On we went until another hill loomed before us, and at the foot of this hill we waited for the dawn. By and by another cavalcade approached, the military attachés, equally impressive, equally mysterious, equally solemn and expectant. And on that little hill we waited, in the cold wind and drifting sleet and rain, the correspondents huddled on top, the cloaked attachés stalking along on a little terrace some thirty feet below, everybody straining his eyes through the darkness to see the first flash of a gun. Morning came and we were still straining--big Reggie nibbling a hard-boiled egg on the very summit of the hill, a Lieutenant-General of the English Army patrolling the terrace like some "knight-at-arms alone and palely loitering," because no shells sang, and the rest of us dotting the muddy mound with miserable, shivering shapes, while wind, rain, and cold made merry over the plight of all. The Three Guardsmen moved restlessly about, speaking words of good cheer; but something was happening to that battle and we got tired of straining and began to walk recklessly around that hill and borrow chocolate and tobacco and bread from one another for breakfast. Even the Guardsmen got uneasy--hopeless--and once I found myself on the other side of the hill, where one of them lay huddled in his army coat. For a little while we talked inter-continental differences. "We do not understand, we Occidentals, why the Japanese prefers to commit hara-kiri rather than be captured, and we argue this way: If I allow myself to be captured, I may be exchanged or escape, and thus have a chance to fight another day; if not, my enemy has to take care of me and feed me, so that I reduce his force and resources just that much. If I kill myself I make a gap in my own ranks that I can't fill again. If I accept capture, I am worrying and exhausting you all the time. The only good I can see in hara-kiri is the effect that it might have on the fighting capacity of the men who are left. Is there any economic consideration of that sort under the Japanese idea?" The Guardsman shook his head. "No," he said, "it is instinct with us; but," he added presently, "I think we are coming around to your point of view, and I think we will come around to it more and more. You see, we have transferred the Buschido spirit of feudalism into the army. The loyalty of Samurai to Daimio has been transferred to soldier and officer, and this instinct for hara-kiri is so great an element in the Buschido spirit that I think our officers are a little fearful about trying to change it too rapidly." But a Japanese will not talk long about such matters with a foreigner. The Guardsman pulled a little brass check covered with Chinese characters from his pocket. "This is how we identify our dead," he said. "Every soldier carries one of these, and every officer."