Category: Historical Novels

Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

_Last year I wove a romance about the early incidents of the great war now happily at an end; this year I have chosen its later incidents as the background for my hero's adventures. But while in "Kobo" the struggle was viewed from the Japanese stand-point, in "Brown of Moukden...

Chapters

26. Part 26

With great caution Jack and the boy stole round the settlement towards Mr. Brown's hut. Unfortunately, as Jack thought, a bright moon was shining fitfully through gaps in the sc...

15. Part 15

But for the scarcity of water Jack had little doubt from what he had seen that the Chunchuses would be able to hold their own indefinitely against the Cossacks, unless siege ope...

23. Part 23

The engine was a powerful Baldwin; the train though long was nearly empty; it gathered way, and with the regulator fully open had soon attained a high speed. But the engine was...

8. Part 8

"Of what might be done to them. The illustrious viceroy at Moukden is very strict. Even a foreign devil may not be killed without leave. Why? Because if one is killed, there is...

4. Part 4

He was already determined, then, that, leave Moukden if he must, he would not leave Manchuria. But what could he do to secure his objects and his own safety? He wondered whether...

13. Part 13

Schwab had become tired of the Green Dragon, and now lived in a little house which he rented from a Chinese grocer. He was waited on by Hi Lo, who shared with Jack a room lookin...

6. Part 6

His difficulties were intensified by the desperately short notice at which he must now quit Vladivostok. Sowinski, furious at being outwitted in the matter of the bills, would b...

10. Part 10

Making allowances for the chief's surcharged emotion, Jack felt that there could be no longer any obstacle to his departure. Ah Lum, indeed, was torn between two impulses. He wi...

5. Part 5

"Yes. Live stock comes next to the Viceroy. Horses are none the better for being jolted over three hundred miles of rail, so they've let us pass several goods trains on the way."

24. Part 24

As Jack had hoped, the suddenness and unexpectedness of the news, and the urgency of his manner, bereft the station-master of all power of independent thought. He hurried along...

17. Part 17

An hour or two before they sighted the Russians, the bandits had advanced through a narrow pass, enclosed between steep and rugged bluffs. Upon this pass Ah Lum decided to fall...

21. Part 21

His arrival was regarded as a favourable omen. It was likened by Ah Lum to the delightfulness of rain after long drought. Sin Foo was lucky; Fortune would now surely smile. The...

25. Part 25

"Difficulty and danger," began the chief, folding his hands and looking benignly over the rims of his spectacles--"difficulty and danger teach us to know the value of friendship...

18. Part 18

He reported now that the enfilading fire of the Russians in the copse at the south had driven the Chunchuses from the western face of the pass at the north end, allowing the Cos...

7. Part 7

"What was he like?" she repeated reflectively. "I think he was about your height; but then you are mounted, and so was he, and it is so difficult to judge when a man is mounted,...

22. Part 22

As the train rattled past the block-houses of the railway guard, placed at every tenth verst along the line, the men stared to see it make such unusual speed; but no doubts trou...

19. Part 19

As the figure of a young Chinaman advanced from a dark part of the room, the startled officers backed and cocked their revolvers; the informer, turning a sickly green under his...

9. Part 9

At the outskirts of the camp Wang Shih dismissed his men, proceeding alone with Jack to the tent. It was the head-quarters of the chief. There was no sign of state, no sentinel...

14. Part 14

"'To Lieutenant-Colonel Gudriloff,'" dictated Jack. "'Please supply bearer, Chang Sin Foo, with a pass for the gates, and two good ponies; debit the charge to my account.' Now s...

16. Part 16

A red glare lit up the farmyard. The flames had devoured the thatch, and were licking the joists. Jack glanced round the scene, his eyes smarting so keenly that he could scarcel...

27. Part 27

They withdrew for some distance into the passage, and sat down. In a few words Mr. Brown explained what had happened: how on the previous evening, when they had been reading in...

11. Part 11

"Ver' goot, ver' goot inteed. You say it not so bad. Now I tell you ozer zink. I haf come at great egsbense from San Francisco to take photographs of ze scenes of var. I am alre...

12. Part 12

"So! Famos!" he exclaimed. "I see all ze whole fielt of battle; I see burning villages, black fielts, hundert or tousand dead men. Zis is var. Vat a--vat a"--Herr Schwab was at...

20. Part 20

This news almost tempted Jack to venture again within the city. But on second thoughts he decided to run no risks of meeting Sowinski. The imminence of another great battle, how...

3. Part 3

The boy had broken into a run, and when he met them Jack saw at once by his face that he bore grave news. But he was not prepared for what the little fellow told him in breathle...

2. Part 2

Events proved the accuracy of his forecast. The Russian fleet was bottled up, the Yalu crossed, Port Arthur was already beleaguered, and Stackelberg's attempt to relieve it had...

1. Part 1

_Last year I wove a romance about the early incidents of the great war now happily at an end; this year I have chosen its later incidents as the background for my hero's adventu...

28. Part 28

But calamity treads hard upon the heels of the wicked. Witness the fate of the Russian--may his posterity be cut off! [_Idiom="A murrain on thee!" Cf. Shakespeare, "The Tempest"...