The first day Nurimiya went with his comrades against the north battery of the Cock’s Comb Fort, which was finally captured on December 18th. Thus, it took the Japanese four months of desperate work to accomplish that for which Nurimiya’s comrades were lost those seven days in August. Most of the regiment was wiped out in front of the Cock’s Comb. What was left, including Nurimiya, was ordered to reinforce the Seventh Regiment, operating to the right against the fort of the Eternal Dragon. Against the Cock’s Comb Nurimiya fought in the front line. He also had the same good fortune in the fight against the Eternal Dragon, for to the Japanese such an opportunity is considered good fortune. More of his comrades were lost here, including all that came from America. The following two days he lay with a few others hugging the base of the fort in the broiling sun, cut off from provisions. About this I asked him: “Were you thirsty?” He replied: “By-m-by very much want to drink, so I make water--red water.” With that he struck his wrist mimically showing that he had slit one of his veins to slake his thirst. But the great act of Nurimiya’s life came on the 25th of August, when he made the ninth assault he had participated in during the seven days--and the first successful one. Each Japanese infantryman carries in his breast a linen flag--a cheap affair that you might pick up in a department store for a few pennies--a red sun on a white field. The first man into an opposing trench or redoubt waves this flag above his head. It is a signal to his own artillery, showing them where they must not fire, and also acquaints the commanding officer, viewing the action from some eminence in the rear, with the situation. Nurimiya was the first man to wave his little flag over the Eternal Dragon. The Eternal Dragon was the only fort which the Japanese held in that permanent Russian line through the three months of August, September and October, and it was the object essential to the engineers in outlining their vast siege operations across the plain. Thus it was the San Francisco watchmaker who planted the flag of the Rising Sun on the key fort at Port Arthur. General Nogi chose Nurimiya and his fourteen comrades for body servants and relieved them for the rest of the campaign from active duty on the firing line. This is how I found him at the General’s house. I asked if he wanted to go back to America. He replied: “War all finish I go. Nogi-San need me I stay.” Then with great eagerness he told me how he wanted to get back into the fight and for the first time in all our acquaintance his eyes lost their dreaminess and the clasp of his hand became taut with energy. I did not tell him how I that morning had learned from the General himself that never again should Nurimiya be subjected to the supreme test. “Is it not pleasant here at headquarters, with the band, and the foreigners, and the nice cooking, and the easy work?” I asked.