Part 12

Schwab got up slowly on his knees, peered over the edge of the trench, then stood upon his feet. He was beginning to regain his spirits.

"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 a loss for words--"vat a zink is var!" He threw out his chest and snuffed the smoke-laden breeze. "But I muss go and describe ze battle for my journal, illusdraded viz photographs taken by a Gairman sobjeck on ze sbot. My ancestor Hildebrand----"

They were turning to walk down the hill; a belated shrapnel shell burst within a few yards of them, peppering the ground in all directions. A splinter shaved off an inch or two of the leather cover of the camera. Schwab cut short his reminiscence by dropping flat upon the rain-soaked ground. When he arose, a pitiable object, after a short period of self-communing, without further words he hastened towards the path.

Another shell crashed upon the rocks to the left, hurling a lofty fir-tree into the ravine.

"Ach! gome alonk, gome alonk! Ve shall be killed. Let us go to find our bonies."

Scrambling down to the spot where they had left the animals, Schwab uttered a woeful cry; they had disappeared. A Siberian infantryman was passing; him the German interrogated. But the Russian shook his head; he knew no German. Jack ventured to question him in broken Russian.

"Yes, I did see two ponies. A Chinaman led them. That was long ago."

"He say-lo China boy hab catchee two-piecee pony, wailo long-time."

Schwab lifted up his voice in bitter lamentation. It was growing dark; the ground had been made a miry swamp by the rain; there was no alternative but to tramp back through it to Liao-yang. They reached the mandarin road. Their feet sank ankle-deep in mud; at every step they almost left their boots behind. Long stretches of the road were under water. Carts were passing drawn by long teams of mules. Schwab tried to bargain for a seat, but the drivers refused to listen to him; their loads were wounded men, who at every jolt uttered heart-rending moans. Jack suggested that they should leave the road and cut across the fields to the railway; they would find the embankment easier walking. This they did, pursued, as it seemed, by the whistling bullets of the Japanese. At length, unharmed, untouched, they reached the northern gate, and, entering, made their way all bemired, weary and famished, to the cottage where Hi Lo awaited them.

*CHAPTER XII*

*The Retreat from Liao-yang*

Rifle and Bayonet--Kuroki--Schwab's Strategic Movement--The Moukden Road--At Yentai--One of the Wounded--Pawns in the Game--Our Friends the Enemy--Story and Song--Schwab Smokes

Next day dawned bright and clear. The fusillade had continued almost throughout the night, and the Japanese had made repeated assaults on the Russian trenches in the centre, only to be driven back every time with enormous slaughter. The first day's battle had no decisive result; the Japanese had failed to dislodge the Russians from any part of their line of defences. Jack was eager to go out again; his excitement had been kindled by what little he had been able to see of the opposing movements; after the first tremors, the shriek of shells and whistling of bullets had left him unmoved, and he was all afire to witness the continuation of the great struggle. But Schwab absolutely refused to budge.

"It vas not a bresentiment," he said. "It vas a bileattack. Zose shells, zeir schmell vas vorse zan Schwefelwasserstoffgas--I forget ze English name, but ze schmell is ze same; it is a schmell of eggs suberannuated. I suffer egstremely. Besides, zey haf shtole my bonies. And vat do I discover? I discover a damage in ze ubber egstremity of ze camera. Vy you tell me nozink about zis? I discover it, I say. Who done zat? Vy you bermit it? It is not business: it annoy me egstremely. I lose many dollars ven I shall gome to sell ze photographabbaratus. My gustomers vill now see it is not new. Venever I zink of it I suffer bile. I go not again to zis battle, no more does ze camera; I vait for ze next. I vill stay and cure ze bileattack. You shall see ze battle; I vill take notes ven you return."

