. Under any circumstances the strain of waiting for an attack is extremely nerve-wracking, but it becomes very much worse in the utter obscurity of a blackout. Night, somehow, brings with it a sense of loneliness, and of helpless isolation. The imagination magnifies every sensation it receives. The shadow outlines, the little sounds -- Nature herself seems hostile. At the lower end of the pathway men could be heard treading over the rocky ground. Occasionally metal jangled--a samurai sword, perhaps; or bayonets clicking in their locks. To the right bushes were snapping, and now and then a came a thudding which could not be explained. To the left approaching the roundhouse, more sounds of footfalls reverberated vaguely--sometimes hushed and muffled; sometimes louder as men scuffed and stumbled over the loose gravel. What added most to the menacing effect of these noises were the sharp, staccato voices of the Japanese, jabbering to each other in excited, though usually suppressed tones. Some of our men thought they were crazy-drunk on sake -- we knew they had enough of it from the bottles our men had found everywhere. Their voices were weird and wild. To American ears their language sounds so unnatural, its accents so harsh and strange, its intonations so outlandish, that it could well come from another world -- from a legion of fiends marching up here out of the pit of hell. Listening to them, a man could almost ask himself, "Is this real?" --though aware all the time of its deadly reality.