“Beneath this your elder brothers’ ashes are buried! Above here your comrades’ spirits must be soaring, unable to find an eternal place of rest! Men die, but their souls do not perish. Your comrades in the world beyond are fighting with you in this great struggle!” were the words with which I used to stimulate men under my command. Through the abundant grace of Heaven and the illustrious virtue of His Majesty, the Imperial forces defeated the great enemy both on land and sea. Our arms were crowned with an unparalleled success and our country with awe-inspiring dignity and world-wide glory. And the peninsula wrested from us is once more under our care, the neglected graves of those who perished in the unsuccessful struggle ten years ago are once more being properly attended to. The story of how over one million men left their homes and country, ready and willing to die for the great cause, and of how they passed eighteen months of hardship and privation among the mountains of Liaotung, on the plains of Manchuria, and on the waters of the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, will forever be told to posterity in the history of our country. The record of the great Russo-Japanese War will be written by the pens of able historians and writers. I simply as an insignificant fighter who took part in what may be called some of the hardest and ugliest battles in the annals of warfare and of strategy, of all times and of all nations, propose herein to describe with a hand not at all familiar with the holding of a pen, recollections of what I personally experienced and observed in the siege of Port Arthur, so that those who have not been in a similar position may picture to themselves the actual scene as best they can. TADAYOSHI SAKURAI. HUMAN BULLETS [Illustration: Japanese kanji Ch. I.] MOBILIZATION