Tremendous efforts had been made to achieve the capture of the place by the 3rd November, the birthday of the Mikado; but that auspicious day passed without the fall of Port Arthur seeming to be in any degree nearer, while General Stoessel continued to send cheerful and undaunted messages to his Imperial master whenever a boat succeeded in running the blockade of the Japanese fleet and in reaching Chifu. Through all these protracted and strenuous operations, the losses of the Japanese had been very severe; they cannot have been less than 40,000 men, and they may have been considerably more. The garrison had suffered less severely, but in the absence of reserves their losses were even more serious, and by the middle of November the total effective force was little more than 10,000 men. It will ever be a mystery how a force so utterly inferior to its enemy, defending, a wide perimeter of fortifications, every point of which was daily liable to fierce assault and bombardment, could for so many weeks endure the awful strain to which it was subjected. Yet the indomitable garrison was never quiescent or passive in its resistance. Besides repelling assault, it engaged in continual sorties and counter-attacks, and often, when driven from an essential position succeeded in recapturing it at the point of the bayonet. A remarkable instance of this offensive capacity was furnished in the course of the great assault from the 19th September to the 26th September. In operating from the north against the defences of the Shuishi Valley, which lies between Antszshan and Urlungshan, the Japanese, after their first success, pressed on against High Hill, a position of the most vital importance to the defence, as it permitted the principal forts on the west of the town to be taken in reverse. As any attempt to retake the hill must be a desperate enterprise, General Stoessel refused to issue an order for its recapture, but called for volunteers. The requisite number were at once forthcoming, and led by Lieutenant Podgorsky, they attacked the Japanese with grenades and drove them from the position which they had already begun to entrench. In his dispatch of the 23rd September, this is how General Stoessel reports the affair:-- [Sidenote: The Gallant Podgorsky]