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NOVEMBER 229
many lives, and the attack was not undertaken in
any lightness of spirit, like several previous ones,
but because it was practically their only alterna-
tive, unless they tunnelled their way through the
rock, which was far too slow a process under the
circumstances, with the third general attack so
near to hand.
The assault was made about six o’clock in the
afternoon of the 23rd by the 12th regiment.
The last parallel and the approaches nearest to it
were crammed with soldiers, and large supports
were kept in readiness in the other parallels.
After some very hard shelling and shrapnel
fire the rush was made. The ominously empty
hillside suddenly became alive with moving
soldiers, who climbed upwards with feverish
haste, each only armed with a rifle and a couple
of hand grenades. Although as soon as they
emerged from the trenches, a hailstorm of lead
and splinters of steel from rifles and bursting
shrapnel descended over them, and although
within a few seconds the little open space
between the opposing trenches was changed to
a pandemonium of horrors and sufferings, and
covered with mutilated corpses and wounded men
writhing in pain, yet the besiegers succeeded in
gaining the Tragedy Trench and in driving the
defenders out.
The trench was very strongly built, and pro-
vided with bomb-proofs and traverses, affording
excellent shelter against attacks from the north,
the Japanese side ;
but against the tremendous
fire opened up from the Russian positions, these
defences were of little avail, and the Japanese
suffered severely. It was impossible to mass any
considerable force here. When, therefore, the
Russians came storming in over them again with
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