Jack had no intention of running unnecessary risks in order that Schwab might make "copy" out of his experiences. But he made his way towards the railway-station, expecting to obtain from the embankment as good a view as was possible without venturing again on the shell-swept hills. His choice was fortunate, for it happened that the closest fighting of the day took place west of the railway. General Oku had made up his mind to force this, the weakest spot in the Russian position. While, therefore, General Nodzu in the centre was repeating the first day's bombardment, the Russian right, throughout the day, was the scene of as terrible a series of infantry attacks as the world's history has known. Time after time the Japanese advanced to storm the trenches; time after time they were mowed down by the pitiless bullets of the enemy; but again and again they returned to the charge, recking nothing of death or wounds, thinking it a privilege indeed to end their lives in their country's cause. On both sides the bayonet did its fell work; at one point a trench was captured by a company of Japanese, but their ammunition was spent, they were unsupported, and their plight being perceived from a Russian trench a hundred yards distant, they were bayoneted to a man. As the hot day wore on, the Russians were driven back against the railway embankment; streams of wounded, their cries of agony mingled with the horrid sounds of war, flowed incessantly towards Liao-yang; and when sunset put an end to the firing, the bearer-parties went about their awful work on the battle-field.

Except for the slight impression made on the right, the Russian position was intact. The Siberian regiments had held their own with splendid tenacity, and were almost recompensed for their terrible sufferings by the message of thanks from General Kuropatkin, who had witnessed their heroic resistance from his train beyond the railway-station. Jack started to return to Schwab with the impression that the force of the Japanese attack was broken, and that on the morrow the Russians would take the offensive. The day closed with a terrible rain-storm that turned the fields and roads into a quagmire. The streets of the city were thronged; soldiers, Chinamen, camp-followers, pedlars improving the occasion, all jostling one another in noisy confusion.

Standing at the door of his cottage, Schwab hailed an American correspondent who was passing just as Jack appeared.

"Is ze battle finished gomblete?" asked Schwab eagerly.

"Yes; the Russians have won. It is their first victory. I am on my way to telegraph the news to New York--if I can get a wire."

"Zen I vill write my account of ze closing scenes," said Schwab to Jack. "To-morrow, if ze sun shine, you can take more pictures of ze Japanese defeat."

But half an hour later the American looked into the house on his way back to his own quarters.

"I was mistaken, Schwab," he said; "it is not a victory after all."

"Eh?" said Schwab, looking up from his papers.

"The Russians are leaving their positions; evacuation has begun."

"Himmel! Vat is ze meaning of zat?"

"Kuroki has crossed the Tai-tse-ho, and is threatening our communications. You had better clear out."

Schwab might well be amazed. During the desperate and persistent attacks on the Russian right and centre, General Kuroki had crept steadily round their left, and forced a passage at a ford twenty-five miles east of the town. The news, as conveyed to Kuropatkin, was that the Japanese general had four divisions; he had, in truth, only two; and, misled by the exaggeration, Kuropatkin had felt it necessary to detach some of the seasoned Siberian regiments from Stackelberg's command in order to reinforce the less trustworthy European corps whom Kuroki was attacking. But the American was mistaken in speaking of evacuation. The commander-in-chief had only decided to abandon his advanced position, which had always been too widely extended for effective defence, and to withdraw his forces to the inner entrenchments, forming a large arc almost encircling the town, and resting at each end on the river.

Overpowered by the terrors of "war that was real war", Schwab was goaded into feverish activity by the news of the withdrawal. His own pony was gone; so was Jack's; but Hi Lo's remained, and this the German ordered to be instantly prepared for himself. Whether the interest of the Schlagintwert Company or the safety of his own rotund skin was the more important consideration did not appear; but it is certain that, within half an hour after receiving the news of Kuropatkin's order, Schwab was riding as fast as the congested traffic would allow towards the north. He carried the precious camera and the negatives with him, leaving the tripod with Jack.

"You muss shift for yourself," said he at the moment of leaving. "You and Hi Lo muss gome on behind. I muss go qvick; it is a matter of business. Vun bony vill not carry zree, and if I do not arrive in Moukden before ze Russians zere vill be no money left to bay your vages. Take most egstreme care of ze dribod."

