Clearly, the vehicle had the mentalist aboard, and he had to be very strong to have absorbed the explosion. Toshiro wasn’t sure he’d be able to absorb the blast of an artillery shell like that on his shield and simply keep on driving! The artillery fire at least caused the column to stop and reverse around the point out of view. Undoubtedly, the enemy would deploy their own artillery or send infantry up and over the hills. He jumped back into his ATV and proceeded into the town, where he quickly set about organizing reinforcements to dig in along the ridgeline that ran north-south, protecting the town from the west. Meanwhile, he sent Gentaro with the third battalion up the road towards Deans Marsh with instructions to find a good defensive position not too far up the road and to dig in.

His main concern was the enemy’s advance north of him. They could swing down and cut him off at Torquay if they got beyond Winchelsea. General Yamashita was organizing reserve forces to prevent the enemy from doing that, but given the enemy numbers that were being reported, Toshiro had no real confidence that the enemy advance could be stopped short of Gilong. Concerned about his rear, he had Usegi begin pulling the second battalion back toward Anglesea even though it would leave him short of troops here. The first of the second battalion’s troops had barely left the town when the enemy began their attack on the hill to the west.

The enemy had occupied the hill to the west beyond the small stream and obviously had some mortars or other artillery up there out of sight behind the crest as they were laying down sporadic fire on Akiro’s positions. Toshiro had them pull back behind the ridgeline to make it harder for the enemy to fire on them while, at the same time, he moved to the north as it was clear the enemy troops were attempting to flank their defenses by moving through the rough ground to the north. So far, he had felt their mentalist, which was odd. He had his ATV run him along the street that ran along the top of the ridge, trying to see what the enemy was up to, but the visibility wasn’t great with all the trees. He closed his eyes and tried to sense the enemy troops but couldn’t feel any that were very close. They were definitely heading in this direction, though.

He found a position near the town’s water tank and tried sensing again but still couldn’t feel anything too close. At least the radio coverage was good at the top of the hill. He decided to spend the night there with one of his people on watch all night in case anything happened. He didn’t sleep particularly well in the tent that he had thrown up himself, refusing the assistance of his men and field rations for breakfast with the ideal way to start the day, but a quick call around to all his commanders produced the result that the enemy had stayed quiet all night as well, apparently.