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214 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
There were only a few Russians in this part of
the gallery when the Japanese pioneers rushed up
with dynamite charges. Most of them succeeded
in retreating behind the partition wall before the
explosion took place, but two, who had been
standing sentry at the loopholes of the entrance
wall, were severely wounded and, for a time,
stunned by the shock. When they regained
consciousness, the opening in the next wall had
been blocked up. They dragged themselves to
it and begged and beseeched their comrades to
break down the wall to let them in.
It was impossible. They had to be left with-
out, lying hard wounded and helpless on the
floor close up to the position. Meanwhile, the
Japanese wall came nearer and nearer, slowly but
surely, until the two wretches were first hemmed in
between the two walls and then buried alive under
the sandbags. When I visited the place the
same day, their meanings could still be heard.
The following day the Japanese crept up on
top of their own breastwork, and commenced
tearing the Russian sandbags away. They soon
made an opening, and though the Russians stood
their ground with grim determination, and fought
like demons for hours over this small wall across
the narrow passage, the Japanese eventually
succeeded in driving them back, whereupon they
took refuge behind the next sandbag wall, some
forty feet further along the passage.
In this manner the Japanese worked their way
from wall to wall, from one dark chamber to
another—for in this part of the passage no light
could penetrate—fighting with such a fiendish
savagery and under conditions so revolting and
so ghastly, that they are unparalleled even in the
chronicles of this long, terrible siege, —until the
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