Jack was not ill pleased to see the back of his employer. In other circumstances he might have been amusing; as it was, he was a trial of patience.

"I think we will wait till morning," said Jack to Hi Lo. "I am not sure all is over yet. In any case the Japanese won't come into the city in the dark; the firing has stopped; and we shall see our way better by daylight."

So they stretched themselves on the k'ang and slept until the dawn. When they arose it was obvious that Schwab's flight was premature. True, the roads northward were crowded with fugitives, but they were in the main natives; the Russians held their positions; and Jack saw a fine regiment marching, not northward, but southward, in the direction of the enemy, singing the Russian national anthem with a spirit that little betokened a failing cause. But Jack felt that Schwab would expect his two servants to follow him; he would be helpless without them. The exodus from the city was already so great that it seemed best to go northwards by the pontoon bridge while it was possible. He therefore started on his way back to Moukden. Hi Lo had managed to secure a mule--Jack did not enquire how; and on this, with the boy trudging by his side, Jack crossed the river by the pontoon and gained the mandarin road.

He found himself in a scene of terrible confusion. The road was blocked with vehicles of all descriptions,--droshkies, Pekin carts, ammunition wagons, country carts with their unwieldy teams; and crowds of camp-followers and Chinese tradesmen. Drivers were shouting, soldiers cursing, women shrieking. Chinamen staggered along with poles over their shoulders, a basket slung at each end containing a child barely awake, but laughing with glee at what seemed to its innocence a novel and pleasing adventure. Women passed, bent under heavy bundles containing their household gear; carts were heaped with bits of furniture, ambulance wagons with wounded and dead; here was a soldier leading a little donkey with a battered drum upon its back, there a farmer whose clumsy cart was filled with cackling ducks and squealing pigs. Now an axle would break, and the contents of the wagon were scattered over the ground; now the wheels of one cart would become locked with those of another, and the tangled teams plunged and kicked in the mud. Then the uproar became still more furious; riders, careless of what damage they might do, pressed their horses through the throng in haste to make good their escape from the terrible shells whose coming was announced from afar. The Japanese had begun to bombard the station.

Jack saw that he had little chance of making his way through the crush. Calling to Hi Lo, he turned aside into a field of kowliang, already trampled, and rode on over the ruined crop. In the distance, on the left, he caught sight of train after train steaming northwards. Behind, dense clouds of smoke obscured the city: the Russian quarter of Liao-yang was in flames. Ever and anon a detonation shook the air, and by and by the whistle of bullets was heard; the Japanese had occupied the Shu-shan hill, and with their terrible long-range weapons were firing into the Russian settlement.

The fourteen miles from Liao-yang to Yentai took Jack six hours. It was evening when he arrived--too late to go farther; and he put up for the night in a ruined hut. Russians were massed in the town, and covered the slopes towards the mines. The Russian left wing had been driven back in this direction, and it was to reinforce the hard-pressed troops here that Kuropatkin had withdrawn Stackelberg with his Siberians. But it was too late. Next day Kuroki flung his divisions upon the Russian entrenchments. At a critical moment General Orloff, professor in a Russian military college, attacked, contrary to his instructions. The Japanese hidden in the kowliang awaited the onset, then poured in a terrible fire, which threw the first regiment, composed of raw recruits, into confusion. They broke and fled; the regiment behind, prevented by the high stalks from seeing what had happened, opened fire upon their own comrades; a third was led into the same fatal error; and the entire left wing, bewildered, disorganized, sought safety in flight. Yentai was filled with the Russian wounded; surgeons, with coats off and shirt sleeves tucked up, went about their work in the open streets; the air was filled with the screams and groans of men in agony.

Jack hurried through the town, and came again into the open country. A mile north of the town he overtook a bearded veteran crawling painfully along; he was wounded in the chest. He looked with haggard, covetous eyes on Jack's mule; his face was drawn and white; sweat was streaming from his brow. Jack stopped and sprang to the ground.

