Myself, enamoured with this game, after I had watched the Russian
commander two mornings, I, too, determined that I would embark on it,
although I have no such leisure in the early hours. Eleven or twelve
o'clock in the bright sunlight has become my hour, when the sun beats
down hotly on our heads, and everyone is drowsy with the noon-heat.
Then you may also catch the Chinaman smoking and drinking his tea once
again, and if you are quick a dead man is your reward. Every dead man
puts another drop of caution into the attackers. It is therefore good
and useful.

Yesterday I had great luck, for I got three men within very few
minutes of one another; and then when I was fondly imagining that I
might pick off dozens more from my coign of vantage, I was swept back
into our lines under such a storm of fire as I have never experienced
before. I should tell you that there are practically only two
shooting-grounds where this curious sport may be had; there are only
two areas of brick and ruins where by judicious manoeuvring you may
steal out and get the enemy on his exposed flank where no barricades
protect him from an enfilading fire. These two areas lie opposite the
Russian front, and beyond the extreme Japanese western posts of the Su
wang-fu. Since the Russian front is the Russian commander's own
preserve, it is from the Japanese posts that I work.

On the day when I made my record bag, half-past eleven found everybody
drowsy and the time propitious. Our northern Peking sun beats down
pitilessly from the cloudless skies at such a time, and so I had the
field completely to myself. Firing had ceased absolutely on all sides,
and the Chinese had begun to sleep. Crouching low down I scurried
across from the Japanese post to some ruins fifty feet off, and
remained quietly squatting there, panting in the heat, to get myself
bearings. Around me all was silent, and thirty or forty yards from
where I lay I could see the brown face of the Japanese sailor laughing
at me through a loophole. Presently bringing my glasses into play I
swept the huge pile of ruined houses and streets lying huddled on all
sides.

There was not a twig stirring or a shadow moving. All was dead quiet.
The main Chinese camp on this side was placed in H----'s abandoned
compounds--that we had discovered long ago--but the battalions there
were now apparently asleep with not so much as a sentry out. So,
gaining confidence, I pushed on, working parallel to Princ