Later, when the Chinese reported that these newly arrived recruits, which included many old men and mere boys, were being drilled and trained in the Lunwantun Valley, our battleships and Electric Cliff shelled them at long range, just to remind them that Arthur was not yet dead; when the October assault was repulsed, we found amongst the killed and wounded numbers of old and very young men. Strong, indeed, must have been the spirit of the nation, which in the moment of trial could back up its discontent by example and action. During my residence in Japan before the war, I had ventured to write that the Japanese were a nation with a great future; but I was laughed at. On the 25th, Big Hill, Little Eagle's Nest and B Battery were bombarded, and the enemy were seen to be concentrating behind Sugar Hill. During the night a sortie was made from 203 Metre Hill to recover the guns left on Angle Hill, but we could not bring them in, so they were blown up. The Japanese were now entrenched along the foot-hills of Angle Hill, and on the ridge joining Angle Hill with 203 Metre Hill, and had mounted some thirty guns near two villages.[22] A force of infantry and cavalry also was concentrated north of Pigeon Bay. I rode round with the Commandant on the 25th on his tour round the north-east. The military road was a track of death and destruction. Everywhere were half-dried puddles of blood, broken rifles, haversacks, boots, carts, blood-stained clothes, wheels, horses, broken down gun-carriages, and unrecognizable corpses, and it was ploughed up with shells. The rest-house on Little Eagle's Nest, where not long ago we had spent many careless hours, was burnt to a heap of ruins. At Eagle's Nest the greater part of the bomb-proofs and parapets had been destroyed, and the infantry were sitting about, some above ground and some below; the reserve was behind the steep slope, in various shelters made of corrugated iron or anything which they could get hold of. This improvised cover might protect from the sun, but certainly from nothing else. The officers and men were reduced to shadows, unwashed, and wearing torn uniforms. They asked the Commandant for planks--any sort of timber--to help them with the aid of earth to get some protection. Smirnoff smiled as he heard them; but it was a cynical smile, for, two days previously, he had given the strictest orders that they should be supplied with the very planks for which they were now asking. His order had not been obeyed, and for this the engineers were entirely to blame. 'All right, you shall have the planks to-day. Hammer, make a note of it,' answered Smirnoff.