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270 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
The big guns on East Kikuan then woke up, and
directed a very telling fire against the howitzers,
silencing them after a short time. Then the
Eastern Japanese batteries opened up and engaged
the East Kikuan guns, which took up the challenge
and answered back. When the fire against “ P
”
fort slackened the howitzers here recommenced
firing on the bomb-proofs, until the Russian fire
became too harassing, and in this way the artillery
on both sides improvised a little lever de rideau
before the real drama commenced. It reminded
me to a certain degree of the famous “ triangular
duel ” in one of Marryatt’s novels. The little
affair, lasting for about an hour, and without much
vehemence, was such as might be expected in the
daily routine of siege operations.
The explosion had been fixed for two o’clock
sharp ;
but a Russian shell had cut the electric
wire by which the charges were to be fired, so it
was a quarter of an hour later that the event took
place.
Suddenly out from the cone-shaped fort a huge
black column of smoke and earth and bits of
timber—possibly the bodies of men—shot sky-
wards with a lightning speed which rapidly dimin-
ished, until it stopped a couple of hundred feet up
in the air, where it widened out, forming an
immense canopy over the ill-fated fort. A few
moments later a second explosion took place,
sending another column of earth and smoke and
scarred ddbris in the wake of the former. And
then, before yet the ddbrts had fallen back on the
earth again, the red-badged volunteers sprang up
and stormed forth on their perilous errand.
Simultaneously a veritable hailstorm of shells was
showered over the rear of the fort from all the
Japanese positions, to augment the consternation
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