The guns were soon hauled up, and before a quarter of an hour had passed one shot rang out after another. 'Sir,' said the Chief of the Staff, 'you must get behind the hill; the enemy will be opening fire on this at once.' He was right, for in a minute or two shells began to whistle through the air, bursting high up and covering the hill with bullets. 'Things are all right here now; let's go and see what's being done on the left. I want to see General Fock.' We went down into the valley, mounted our horses and moved off. The road turned sharply to the right, and we came on to Naumoff's battery, which was covering the defile. The enemy's shells were falling all round it. Naumoff had beaten the enemy off during the whole morning, and they were determined, apparently, to destroy his battery; but they found it none too easy, as he had hidden the guns in a fold in the hill. Their shrapnel did not make the slightest impression, and their high explosive shells sang over into the Lunwantun Valley. At last we reached the village of Kodamin, where we found the General in a small Chinese house. The pomp surrounding him--for he had a staff of about fifteen officers and a whole section of orderlies--was a great contrast to the simplicity of the other. After a frigid greeting and a few formal words Fock went away. We had some food, then rode on to the village of Khodziatun, where Kondratenko had been summoned to attend a Council of War under Stössel. The Generals sat down; Kondratenko stood, a smile on his lips. A quarter of an hour passed, and they were still sitting, and without sign of any conclusion having been reached; apparently Stössel and Fock were determined to get through what they had already decided to do. I looked on the picture with the greatest interest. At last there was a movement; they were going to disperse, and some of them seemed anything but pleased. Coldly saying good-bye, Stössel, with his numerous suite, moved off to the right towards Seven-mile Station, and by four o'clock we were back at the temporary head-quarters of Colonel Semenoff. We found his staff very indignant. 'Our fleet is behaving disgracefully. We have very few guns, and if only our ships had opened a well-directed fire from the sea on the attacking columns, it would have helped us enormously; the Japanese would never take Green Hills.' And so the conversation went on. As a matter of fact the gunboat division did make an effort to co-operate with the army. It steamed out towards Lunwantun, but was driven back by a superior force; our error lay in our not supporting the gunboats with the guns of our coast batteries. One Japanese cruiser struck a mine and had to be towed away, and one of their gunboats caught fire.