Thus the battle continued for four days. The heaviest artillery work went on from all directions, but the heavy rains interfered with infantry work. The cannonading was desperate. At night, in the dense darkness, the scene was intensely fascinating. One, two, three, four guns would send out their tiny flames from one spot all in a heap; this would be followed {110} by a heavier gun, with its brighter flash momentarily lighting up the whole vicinity, the peculiar whistle of the threatening bomb would come nearer and nearer, and all the time one's fascination was hampered by this menace. Not often is it that foreigners in a strange land have war brought to their very rooftops to watch. But such was the case now, and from flat roofs foreigners in small parties breathlessly watched the proceedings. Over the country, among the plains and the lagoons, one could hear rifle-firing, and knew that somewhere in the dark Chinese were doing their best to lay low Chinese, but where no one could say. In the face of awful riflery the Revolutionists succeeded in crossing the Han, recaptured Chiaokow, which had been a stronghold of the enemy for some days, and were bringing a battery of field-guns near to the Chinese Racecourse, where their enemy had been strongly entrenched awaiting the assault, and working meantime towards the Han. After having captured Chiaokow, the Revolutionists fortified a well-covered spot with three three-inchers, and began pounding away whilst the Sing Seng Road Imperialist battery did some excellent shelling of the Racecourse (Chinese), which they had lost to the enemy. Heavy reinforcements then were sent outflanking widely, whilst the Revolutionists endeavoured to cross over and cut them off. Those days were devilish days. Such heavy infantry, at a range of a hundred yards or so, each opposing line fighting with its very lifeblood to force back the enemy, could never have happened anywhere but in China. The ring of the Maxim was a constant sound, and the stream of bleeding wounded constantly in the Foreign Concessions told only too sadly of the heavy losses incurred to both armies. And after all the net result of each day's fighting seemed to be of no advantage to either force. The most thrilling incident of the war took place on November 19th. Because we have been repeatedly {111} told that the Chinese are cowards, we Westerners have come to look on them as a half-hearted sort of fighters. Some decades ago people used to think the same of the Japanese, but, equally as they showed us through their war with Russia that their courage merely lay dormant, so the Chinese constantly showed us throughout this war of the Revolution that their courage was as great and as unflinching as one could imagine in any people.