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174 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
ruins of what had once been strong, formidable
fortifications. Once the eastern fort-ridge had
been taken, he felt pretty sure that Port Arthur
would surrender—^not that the two other sections
which help to make up the fortress as a whole
would not be able to hold out for a long time
unsupported by the eastern forts, but because
during these last attacks two observations he
had made seemed to point to the end being not
far off.
At the storming of i8o Metre Hill an officer
and two men had been taken prisoners. The
officer was elderly, between fifty and sixty, a fine-
looking old soldier, with a long white full beard,
just the type of “the little father ” of his company,
still often found in Russia. During the slaughter
on the top of the hill this officer, who was wounded
in the arm, and the two men who looked after him,
had been spared, probably on account of his age
and his venerable looks. He told the officer of
General Nogi’s staff who received him on his
arrival at the ist Division’s headquarters that he
was a captain in the commissariat service ;
but
that during the last day’s fight he had been
commanding, as sole officer, no less than five
companies of infantry on i8o Metre Hill.
In the Shuishi lunettes, before they were evacu-
ated, the Russians had had time to destroy ail
their guns, but many other things, including
clothing and personal belongings, had to be left
behind, and from their regimental badges the
Japanese saw that the garrison of the lunettes
had been made up of soldiers and sailors of no
less than seventeen dilfferent regiments and ships’
crews. Both these facts seemed to point
decidedly to a scarcity of officers and men in the
enemy’s camp, and it was therefore not prepos-
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