ve for everything in this
world. Action is the best one of all, people say. It is not always so.

The little Japanese colonel stood this morning pulling his thin
moustaches very thoughtfully and looking earnestly ahead of him when I
came on duty with a dozen others. In front was a great mass of ruins,
concealing a couple of entrenched posts of our own men, where I was
going, and farther on, half masked by the ruins, some of the enemy's
advanced barricades lay.

"I think," said the colonel finally, pronouncing on the situation with
inherited Japanese caution, "that it will be very difficult, but we
must try."

He referred to the wretched Chinese gun belonging to the redoubtable
Tung Fu-hsiang, as we had discovered from big banners pitched near by,
which had been steadily and methodically smashing in the northern
front of our defence, and was fast rendering our lines untenable here.
We always went on duty at these posts with little enthusiasm. We could
not hit back. Another gun, a newcomer, had also been posted somewhere
near the ruins of the Chinese Customs, as if encouraged by the success
of the other one, and was now playing on the main-gate posts of the Su
wang-fu, and rendering even these more and more dangerous for us to
hold permanently.

The newcomer was, however, still, comparatively speaking, far away; it
was our old friend we most dreaded. Well hidden, it pelted us with
rusty but effective shells night and day. To make another sortie was
highly dangerous for the ill-success of the first one in this quarter
had certainly encouraged the Chinese, and this time we would have to
be prepared for a very vigorous defence, which might bring on a series
of counter-attacks. Then, too, the wall-split and barricaded grounds
beyond our own feeble defences meant that a single false step would
lead us into an _impasse_ from which we could not lightly escape.
Rifle-fire would pelt us at close quarters, shells would burst right
in our midst; it was not a pleasant prospect even for the biggest
fire-eaters of our lines. We had, however, to remember that so long as
we held firm on the outer rim of our ruins would the enormous piles of
brickwork which lie around, either in the form of ruined houses or
wrecked compound walls, act as traverses and make the heavy rifle and
cannon fire being poured in nothing very terrible. But as soon as we
are forced to abandon our advanced lines the enemy speedily will swarm
in, and then no sort