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FIRST GLIMPSE OF PORT ARTHUR 29
soldiers ;
for him this popular expectancy was only
of a secondary consideration ;
he knew that his
troops were urgently needed up north, where his
colleagues, Generals Oku, Nodzu, and Kuroki,
had their hands full with fighting Kuropatkin
and his ever-increasing army. If he could take
Port Arthur and so be able to release 50,000
or 60,000 men and send them up to Liaoyang, it
would go a long way to secure the Japanese
success on this, the really all-important part of
the theatre of war.
His eyes wandered over the Russian lines.
What he saw was this :
Right under the foot-hills in front of him
stretched a broad valley, through which the
Trans-Manchurian railway runs down to the sea
and into Port Arthur. Down here the valley is
quite narrow, but as it extends north, the hills on
both sides recede until, at the large village of
Shuishi, it opens up and forks out to both sides,
sending one branch west to Louisa Bay and
another eastwards to Takushan. The whole of
the valley is fairly level, but, especially in its
eastern parts, the ground is undulated, and forms
in many places dead ground, where camps may
be built and batteries erected, masked from the
view of the enemy, and where the infantry can
find shelter during an advance against the forts.
Another feature of this country are the many
sluits or dongas or nullahs or whatever name
conveys to you the clearest idea of crevices in
the soil, generally generating where the steep
hill- sides end and the gentler lower slopes begin,
and which, increasing in depth and width as they
pass along, provide ready-made approaches for
an attacking force—though the Russians had
arranged to have most of them under enfilading
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