CHAPTER XXIX SEPTEMBER PASSES With the capture in the preceding month of Nos. 1 and 2 Redoubts the enemy had got close up to our positions, and the salient angle of the north-east front was almost in their hands. I say 'almost,' because the ruins of these works remained the greater part of the time untenanted, neutralized by the gun-fire of both sides. As soon as they were abandoned by us, Smirnoff, appreciating their importance, decided, whatever it cost, to recapture them, and compel the Japs to retake them, and he considered the importance of this warranted the loss of even 2,000 or 3,000 men. He had accordingly arranged for a sortie in force, but Stössel intervened, and prevented this by his Order of August 31, already quoted, in which he would only permit sorties in small parties. To attack these redoubts with small numbers was quite ineffectual, and could only result in useless loss of life, and Smirnoff tried in vain to persuade Stössel to alter his opinion. Had we only been able to recapture those works the effect on the _moral_ of the men would have been great, as they would have realized that they could attack as well as defend; as it was, they had seen nothing but continual retirements ever since the war began. It would not have been impossible, for we possessed an excellent _place d'armes_ in rear and on the flank of these places in Rocky and Water Supply Redoubts. The Japanese meanwhile did not waste time; they sapped right up to the glacis of the two latter, then started the first parallel, and, surrounding them with trenches, gradually endeavoured to work their way to Water Supply and Temple Redoubts. Here, again, the only course for us was to hamper and delay the enemy's steady trenchwork-advance by means of well-timed night sorties. But not only had Stössel paralyzed any attempt at a sortie in force by his order of the 31st, but he also managed to stop all small sorties by his action after one such had been attempted. Order No. 590 of September 9 read as follows: 'On the night of September 8-9, Lieutenant Endrjievsky, of the 26th East Siberian Rifle Regiment, on his own responsibility, and without even reporting it to his commanding officer, took 100 men of the Scouts and performed various pointless gallant acts. This only shows: (1) That there are officers who do not consider the lives of the soldiers entrusted to them to be of the least value, and do not consider themselves responsible for them; to such gentlemen the sacrifice of a number of men for a quite useless undertaking means nothing; this proves their youth. (2) That in some units strict discipline is not maintained; for anyone to be able to take a company away from a bivouac without the knowledge of the commanding officer is very extraordinary.