The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-01-08

through solid rock, in others through
shelving shale, in two places through
villages. in one through the spur of a
mountain, and for a portion of the
way along creek bed.
The economic angles of advance were
studied out by expert engineers en-
gagged in the most hazardous Of scout
ing. Then party of SapperS went
out, never more than a hundred at a
time, and hastily, under fire, scraped
shrapnel into them and sent out sor-
tieing parties to impede the work
Thus every night from a tenth to
third part of the command was lost.
There are two kinds of saps-the fly
ing sap and the slow sap. The flying
sap takes in a hundred yards at a
time when the range from the enc
my IS a thousand yards and over. The
slow sap is used where they are with
in few hundred yards.
In the slow sap only six inches or
foot advance is made at a time by
two engineers working on their bellies
behind steel plate which the enemy
attempts to riddle with bullets. After
the sappers are through. the infantry
ruSheS In and Widens the trench with
mattock and spade. Finally the engi-
neers come TO strengthen the sides and
cover the exposed places overhead with
timber balkS. and conceal the turningS
and piles of earth with maize stalks
The latter is a trick learned from the
Beers in South Africa. who in turn,
learned it from the Kaffirs-
Eighteen Wonderful Miles of Tunnel.
In this way eighteen wonderful miles
OF these parallels and approaches have
been cut across the Shuishing valley.
Troops live in the parallels by day
and emerge from them at night for
work, or al dawn and at sunset they
leap from the sap heads for assault.
The plain covered two months ago
with dead is today alive with antlil1e
figures, and the Japanese generals can
pour their divisions almost to the par
apets Of the Russian forts without los
ing a man.
One can easily go across the Shut
shlng valley, over which bullets and
shells constantly fly. and across which
all the bOmbardments take place
Twice I was in the captured fort called
Banduzsn by the Japanese, PanIung
by the Chinese and the Eternal Drag
on by the English
The work done on the plain was
amazing. 1t was unbelievable when
one knew how il was done under con-
ditions that would have unnerved the
stOutest heart, with the dead bodies
OF comrades forming some OF the in
trenchments, and with other comrades
constantly falling about the workers.
Yet il showed as much care as the
American miner could use in cutting
mine shaft.
The lines were all xlathematicalIy
correct the plankS had been sawed
square and the SandbagS piled in geo
metTical patterns. Looking back across
these eighteen miles from the Russian
side, looking at them as the Russians
do, l could see no evidence that an
army had wriggled through the ground
as monster worm through the mud
OF the seashore- Only, instead of mud
mere was rock, instead of the fisher
men here was Mr.. BombsheH his vi
clouS children the ShrapneI and his
nasty relatives the tiny, deadly bull
lets
But where had the thousand tons
of that enormous digging gone? AS
well ask where the chipmunk nuts the
dirt from his hole.
In Eternal Dragons Bloody Angle.
Living conditions are wore than DIV
ing conditions. Men on this side of
the water think it hard if they have
to live in a Valise- The soldiers of
Nippon before Port Arthur live in a
pocket handkerchief and the handker-
chief is Of paper the size of a letter
head
In the Eternal Dragon. which the
russians held in a wise, being within
/ nifty yards on three sides for two
months, and which was called the
{
sides We're piled up five deep there
/ during the three days fighting when
| 1t was taken-so deep that hostiIities
We're suspended because of sheer in
ability 10 wade through the corpses-
the Japanese garrison hung on virtu-
ally by its eyelidS and tOenaiis
Compelled in the hurry Of entrench-
ment on the night of the capture to
I fling the slain bodies into the en-
I bankments the japanese were never
after able to pluck them from the par
/ tial interment- If any man showed so
much as a hand above the works il
was instantly pierced by sharp-shOot-
ers less than fifty yards away
Compelled to lie in the stencil of the
dead, for il Was midsummer and about
| forty-eight hours was sufficient TO
bring on decomposition, they did not
nr1ve. They stuck there and kept SEN
! tries there along a forty-yard front and
nearly every night battled with Sortie-
I ing heroes from the other side quite as
willing TO fight and die, but not quite
as able to live so desperately as the
japanese.
Here we can see the whole philosophy
of the war. Both sides are equally
/ willing TO die. but the japanese, though
| they may not be more willing are more
I able to live. They can exist on a bail
/ of rice a day in their fve-foot-six space
/ of earth, smiling with fatalistic con-
/ tempt, living that they may die, and
| dying that they may live.
The front OF the Eternal Dragon was
called the thirty-minute trench, be-