CHAPTER XXI

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*The Battle of the Yalu River*

The Impossible--Stage Properties--Outwitted--The Battle Opens--Russians at Bay--Yamaguchi's Experiences

"It is clear, Mr. Fawcett, that you have the bump of locality."

"I am not sure of that, sir. What I remember of these hills is due to the Manchu Chang-Wo. We were continually looking back, expecting to see him on our track."

"At any rate you seem to have brought away a remarkably vivid impression of the country--fortunately for us. This path, bad as it is, has saved us an immensity of labour, and--what is more important--time."

General Inouye pulled up his horse as he spoke, and looked back upon the long line of troops zigzagging up the face of the mountain. The blue uniforms of the Japanese soldiers showed up clearly against the bare ochreous rocks of the hillside, offering a conspicuous mark to the enemy, had the enemy been there to see. But these rugged, precipitous hills had always been regarded as impracticable for troops; the Russians had no fear of attack from this quarter, and had made no attempt to occupy them.

There was an unusually large prospect from the spur overhanging the deep gully on which General Inouye and Bob stood side by side. Above them the road disappeared abruptly round the face of the mountain; below, it wound erratically down the boulder-strewn slope, here and there plunging out of sight in a hollow, to emerge again, it might be hundreds of yards lower down, as a narrow ledge on the face of a perpendicular crag, on which the Japanese troops seemed in the distance like an army of ants on the march.

These were the hills through which Bob and his party had made their perilous journey some weeks earlier. They lay on the left flank of the Russian army drawn up around Kiu-lien-cheng, and on the banks of the Yalu, to hurl back the Japanese when they attempted to set foot in Manchuria. General Sassulitch fondly hoped that these hills would afford a complete protection to his flank: as the event was ordered, it was from them that he sustained his most crushing blow. The Twelfth Division, known to the Japanese as the Sampo Shidan in consequence of its large equipment of mountain-guns, was chosen to make the hazardous passage, and to any troops of less endurance than the Japanese, the task might well have proved impossible; for they were not only required to cross a series of steep mountain ridges, but to do so within a very limited time, and to bring their guns with them. Bob watched the steady progress of the column with many a thrill of admiration, and with pride that he was privileged to bear a small part in this momentous movement. Burdened with its artillery, ammunition, and supplies, the column moved steadily forward; now crawling with infinite pains up almost perpendicular slopes, the willing little soldiers pushing, hauling, at times almost carrying the wretched horses and ponies groaning under guns, gun-carriages, or boxes of shell; then with no less strain staggering, slipping, sliding down the opposite face of the hill, to begin another climb in this unending series of bluffs and chasms.

The march had begun early in the day; it was now late in the afternoon, and Bob more than once saw General Inouye looking anxiously westward. They rounded the shoulder of a steep hill; half a mile or more ahead a small body of cavalry thrown out in advance had halted, evidently in doubt as to their further course.

"To the left," said Bob, answering General Inouye's unspoken question, "across that small spur, and straight up the farther slope."

The general translated the instructions to an aide-de-camp, who clattered down the hill at the imminent risk of his neck.

"You say, Mr. Fawcett, that in another hour we should open up the Ai-ho river?"

"Yes, sir. As far as I remember we sighted the river from the crest of yonder hill." Bob pointed, as he spoke, to a conical hill about two miles ahead, behind which the sun was now setting in a blaze of glory. Within the hour General Inouye and his staff had gained the crest of the hill, and were looking down on the noisy little river hurrying through a narrow valley to join the Yalu some miles below. On the far side of the stream was another range of hills, upon which, as General Inouye was aware, the main Russian force was concentrated. It was against these hills that the Twelfth Division would hurl itself at dawn on the following day.

Approaching the Ai-ho the hills became somewhat less rugged, facilitating the deployment of General Inouye's force along the left bank of the river. The Twelfth Division had arrived in good time at the appointed place; with guns unlimbered for action, it waited only for the word.

"Good-night, Mr. Fawcett," said General Inouye when they separated; "good-night, and thank you. You have rendered us a most valuable service--how valuable the events of to-morrow may show."

Bob spent the night in the bivouac of the staff. Even the prospect of the coming struggle failed to disturb his sleep. He had gone through too many experiences of late not to take full advantage of any chance of rest.

The position of the two armies that lay facing each other through the long summer night was in many respects an extraordinary one. The river Yalu is joined nearly opposite Wiju by the Ai-ho; above and below the confluence its channel is dotted with numerous large islands, between which the stream threads a tortuous and at times impetuous course. At the angle formed by the two rivers is Tiger Hill, a steep bluff jutting far out into the channel. Just below the hill runs the Mandarin road from Seoul to Pekin, passing from Wiju on the south bank, across two sandy islands connected by a ferry, and thence to Kiu-lien-cheng, on the Manchurian side, a short distance to the north of the river.

