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No. 12, well tested in our tactical exercises, commands the low ground between the hills and the eastern seaboard, and in conjunction with hill No. 12, commands all the approaches to Hung Ham and its docks.
The ground in front is very difficult, and the hill-tops Nos. 10 and 11 are so narrow that there is not space for more than twenty or thirty men to lie down on them, and parties of men on these narrow hill-tops would be easily cleared by a round or two of shrapnel from East Battery and from field guns on No. 12 hill.
On the left is Mount Cochrane, a scarped promontory of rotten granite; this with gun epaulment on top, and shelter trench for infantry becomes a redoubt difficult of access, commanding the streets of Yaumati and the country to Gun Club Hill on the east.
The centre and reserves in a shelter trench near the Observatory have a clear field of fire to the front which is also swept by a cross fire from the right and left. On No. 12 hill a blockhouse and a shelter trench following the contour of the hills will be constructed.
If there are no seaward complications a much stronger force would be available, and the hills to the north of the Rifle Ranges would be held as a first position.
In either of these cases the guns from Kowloon West and East, although not bearing on the ground between the hills are effective against troops on their summits. The guns at Stonecutters, although somewhat distant, command the whole coast from the boundary line southward, and would be effective against formed bodies of troops, and prevent the construction of batteries on the west and north-west slopes of the hills.
With a terrain so broken as Hong Kong and with few points that command an extensive view, a great feature of the defence by so small a garrison is the power of communicating the actual landing place of the enemy with the utmost rapidity, so that aid from neighbouring Sections and re-inforcements from the Reserve may be speedily brought to bear on his line of advance. The outposts thrown out from II, III, IV, and V Sections, which observe the landing places and all points of the circular road on the south, will eventually be supplemented by telephone lines between the outposts and the head-quarters of the Sections, but besides the flag signalling between outposts and head-quarters of Sections, and the Chinese runners, whom it is intended at once to attach to the various outposts to carry back reports to the Officer Com- manding the Section, there are now Colonial telephone lines running from D'Aguilar, Tytam Reservoir, Stanley, Deep Water Bay, Aberdeen and Pokfulum, which commu- nicate to the Central Police Station, which is in communication with the Head-quarter Office; the police at the various stations are there to supplement the outposts as gainers of information.
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