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210 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
ceeded first in placing the bombs in the loopholes
of the three next chambers, forcing the Russians
to evacuate them, so that the Japanese now held
the five western chambers of the caponier gallery.
While they had thus succeeded fairly easily in
capturing this part of the moat defences, the
taking of the remaining portion proved to be a
slow and difficult process. For nearly three
weeks they fought desperately, day and night,
down in these underground dungeons, where even
in daytime the light was dim and dull, to get
possession of the next two chambers ( “ f
”
and “ g ”
).
When the explosion in the rooms “c,” “d”
and “ e” took place, the Russians had to scurry
back, and the Japanese followed so quickly that
there was no time to block the doorway. The
Japanese tried to rush through this narrow opening,
but were met by the Russians with bayonets and
dynamite grenades, and as there was only room for
a couple of men to advance at a time, they were
unable to break through. Fresh attempts to
attack these rooms from the moat side utterly
failed, so for weeks the opponents were standing
with only a concrete wall between them, fighting
for the possession of a narrow doorway.
The room “ e ” was for most of the time empty,
hand grenades and other devilry made it too lively
for any one to stay in. Sometimes a man, pushing
a sandbag in front of him, would creep on his
stomach so near to the doorway that he could
throw a dynamite bomb over the sandbag wall
which the Russians meanwhile had had time to
build up to a man’s height, leaving a couple of
loopholes for rifles ;
but more often than not the
man was discovered before he could throw his
bomb, and a hand grenade put an end to his
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