[Illustration: The Battle of the Yalu River Showing the flanking movement of the 12th Division]

The Russian front, before the development of General Kuroki's attack, extended from a point opposite Yongampo at the mouth of the Yalu to Sukuchin, some thirty miles up the river, and above Wiju. The main body was massed around Kiu-lien-cheng, the left wing having its outposts on Tiger Hill and the islands in the river above that point, while the right had outposts on the larger islands opposite Wiju. A strong force was held in reserve at Antung.

On his ride up from Wiju Bob had been greatly puzzled by a series of huge screens of brushwood, matting, and stalks placed along or across the roadway. What object, he wondered, could they serve? It was not until he reached the high ground near the Yalu that their purpose became clear to him. He saw then that the heights on the Russian side of the river completely overlooked the lower hills on the Korean bank; in ordinary circumstances every movement could be observed from the Russian lines; the numbers and dispositions of troops, the construction of fortifications and batteries, could all be noted with the aid of strong field-glasses. From the Japanese point of view this was a serious weakness of the position. Secrecy is so essential a condition of the Japanese system of conducting warfare that General Kuroki was led to adopt a novel and somewhat extraordinary method of baffling the curiosity of the enemy. Looking back from a point of vantage near the river, Bob saw a force of blue-coated Japanese infantry marching to the front along the Mandarin road. Suddenly they disappeared behind a leafy screen, and though he watched carefully, expecting to see them emerge again farther along the highway, he was unable to detect any further sign of their presence. The incident recalled a conjuring trick of Mr. Maskelyne; and to the Russians beyond the river it must have been both puzzling and irritating. Thanks to this system of screens they could neither form an estimate of the strength of the Japanese opposed to them, nor make any likely guess as to the probable point of attack. Their position was one of extreme strength; but uncertainty regarding General Kuroki's movements largely discounted the advantages they enjoyed as a defensive force entrenched among rugged hills. Here and there, indeed, General Kuroki allowed them to obtain a hint of his arrangements; they snapped at the bait--with what result is now written in history.

It was nearly ten years since the Japanese Field-marshal Yamagata had forced the passage of the Yalu in the face of a Chinese army supposed to be impregnably entrenched in the positions now held by the Russians. The main crossing had been made opposite Wiju, but the principal movement was greatly assisted by the passage of a column higher up the river at Sukuchin. General Sassulitch must anxiously have asked himself whether the Japanese would or would not repeat this operation. Patriotic self-complacency probably suggested the answer. Was it likely that the Japanese would dare to repeat against a trained and disciplined Russian army the manoeuvre, necessarily hazardous, which they had risked against raw Chinese levies? Emphatically no. And in arriving at this conclusion the Russian general was assisted by an ingenious feint on the part of his opponent. With an openness that should have inspired distrust, General Kuroki collected a large amount of bridging material on the Korean shore at Yongampo and higher up the river opposite Antung, while a strong naval flotilla, comprising torpedo-boats, destroyers, and gun-boats, fought its way some distance up-stream, as though in support of a projected crossing in the lower reaches. To meet the expected attack in this quarter the Russian general kept a large body of troops elaborately entrenched in readiness at Antung, and allowed his attention to be diverted from the point thirty miles higher up, at which the first crossing had been made ten years earlier.

General Kuroki had completely taken the measure of his adversary. Having persuaded General Sassulitch to disperse his troops over an unnecessarily large front, he made careful dispositions to ensure a successful passage of the river at Sukuchin, and under cover of a flank attack from this quarter he proposed to pass the main body of his army across the island-strewn channel opposite Wiju. The Twelfth Division, entrusted with the flank movement, had easily driven away a small Russian force stationed on the right bank opposite Sukuchin, thrown a pontoon bridge across the river, and established itself on the right bank almost without opposition. The Russians made no attempt to correct their mistake, so convinced were they that the real danger lay towards the mouth of the river. Besides, were they not sufficiently protected by the chain of impassable ridges that stretched far inland between the Yalu and the Ai-ho? Yet it was across these impassable ridges that the Twelfth Division had orders to make its way, and establish itself on the left bank of the tributary stream in readiness for a general attack on the Russian position. This movement, as we have seen, was duly carried out. It was the eve of May-day.

