“Hello! just arrived at the Eternal Dragon. Quiet this morning. Russian sortie last night. Repulsed. One Japanese, eighteen Russians lost--three wounded between the lines calling for water----”
“Wait a minute till I stop this infernal racket.” Down with the receiver. To the Colonel: “Can’t you stop that battery a minute? I’m at the ’phone.”
“All right, editor. Wounded man says--Hold on a minute. It’s that blasted volley firing. All right. I was saying, a wounded--Hell, here comes a shell!”
We turned another corner and came upon the commander of the regiment--a lieutenant-colonel, stern-faced, with that eternal smile, a countenance nationally characteristic. He welcomed us to his shelter between two walls--which the Russians had built and which our shells destroyed. His staff--a captain and a major--sat crosslegged on one side. We sat on a red-blanketed bench on the other. Crosslegged, on his red blanket, he was no better fitted than his men. At his side on a nail hung his sword and cap. Behind him suspended from two wires was the regimental flag, in a plush case. It is 30 years old, has been in 18 battles, and is all but gone from bullet fire. To the regiment it is a sacred emblem. This is the illustrious Seventh Regiment which captured the Eternal Dragon, after losing all but ten per cent. of its number and which now, after a month with the reserves when its ranks were replenished, is back for a week on sentry duty. So intense is the service there, one week in four is all a single regiment can stand. We were served with tea in daintily lacquered cups and then the lieutenant-colonel passed saké and tea, asking permission to drink our health.
An officer giving final instructions to his men before the Grand Assault of September 21. This photograph was taken in the front parallel, 300 yards from the Cock’s Comb Fort.]
“Where is the Colonel?” I asked the officer. Then he apologized again. He was sorry he couldn’t oblige me, but unfortunately the Colonel had been killed about twenty yards from where I then sat. His body had been cremated within three paces of my present seat. Just beyond the tent I could see his grave, should I look. I leaned out and in a niche of the wall saw a plain white stick ideographed in black. At the base was a bottle of flowers and a Chinese pumpkin. It contained the ration a soldier calls “iron,” and some sweetmeats beside a can of water. Then we knew what some living soldier had done. The ghost might come wandering back in the night and be hungry. It should not suffer. We went on to more tea with the new live Colonel and some sweetmeats which we utilized differently than the ghost had evidently utilized his. “How was he killed?” I asked. Then we heard the story of the capture of the Eternal Dragon.