"Get on my mule," he said in Russian. "Hi Lo, help me to lift him up."

The man broke into sobbing exclamations of thanks. Supported by Jack on one side, by Hi Lo on the other, he rode on during the rest of that hot day. At dusk they entered a straggling village, and Jack was thinking of looking for a shelter for the night when a rough voice from a cottage cried:

"Ach, Strogoff! come here, comrade."

"Nu, Chapkin," said the wounded man. "I am wounded, old friend."

Jack led the mule to the door, and helped to carry the man into the cottage. It had been appropriated by a group of Russian soldiers who had become separated from their regiment. They received their wounded comrade with rough expressions of sympathy; and, learning from him of the Chinaman's kindness in lending his mule, they invited Jack and Hi Lo to stay with them. Jack was nothing loth. He shared his few remaining biscuits with the men, and sent Hi Lo out to buy some fruit if possible.

The boy returned with some pears and peaches, which formed a welcome addition to their black bread and cakes of buckwheat.

Sitting on the k'ang, Jack was an interested listener to the soldiers' talk. He did not understand all they said; they were simple moujiks, whose broad dialect was not easy to follow; but he picked up a good deal of their conversation.

Strogoff had to relate how he had received his wound. His story was long in the telling, punctuated by many an "Ach!" "Och!" "Eka!" "Nu!" from his comrades.

"Ach!" he concluded, "the Japanese are fine fellows, but they are too little to use the bayonet. A bigger man would have made a better job of it, and I should be dead now."

"Da! But you'd rather be alive, Strogoff?"

"How can I tell, Kedril? Will the doctors be able to mend my wound?"

"Not if they're such fools as the generals," grunted Kedril, a big, shaggy rifleman who had lost an arm.

"True, there are some fools among them. But better be a fool than a knave, like the commissaries. Why, half the biscuits served out to us to-day were full of maggots, and my boots--look at them!--are made of paper. Do you think the Little Father knows how we are cheated?"

"No, no; the Emperor does not know, Almazoff. He would not suffer these evils if he knew them. Nu! he cannot be everywhere, like the Lord God."

"Things will be better some day. We've done our part, little pigeon. But the Emperor would not like it if he knew what lies they have told us. Why, they said the Japanese were dirty little men like monkeys; but they're cleaner than you and me, Strogoff."

"And they said they walked with their heads downwards."

"No, Chapkin, that's the English. They say the English walk upright in their own country, but when they go to another place of theirs called Australia they turn upside down and walk on their heads."

"That can't be true, because Australia belongs to Germany. It's a part of America, I believe."

"Nu! America belongs to England, so I dare say I was right after all. Anyway, the Japanese walk on their feet like us, and they fight well. I wonder what made them so angry with us?"

"I don't know. What do we get angry about when we're at home? Perhaps the Little Father called the Emperor of Japan a sheep; if you called me a sheep I should fight you; but emperors can't fight; of course not, for they've no one to give them orders except the Lord God, and He couldn't give orders to both at once."

"But if they quarrel, why should they make us fight in thousands? It would be much better if his excellency the general and the Japanese marshal took off their coats and fought, just they two. That would be a fight worth seeing, eh, comrades?--a fight after the old style, before they did everything by machinery."

"Da! It wouldn't matter so much if they made each other's nose bleed, instead of us shooting at the little Japanese and them shooting at us. Why, think of the thousands of widows there must be in Little Russia--da! and in Japan too, for I expect they have a kind of marriage there."

"True, we haven't any quarrel with the little men; and they're not very angry either. When I was wounded in the bayonet charge, and lay on the ground, a Japanese came up and gave me a cigarette; ach! the sun was hot, and I was fanning myself with my cap, and he made me take a little paper fan he had. Here it is: I shall give it to my little Anna, dushenka! when I get home again."

"Ach! shall we ever get home again? Look at the thousands of versts we are away; and we've got to stay till we beat the Japanese! Sing us your song, Chapkin--you know, the one that always makes me cry."