A fierce artillery duel had meanwhile been fought between the Japanese batteries near Wiju and the Russian positions around Kiu-lien-cheng. In this battle of the giants the Russians were completely outmatched--another triumph of Japanese secrecy and prevision. Unknown to the enemy the Japanese had brought by sea to the Yalu a large number of quick-firers and heavy guns, and, most important of all, several howitzers. To these the Russians could only oppose a limited number of field-pieces. A movement of Japanese infantry towards the crest of the hills on the Korean side drew the fire of the Russian batteries and disclosed their position. They were at once answered by an appalling cannonade from the Japanese batteries. From the islands in the river, from the heights north and south of Wiju, the Japanese rained a murderous fire of shell and shrapnel upon the luckless Russian gunners. There was no escape, for they had not reckoned with the howitzers cunningly placed in pits on the islets beneath, and able to search the whole Russian position with high-angle fire. The hills seemed to wilt under the storm; the earth was riddled, the very rocks were rent with the hail of lead and steel scattered by the bursting charges of the terrible Shimose powder. A thick pall of poisonous smoke hung over the devoted Russian batteries; nothing could live under this shattering bombardment. The Russians stuck to their guns like heroes; never certainly did soldiers deserve better of their country. But gradually their fire slackened, then died away: the gunners lay dead at their posts.

That night the Guards and the Second Division of the Japanese army were passed by two bridges across the river, and took up a position on the right bank, sheltered under the bluffs or in the hollows in the sandy bed of the stream. The Second Division had crossed somewhat below Wiju to an island on the far side of the channel, the Guards immediately opposite Tiger Hill. The Russians were now threatened with a frontal attack by these two divisions--the Second operating direct from the Yalu, the Guards across the mouth of the Ai-ho--while the Twelfth Division, higher up the Ai-ho, was ready to attack them in flank.

Bob was tingling with excitement when he awoke on the auspicious morning of May-day. The air was crisp and keen, but spring had come at last; spring, and with it the dawn of a new era for Japan. General Inouye's camp was early astir; the sturdy little soldiers, in their trim blue uniforms, went about their morning duties with quiet cheerfulness, ready to launch themselves at the word upon the grim hills opposite, where death, they knew, awaited some; glory, they hoped, all.

Too late the Russian general had realized his fatal error in allowing the Twelfth Division to march unopposed across the hills. Too late he had taken such feverish steps as were now possible in the attempt to retrieve it. He had withdrawn in haste a considerable force from Antung to hold the bluffs on the right bank of the Ai-ho, and hurriedly begun to throw up entrenchments. General Inouye smiled when he learnt of these tardy efforts to stay him; plans carefully thought out for years were not likely to be foiled by bustle at the eleventh hour.

Hardly had the sun risen when the battle was begun by a general outburst of artillery fire along the whole of the Japanese lines. There was no response from the enemy; it almost seemed as if the position were already deserted. But soon the order was given to the Japanese infantry to advance to the assault. The three divisions moved forward simultaneously. Bob could not see what the other two were doing, but he watched with tense eagerness as the Twelfth Division dashed down the hillside to the bank of the Ai-ho. A murderous rifle-fire was opened upon them from the Russian trenches. But never a man faltered. Springing on nimbly, some taking what cover the ground afforded, others disdaining precaution, they reached the stream. They plunged in, holding their rifles and pouches above their heads, and forcing their way against the rapid current that swept along breast-high. They had now entered the zone of fire; the surface of the river boiled under the hail of Russian bullets; the turbid waters were red with Japan's best blood; but to Bob, watching intently from the hill above, the sound of their war-song came floating upon the morning breeze--

"Oh! it is easy to cross the Yalu river!"

and, with sublime and happy indifference, they struggled on.

Look: they are gaining the farther bank. At last--it seems an eternity!--the river is crossed. Up, up they scramble, scaling the bluffs in grim silence now. The air rattles with the crack of rifles, throbs with the thud of heavy guns. Men are falling fast, but the survivors are still pressing on, up the murderous heights, ever drawing nearer to the enemy on the crest. Bob, his whole body a-tingle, can bear his inaction no longer. He turns to a senior officer of the staff:

"May I follow them up, sir? I have nothing to do now."

"You had better stay with us," replied the officer with a smile, lowering his field-glass; "still, if you wish--"

Bob does not wait for second thoughts. He races down the hill, wades the river, and springs up the bluff in time to overtake the rear of the advancing line. What impels him he knows not; all he feels is that he must be there--there, at the supreme moment of the conflict. He gains the crest and looks eagerly ahead. Ah! the Russians are falling back, and back, and back; not in rout, but sullenly retreating to the next ridge, turning there at bay, occupying every post of vantage, and pouring thence their terrible fire. They will not wait, then, for push of pike? No; and when they have discharged their rifles they run again. Nothing stays the advance. The Japanese swarm up and over every new position, the enemy scurry like rabbits before them, and now, as the pace quickens, and the victors drive the fugitives up hill and down dale across these rugged pathless hills, the retreat becomes a rout, and the little soldiers raise a great shout of joy.

