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180 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
thing equal to them in fierceness and savagery
we must go back to the days of an Attila.
In the daytime the enemy’s “assiduous ob-
struction ” took other forms—shell, shrapnel, and
rifle-bullets, and later on, when the saps had been
carried close up to the forts, dynamite bombs
from the small mortars. The breastworks were
in many places and many times broken down by
the shells, the sandbags were torn to tatters and
the earth ran out, leaving an open gap, to pass
which the Russian sharpshooters then made a
difficult task. When the Russians, as often
happened, especially before their ammunition
began to run short, fired big shells into the
approaches, they not only demolished the breast-
works but the saps as well, killing a large number
of men. The Russians placed some of their best
marksmen in the attacked forts, and weeks of
steady practice made their firing so accurate that
it was very dangerous to peep through the small
loopholes in the sandbag walls of the parallels or
the approaches. Many a man took his last look
into the world through one of these small peep-
holes.
In this way sapping parties were never left in
peace by day or night, and it was no wonder that
of the total number of pioneers working in front
of Port Arthur, more than fifty per cent, were
placed hors de combat. But though the Russians
greatly obstructed and retarded the proceedings,
the Japanese worked their way steadily forward,
and every day brought them a little nearer to the
forts they intended to attack.
While the sapping operations thus went on, the
first of the “ big babies ” had been mounted, and
on October 2nd, after a couple of days’ practice
for the squads with blank cartridges, the first
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