The big veteran addressed took a sip from his half-empty flask of vodka, and began, in a fine baritone every note of which was charged with pathos--

"No more my eyes will see the land Where I was born. I suffer at my lord's command; My limbs are torn. Upon my roof the owl will moan; The pigeon for her mate will yearn; My heart with grief is broken down: No, never more shall I return!"

The simple words brought tears to the eyes of all those rough soldiers. Kedril grunted and growled.

"Don't make us more sad. Almazoff, you're the only fellow among us who can read: read us something out of your English book; the piece about the great fight in heaven; that's the stuff for a soldier."

Almazoff took from his pocket a dirty dog-eared paper-covered book, and turned over the leaves. Having found the place, he began, in a slow sonorous chant--

"Then rose a storming fury, and such uproar as never yet had been heard in Heaven. Arms clashed on armour, a din of horrible discord; the furious wheels of brazen chariots roared with rage; dire was the noise of battle. Overhead with awesome hiss flew fiery darts in flaming volleys, and their flight covered either host with a vault of fire. Beneath this burning dome the embattled armies shocked together, with deadly onset and unquenchable rage: all Heaven resounded; and had earth been then, the whole earth had quivered to her centre. What wonder, when on both sides millions of angels fought, fierce foes, of whom the feeblest could wield the elements and arm himself with the might of all their regions!----"

Thus he read on, and through the rough prose of the Russian translation Jack caught echoes of the famous passage in _Paradise Lost_.

Far into the night the reading, story-telling, singing, went on. In the morning Jack took leave of the simple brave fellows and resumed his journey. On the way he learnt that the Russian army was in full retreat. General Kuropatkin's able dispositions had extricated his worn troops from the danger of being surrounded, and they were falling back in good order, disappointed but not disheartened, towards Moukden. Thither Jack made with all speed; and entering the city with Hi Lo by one of the south gates in the evening, he found Schwab placidly smoking his pipe at the door of the Green Dragon.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*Mr. Brown's House*

Schwab and Sowinski--Extempore--The Camera cannot Lie--Sowinski Suspicious--Shadowed--Short Notice--Run to Earth--A Hole in the Fence--Lares et Penates--The Press--Sowinski's Supper

Weeks passed. Moukden was no longer the city Jack had known. Hitherto but few Russian troops had been seen in its streets; now these were thronged from morning till night. Regimental wagons, ammunition carts, rumbled hither and thither, raising clouds of dust. Officers strolled about, buying knick-knacks of the curio dealers; war correspondents kicked their heels in the hotels; droshkies, rickshaws, troikas, flew this way and that, to the disturbance of the placid people of this ancient city.

There were already signs of winter in the streets. The seasons in Manchuria do not shade off one into another; summer heat stops, almost at one stride comes winter cold. One morning the shops in the principal streets were hung with furs--the skins of wild cats, foxes, martens, otters, sheep, raccoons; fur caps, lined coats, woollen hoods, sheepskin leggings, stockings of camel's hair. The Chinese merchants near the eastern ramparts plied a brisk trade with Russian officers, offering their customers cups of tea with true oriental politeness, and raising their prices a hundred per cent.

They had been weeks of idleness for Jack. The Japanese had occupied Yentai; the Russians had thrown up entrenchments to the south of Moukden. There was talk of their taking the offensive; but warlike operations had ceased for a time, and Schwab had been too busy developing his negatives to think about taking more photographs. Jack spent much of his time with the compradore, hoping day after day, but in vain, for news of his father. He had caused money to be forwarded to Mr. Hi Feng in Harbin for the purpose of pushing enquiries in the north, through Chinese channels, and two trusty Chinese had been sent to make investigations along the Moukden-Harbin section. The latter returned quite baffled. But Jack sent them out again; he chafed at his own helplessness: meanwhile no stone must be left unturned. Once or twice he had seen Sowinski in the streets; once he met him face to face near the palace; but the Pole passed by without giving any signs of recognition.