By the evening of the 27th the fighting ceased with the capture of Kuen-san and Green Hills. The troops holding the right fell back into the valley of Lunwantun, and occupied the heights in rear; but the loss of the two former made our position critical, as from Kuen-san the Japs could renew the attack, and force us back. There was nothing for it but to attack and at all costs regain possession of those hills. The District Staff accordingly issued, with the greatest precaution, secret orders to that effect. On July 1 I met a young officer in the street. 'Would you care to come with me to Green Hills?' he said casually. 'A night attack has been fixed for to-night on Kuen-san; but it is a great secret.' As I also heard the move discussed by Chinese shop-assistants, I went at once to the District Staff and told the senior aide-de-camp, for, as the whole town seemed to know this 'secret,' it must, of course, be known now to the enemy. 'Yes, the General let it out, so we have telephoned to cancel the move. In any case it wouldn't have succeeded, as the General was dead against it. The attack will take place another day, and Kondratenko is going to command the right flank. Fock will now only nominally be the senior.' This reply was only too true, for the General was jealous of Kondratenko, and would not co-operate in any way. Early in the morning of July 3 our destroyer and gunboat division steamed towards Shaopingtao and opened fire on Green Hills; at the same time our troops advanced from the right flank against them, Kondratenko being in command. The ships did little actual harm, owing to lack of facilities for fire observation and correction. The fight raged all day, our main objective being Kuen-san. On the 4th it was renewed, but though we again got possession of Green Hills, we were unable to capture Kuen-san. The 13th Regiment took two-thirds of it, but could not advance further, as the Japanese threw in heavy reinforcements, and brought up a number of machine-guns. On the night of the 5th we had to withdraw, and abandoned further attempts to retake the position, as one attack alone had cost us 500 men. Green Hills were again ours, but the key to the position, from which all our roads, dispositions, and actions could be seen, and an enemy's artillery fire and infantry advance directed, remained in the hands of the Japanese. On the 7th everything was quiet, and from then onwards for three weeks the enemy did not fire a shot in reply to our occasional bombardments, for they were establishing themselves and fortifying the ground actually won. Smirnoff insisted on the positions recaptured by us being strongly fortified, and sent his best engineer officer, Raschevsky, to supervise, so good progress was made. At midnight of the 8th, in torrents of rain, they made a sudden attack on our centre, but were noticed in time and repulsed. On the 13th our howitzers bombarded the enemy's works for some hours, but drew no reply. On the 14th we made