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232 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
human courage which so distinguished them
during the first part of the campaign.
There are many indications that the latter
conjecture is the correct one.
After the unsuccessful attacks on the Tragedy
Trench on November 23rd the 12th regiment,
which had borne the brunt of the fighting here,
had to be withdrawn and replaced by another.
At the attack on December i8th against North
Kikuan fort the 22nd regiment, which had fought
its way against this stronghold from the very
beginning, and which was designed to make the
ultimate assault, was, at the very last moment,
ordered back by the divisional commander, and a
new regiment was sent forward, because the
General “ read fear in their faces,” according to
his own expression.
When the officers who took part in the attacks
on Sungshuh, Erhlung, and North Kikuan forts on
November 26th tried to tell me of this terrible
fight, they described how the inner of the forts had
been constructed as a maze of sandbag bomb-
proofs, and how in the narrow passages and
ingeniously prepared cuts de sac they got lost, and
were mowed down by the rifles and machine guns
of their invisible foes ;
or how a Russian force,
which had been concealed in some dark narrow
side-passage, charged down upon them with
bayonets and hand grenades. This tale, though
I heard it from several persons, seemed at once to
be most improbable. I could not conceive how
such a “ maze ” of sandbag breastworks and
bomb-proofs, if they ever had existed, had been
able to resist the furious bombardment which was
poured in over the forts for many hours just before
the attacks. I thought that such improvised
arrangements must have been shelled to wrack and
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