddies across the sea the old hataman will tell to his gray wife how their boy helped take Port Arthur, and both will make a little journey to the sacred mountain to assure the fathers they are thankful to have bred brave stock.
At a quarter-past one the young lieutenant started on his mad errand, supported by the same mechanism. At a quarter-past two the flag of the Rising Sun floated from both north corners of the P fort. At a quarter-past three the stretcher-bearers are on the slope searching among the huddled figures. They move swiftly along, turning a figure over, giving it a quick look and dropping it with business precision; to another, dropping it; to another, pausing, out with the lint, perhaps the hypodermic needle, perhaps a sip from the tea flask, the arms of one bearer hastily passing under the arms of the figure of the other under the knees, dropping it on the stretcher, passing in and out among the shell holes, down the hill, while back on the slope the carrion figures lie with the slant of the setting sun struggling through the clouds to flash over the bayonets beside them!
Meanwhile, over the rest of the vast field, of which the P fort was but a fragment, the assault had been continuing. The Russian fire had not abated. As soon as they saw the P fort was gone they turned their shells into the redoubt itself, and cut up our forces where they were seeking cover in the very places their own shells had previously destroyed. But the slopes of the other three forts were kept just as hot as in the beginning. The moment the thin line advanced, that moment the hail commenced, and it ceased only when the line ceased; nor did it entirely cease then, for shrapnel was dropped above the forms, those huddled and those lying curiously straight.