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98 THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR
hanging down and dragging along the ground
behind him. When the shock of the bullets,
which beat against his shield, made him lose his
balance, these bamboos would take hold in the
ground and stop him going over. This proved,
naturally, a very desperate measure, and was
seldom used.
The most general way was as follows : —The
soldiers or sappers crept up after dark and, with
the greatest precautions, approached the entangle-
ments. Here, lying on their backs, they tried to
cut the wire with shears. These, as I have men-
tioned, were not of much use, and I was told that
the men sometimes got into such a rage that,
dropping their shears, they tackled the wire with
hands and teeth, and by twisting, tugging and
biting, succeeded in doing what their shears would
not accomplish. I do not vouch for this, though
I heard it from Japanese officers ;
anyhow, si non
e vero^ e bene trovato, and certainly most Japanese
soldiers have splendid teeth. Later on, stronger,
long-handled shears were provided, which, forcibly
applied, successfully achieved their purpose.
When the searchlight rays played on the men
under the entanglements, they feigned to be dead
or wounded, but so soon as it was turned away, on
they went with their work again. The Russians,
of course, soon found this out, and afterwards
they made sure that everybody in the vicinity of
the wire entanglements was—well, what he
appeared to be ;
and nothing, not even men with
a stretcher or under a Red Cross flag, was held
sacred by them.
Of the active means of defence, the search-
lights and the machine guns undoubtedly come in
the first rank. I have in a previous chapter tried
to convey some idea of the effect of the former on
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