While the Twelfth Division had thus triumphantly performed the great operation entrusted to them, their comrades of the Second and Guards Divisions had pressed home their attacks on the Russian front. The whole of General Sassulitch's army was in full flight on Homatan and Feng-huang-cheng. General Kuroki had only a small force of cavalry to pursue the retreating enemy; he had to rely largely on the speed and endurance of his infantry, and they pressed on the heels of the Russians with a relentless activity which, in this mountainous country, no cavalry could have equalled. The guns, even the mountain batteries, specially equipped for speedy transit, were left miles behind, and three of the leading Japanese companies, having outstripped the rest of the pursuing infantry, found themselves terribly outmatched when the Russians at last turned at bay on the plateau of Homatan. The three companies of Japanese were suddenly confronted by a battalion of infantry and two battalions of artillery, strongly posted on the plateau; but with magnificent determination they stuck like bull-dogs to their grip, and engaged the enemy, holding them in fierce fight until reinforcements should come up. The Japanese had only their rifles to oppose to the combined artillery and musketry fire of the Russians. In the company to which Bob had attached himself three out of every four men were either killed or wounded, yet the gallant survivors stuck to their posts. Bob marvelled how he came unscathed through the hail of shot and shell; it seemed that the little force must be annihilated. Still the gallant remnant held on; and at length, when they were at their last cartridge, help came. Other companies of Japanese infantry swarmed up to the plateau. The Russian gunners, seeing that all was lost, wrenched the breech-blocks from the guns, hammered the sights, and broke the levers. Then came a terrible three minutes' melee, in which the bayonet did its murderous work. Most of the Russians died at their posts; three hundred were captured, together with the guns of the two batteries. It would be hard to say whether the fight at Homatan was more glorious to the victors or to the vanquished.

This was the last stand of the Russian army. The pursuit from this point was taken up by the small force of Japanese cavalry, and the wearied infantry, after an action almost unparalleled in military history, bivouacked on the field.

The officers of the company extended to Bob a hearty welcome to their mess; the menu consisted of the usual rations of the rank and file: rice, dried fish and pickles, washed down in water from a neighbouring mountain stream.

Bob was eating as heartily as the rest when he was startled by a familiar voice behind him.

"How do, Bob?"

He sprang up, and almost choked himself in the eagerness with which he welcomed no other than his friend Yamaguchi.

"Well--I'm--blowed!" he ejaculated, shaking hands so vigorously that Yamaguchi at length laughingly protested. "How in the world do you come here?"

"You don't bear me a grudge, then? I was very sorry; but I had to leave you with those Cossacks, you know."

"Don't mention it; I'm only too glad you got away safely--though, in truth, your dastardly desertion of me has landed me in a pretty pickle of fish. But I'll forgive you; I'd forgive anybody to-day. Isn't this glorious, old fellow? Did you see the fight?"

"I had a little part in it. We've been working in the lower reaches of the river. General Kuroki deluded the Russians into the belief that our main crossing was to be effected there. Sassulitch swallowed it whole. I had to land some men yesterday on a small island above Yongampo. We were stormed by the enemy. I withdrew the survivors in boats, and unluckily my boat sank and I was knocked over by a splinter from a Russian shell. They picked me up and carried me off to Antung, and then towards Feng-huang-cheng, but our cavalry came up and released me, and here I am."

"Got a bad knock?" asked Bob, noticing that his left arm was bound up.

"Oh no! a bit of the muscle torn away, that's all. But come, I'm sure you've more to tell than I have. I want to know what you've been about since you deserted the _Kasumi_."

Bob's story necessarily occupied a long time in the telling, but Yamaguchi listened with growing excitement, never interrupting until Bob came to the point where Kobo had rescued him from the tower.

"Ah!" said the Japanese. "You came across Kobo? I put you off the scent, didn't I? Of course it was he I was in communication with on those night expeditions from the _Kasumi_. But go on; your story's quite a romance."

Bob proceeded with his narrative. When he told how Kobo had been captured almost within sight of safety, Yamaguchi looked distressed.

"That's a national loss," he said. "We can't spare a man like Kobo San. That monster Chang-Wo will torture him--to wrench information out of him if he can--of course he can't--in sheer devilry at any rate. And the worst of it is nothing can be done for him--nothing."

"I'm going to try," said Bob quietly.

"You! You've had enough adventure, I should think, to last you a lifetime. You'll be made mincemeat of yourself if Chang-Wo gets hold of you."

"Nevertheless, I'm going to try. Kobo saved my life. I should be an ungrateful beast if--Well, it won't bear discussion. I shall see General Kuroki as soon as I can, and get his leave."

"You're a good fellow--upon my word, you are. I wish you luck. If another than Kobo were concerned I'd do my best to hold you back, but for him--I'd do it myself if I could. He's worth it. But I have to be off to Antung to-morrow, and then rejoin my ship. Shall we see you on board again?"

"I don't know. Perhaps--if I find Kobo."

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