Now, shortly before the battle the state of affairs in the district was, to put it mildly, slightly mixed. If the staff issued an order, the General, instead of at once carrying it out, wrote long-winded memoranda and proceeded to do the opposite. Trains stood in the stations ready to start day and night, and, as can be seen from the orders, the wretched 15th Regiment spent its time entraining and detraining, being taken out one day and brought back the next. The authorities seemed to have lost their heads, and orders were only issued to be at once cancelled. The day before the battle was a nightmare of confusion: no one knew what was being done or why it was done. Men were worn out by being 'messed about' uselessly from one place to another, and were never long enough in any place to get to know it. The work on the position which had for a short time been proceeding again had to cease for want of materials. For instance, the frontal battery on Lime Hill, under the command of Lieutenant Solomonoff, to a certain degree important as being able to fire on the approaches to the right flank, was armed with four old Chinese guns. It had no traverses, and no bullet-proof shelter for the gunners or ammunition, and was not connected by telephone with the Commandant. This was the state of the Kinchou position. In Port Arthur, after the Viceroy's departure and the assumption of command of the fleet by Witgeft, there was a lull in naval operations; but rapid progress was being made with the repairing of the lame ducks. The battleships and cruisers--too precious to use--lay motionless in the inner Roads, the destroyers, gunboats, and the _Novik_ were alone active. The latter were kept with steam up, and were always cruising about, protecting the mine-trawlers, laying mines, or doing short or long reconnaissances, which were called by the men 'adventures'--a very suitable name. Complete ignorance of the coast generally, pointless tasks, lack of speed, bad engines, absence of well-thought-out plans, a numerous, keen, and powerful enemy, who always operated systematically and cleverly, rendered these expeditions abortive of any result except fatigue, waste of coal, and loss of vessels.