At length I found myself where the pewit of bullets beat a quickstep for the inferno aloft. It was on the crest in front of the farthest field artillery, at the rear of the parallels in which the infantry lay, huddled masses of blue dabbed above with glints of bayonet steel, waiting for the assault. Occasionally the sun came out and sent a heliograph message from those bayonets to me, and then, like myself, sought cover again. The four forts slated for attack by the two divisions in my view lay directly in front, about a mile and a half by parallels and approaches, but, as my vision went, eight hundred yards for the nearest, fifteen hundred for the farthest. From the rear that assorted pack of war-dogs flung suspense and agony, surprise and death, over my head. Beyond, the forts, hung like a corona of barbarous gems on the brow of the mountain range, gushed forth pain and disgust. The Pine Tree fort (Shodzuzan) on the extreme right was afire, had been for two hours, and the smoke from it, blown by a northwest wind, lifted raggedly square across the field. Through the slight haze each explosion opposite could be seen, as it tore out, now a chunk of a mountain and now a crater from a parapet. About half-past twelve the star bomb chamber of the south battery, the one nearest, was struck, and for ten minutes an explosion of day fireworks held the line. On the north battery two guns hung across the parapet, their backs broken, useless. On the two smaller forts between, the P and M redoubts, men could be seen feverishly working at a rear intrenchment. Evidently they were preparing to retire from the front line, where they already scented danger. But they as evidently showed determination to fight to the last ditch--which they did. All four of these forts, spread fanwise halfway down this mountain slope, formed the group called the Cock’s Comb (Keikan, Japanese; Keekwan, Chinese), and above them on the skyline the comb could be plainly seen, lacking only the dab of red, later to be given its approaches, to give it the cock color. It was on the Cock’s Comb that half of the great losses in August occurred. Some ten thousand Japanese had already been mowed down there, for every slope was prepared for enfilading by two batteries, the moats were deep, the fortifications of masonry and the glacis sheer and slippery. Yet the Cock’s Comb once taken, the Russians must yield, for it was to the siege of Port Arthur what Nanshan was to the campaign--the decisive position. Once driven from there, the enemy’s back would be broken. The fall of the Cock’s Comb and the Two Dragons, on December 31st, forced Stoessel’s surrender. [Illustration: _Copyright, 1905, by Collier’s Weekly_ PREPARING FOR DEATH A superstition holds that the Japanese soldier who dies dirty finds no place among the Shinto Shades; so before going into action every soldier changes his linen, as this one is doing, preceding the battle of October 29.]