About the same time several Chinese, accused of signalling, were brought in. Most of them were knocked all in a heap, so to speak, with fright; but one handsome, affable youth, who spoke two or three words of " pigin " Russian, used an amount of diplomacy which, considering the great disadvantages under which he laboured, was truly magnificent, although at times the awful fear clutching at his heart would show for a second through this veneer of self-confidence. Unable to make much use of his tongue, which must have been a very sugary one in his own language, he used his fine almond eyes and winning smile with all the skill of a coquette; but he might just as well have ogled a milestone. I did not go to see him killed, but employed myself more usefully in going around the village with Rikacheff, trying to find a vacant house, for it was rather crowded at the general's. We were astonished to discover one fine house quite empty, and on inquiring why it had not been occupied, we were told that it was because a Japanese bullet had come through the roof on the previous day and killed a soldier as he was eating his dinner. Flattering ourselves that we, at any rate, were free from superstitious fears, Rikacheff and I at once took up our abode here, but when darkness fell we suddenly discovered that it was a mistake after all to separate ourselves from the Staff.
On Monday, the 6th, things were again quiet, and even monotonous. This was all the better for us, as it showed that, in spite of their five or six general assaults daily, the Japanese had practically failed to move us from the positions we had taken up west and south-west of Mukden on the 4th. A day or so more and we would take root in those positions, as we had taken root in the positions south of the Hun after the battle of the Shaho. That day or so was not to be given us. On the 7th Nogi began one of the most terrible assaults in history.
MARCH 5, 6 AND 7 273
On the morning of that day I was awakened about an hour before dawn by the roar of thirty Russian batteries, 240 cannon, and by the continuous explosion of Japanese shells.
I shall not soon forget the scene. It was the bare interior of a wretched Chinese hovel, which the staff had casually appropriated at a late hour the night before — I may here remark that, whether from chance or design, we slept in a different village every night — and I found myself lying on the " kang " wrapped in a Russian pelisse and with a brick for a pillow. There were several colonels on the same " kang," and the ground was strewn thick with orderlies, who were lying around in such a way as to suggest that they had all been killed by a shell. One, a Don Cossack, was even lying asleep in the doorway.
There was a light in the adjoining room, and an excited voice was calling into a telephone. There seemed to be some difficulty about getting the party at the other end to understand, for the same phrase was frequently repeated. It was to the effect that the Japanese were advancing against Fudyatun, and that this was the commencement of a grand general attack on the part of the enemy. In the subsequent conversation the names of General Churnin (the gallant defender of Yangshihtun), General Roussanoff, General Pavloff (the commander of the Transbaikal brigade), and of other leaders were frequently mentioned. Sometimes it would be Tserpitsky himself that would shriek into that telephone. Sometimes it would be his adjutant, Yannoffsky. Now it was the General Staff at Mukden that was communicated with; now it was some of the subordinate leaders in the firing line.
Meanwhile the Transbaikal and Stryelkovi cannon almost deafened us. Louder and louder became the roar; swifter, angrier, more insistent, more breathless. And the greater grew that iron-throated clamour, the less confident I felt. I fancied I could detect in this frightful bellowing a whine of terror, a distinct note of fear. All this uproar simply meant that those yellow demons were just at their best for offensive purposes, when they should, had they been human beings at all, have been tired to death by their innumerable onslaughts for more than a week past. How could we continue to withstand such a people?