as, and had I not moved, spurred
by some curious intuition, I would have been dead on the ground.
Perhaps one's inner consciousness knows more than one thinks....

But such personal experiences are trivial compared with what is going
on around us generally. I should not speak of them. For if the Chinese
commands are closing in on us on every side, our fighting line is
biting back as savagely as it can, and is giving them better than they
give us when we get to grips. But in spite of this our position is
less enviable than ever, and it requires no genius to see that if the
Chinese commanders persist in their present policy the Legations must
fall unless relief comes in another two weeks.

Look at the Su wang-fu and the plucky little Japanese colonel! You
will, perhaps, remember that I said that the great flanking wall of
the Su wang-fu was far too big a task for the Japanese command, and
that sooner or later they would have to give way. It has been proved
days ago that what I said was correct, for slowly but surely the fire
of two Chinese guns has demolished successively the outer wall, the
enclosed courtyards behind it, and then a line of houses linked
together by field-works hastily constructed from the rubble lying
around. It was my duty to be one of a post six men hastily sent here
and entrenched on the fringe of our defence in one of these Chinese
houses. It was a curious experience. It lasted for hours.

Inside the partly demolished wall of one house we were forced to squat
on a staging, peeping at the enemy, who was not more than twenty yards
off, lying _perdu_ just behind a confused mass of low-lying
barricades. These riflemen, flung far forward of the main Chinese
positions in this quarter, lay very silent, hardly moving hour after
hour. A couple of hundred yards or so behind them, the main body of
the enemy, secure behind massive earthen and brick works, poured in an
unending fire on our devoted heads with a vigour which never seemed to
flag. Our loopholes, which we had carefully blocked up with loose
bricks so that the merest cracks remained, spat dust at us as the
enemy's bullets persistently pecked at the outside, but could gain no
entrance. Sometimes a single missile would slue its way in through
everything and end with a sob against the inside wall. Once one came
crash through and struck the Japanese who was next to me full in the
face. It knocked out two teeth, cut his mouth and his cheek so that
they