s far so effectually hidden the movements of the Japanese troops
from the enemy, began to lift and thin. This was the signal for the
final movement prior to the storming of the Nanshan Heights; and that
movement was directed against the city of Kinchau, it being known by
this time that the devoted band of engineers who had been dispatched at
midnight to blow in the gates of the city must have failed in their
mission, otherwise some of them at least would have been back to report.

To the 1st Division was assigned the task of taking the city; and they
did it in brilliant style. Marching upon the southern gate, a party of
four engineers was sent forward to blow in the massive barrier, which
was protected by steel plates and bands, secured by heavy steel bolts,
and loopholed for musketry. The devoted quartette succeeded in placing
their blasting charges and igniting the fuses under a heavy fire, not
only from the loopholed gate, but also from the walls, but in so doing
they were so severely wounded that after they had lighted the fuses they
were unable to effect their escape, and received further severe injuries
when the explosion occurred and the gate was blown off its hinges. Then
the waiting 1st Division, straining like eager hounds held in leash,
rushed forward through the thick, acrid smoke, with levelled bayonets,
yelling "Banzai Nippon!" as they ran; and as they charged impetuously in
through the south gate, the enemy went streaming as impetuously out
through the west gate, about half a mile away.

Kinchau was now in the hands of the Japanese; but this was not
sufficient for them, they must needs pursue the flying Russians; and
they did so with such furious impetuosity that they literally drove them
into the sea--that is to say, into the waters of Kinchau Bay, where the
luckless Russians, to the number of five hundred, were either shot down
or drowned, almost to a man, only ten of them surviving and being taken
prisoners. I had a distant view of the whole affair from a knoll on the
northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, where I had taken up a position
which commanded a view, not only of practically the whole of the ground
over which the stormers would have to pass, but also of the bay and our
fleet, to which I should probably be required to signal from time to
time as the fight progressed.

Meanwhile, the mist had by this time lifted, revealing a flotilla of our
torpedo-boats and destroyers feeling their way in