_203 METRE HILL AND MUKDEN._
Before a crowded audience and under the auspices of the Young People's
Club, Mr. Devoau said: "Now, before I launch right out into a
description of battle charges, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to
understand that I feel so humble and modest in this matter that I
believe if I had never seen Port Arthur the defence would have been
just as stubborn, and if I had not been in the advanced works at Mukden
the battle would have lasted nineteen days all the same, and the army
of the Czar would have been saved. Nothing worthy of notice occurred
during my long voyage from Montreal; at least everything was so tame in
the shape of the railway trip from Ottawa to the above-mentioned place,
and the tossing upon the waters of the mighty deep until a blockade
runner landed me at the seat of war, to what followed afterwards that I
will not weary you to-night by relating it.
"When I arrived at headquarters General Stoessel did not require my
services, as Russians only were preferred, but I pleaded so hard with
him through an interpreter, and told him I had come all the way from
Canada, and was just spoiling for a fight, telling him at the same time
if he desired to know more about me to send a cable message to their
consul at Ottawa. This seemed to satisfy the general, and he at last
assigned me to the Prebensky Regiment of sharpshooters that held 203,
after testing me with a rifle. I soon got well acquainted with my
comrades, and a jollier lot of fellows never lived, who had no end of
fun at the expense of the little niggers, as they termed the Japanese.
Our fun, however, was shortlived, for one day the hills opposite our
position burst into flame as though struck by lightning, and 203 Metre
spurted flame, and boiled like a cauldron from a succession of fearful
explosions, as shells alighted upon it. Our colonel signalled us to
lie close. Every little while a gun would be tossed clean into the air
by the explosion of an eleven-inch shell, and sometimes a whole squad
of men would be literally torn to pieces, legs, arms and fragments of
flesh flying in all directions. This pounding made us dreadful angry,
a number of the men swearing fluently, even the grey-haired colonel, I
was told, made some unmentionable remarks, and I, who had never sworn
in my life, made some very sarcastic references to the proceeding.
"Those horrible eleven-inch shells made bomb-proofs and covered works
of all kinds very little more secure than the open. Many men were
struck down around me, some of them horribly mangled, and portions of
the works literally smashed to splinters, but such is war, and some
call it glory.
"After this fearful hammering had gone on for a time with hell reigning
all around, as suddenly as it started the appalling din ceased, and
nothing could be heard but the piteous moaning of men who were so
horribly mangled, many of them, that if their own mothers were present,
they could not recognize them. During the awful bombardment, just as
we had expected, the enemy, who had made considerable progress under
cover of the night, had advanced right to the foot of the hill.
Hitherto we could see nothing, as not a soldier was in sight, and all
that we could do was to pound the naked hillside, but now the little
brown squads, in twenties, began rushing across the fire zone, and it
appeared as if they were reserves coming up to reinforce the men at the
base of the hill.
"Our blood was up after the abuse we had received, and we pounded them
with big guns, pom-poms, Maxims and rifles, but still they came, and
quickly forming, marched up the valley of the shadow of death until a
shrill whistle rang out, when they turned square toward our position,
another whistle and they doubled files, and came on with splendid
precision. Their colonel, a grey-haired veteran, stood on a spur, and
heedless of shrieking missiles, had only one thought, and that was of
203. It is true the hill had been assaulted before, while it is
equally true that the enemy had been beaten back with frightful
carnage. Now, however, something seemed to say that the end was near,
as old Teleda, the veteran of twenty-seven engagements, stood as if on
parade, directing the attack. His men sank to mother earth singly and
in mangled heaps, but he had no eye for their dead or ear for the
moaning of their wounded; 203 was the game, and anything smaller, such
as noting the mutilated forms upon the blood-drenched sands in the
valley, was beneath contempt. A battery of six guns came up to the
foot of the hill at a gallop, the gunners setting them at an angle of
many degrees, so as to rake our works, but though they concealed
themselves as best they could, our sharpshooters frequently got a bead,
and an artilleryman would throw up his hands with a shriek and tumble
in a heap.
"After a rest the enemy opened again, the hills in front spouting
flame, and the battery at the foot of our position vomiting death.
Between the explosions, however, and they came thick and fast, we saw
the figures of men as numerous as ants swarming up the base of the
hill. Our machine guns were soon angled upon them, and our rifles sent
rattling volleys among them, but the explosions in our position now
come so frequently that we are soon choked in clouds of dust, and
battered by splinters of gun carriages and even falling sand bags. The
signal now rang out to fix bayonets, and this was no sooner done than
hand grenades were hurled in upon us, the explosions of which tore the
heads off some of our men, the legs and arms off others, but the most
sickening sight to me was that of a man not three yards away who had
the fore part of his chest clean torn away, leaving his mangled lungs
exposed to view. At this stage observation was cut short by a whole
battalion of Japanese infantry tumbling over the parapet, followed by
swarms of reserves. We sprang upon them with the steel, and a
frightful conflict ensued, men fell dead in twos, often with their
bayonets buried in one another's bodies. For two or three minutes
nothing could be heard but shots, and imprecations, and shrieks, and
rattling steel, and then all was over, 203 Metre Hill was taken, but
after we got out--that is, all that was left of us--it was turned into
a smoking volcano by the shells from our forts around, and the enemy
nearly shared our fate in being ejected."