CHAPTER XX A FIGHT WITH WILD COSSACKS IN POLAND

The leader of the villagers escorted his young guests to the largest house in the town, where immediate preparations were made for the finest dinner that German housewives--and there are no better!--could make. All of the townspeople who could crowd into the room did so, and both windows and the doorway were jammed with the curious faces of others who wanted to hear news of the Great War.

There were not stools enough to go around, so they all sat cross-legged on the floor and talked as they ate.

“First of all,” said Bob, “what is this place called and in what country is it?”

The question struck the simple villagers as being very funny and they all laughed uproariously.

“You will have to excuse us,” smiled the spokesman, “but we supposed that everybody had heard of Kolwinsk, which is the name of our town. You are now in East Prussia, about twenty miles over the boundary from Poland, and perhaps thirty or thirty-five miles from where the nearest fighting is going on. Lying this far to the northwest, we are out of the line of invasion and so far have been lucky enough to escape Russian raiding parties about which such terrible stories are told. They say that the Cossack horsemen have perpetrated the most inhuman atrocities. No village through which they pass is left unpillaged. They butcher or torture the aged in cold-blood, dash out the brains of babies against tree-trunks, and reduce the screaming, helpless women to worse than shame. If they resist, the Cossacks mutilate them in awful fashion.”

“Oh, I can hardly believe all that,” interposed Alan. “The Russians are civilized people.”

“Maybe so,” replied the village head-man with some heat, “but remember the old saying: ‘Scratch a Russian and you’ll find the Tartar underneath.’ This war has made brutish beasts of everyone taking part in it. Also remember that this Russian army is made up not only of full-blooded Russians, but also of Baltic Province men, Jews from Riga and Libau, huge, hairy Siberians, barbarous Circassians and Kalmuck Tartars, who are half Chinese--as mongrel and savage a horde as ever devastated a Christian country. But, of them all, the wild Cossack from the steppes is the worst and most to be dreaded. He knows no religion, no law, no pity, and couples with that a daring which even our own gallant Uhlans cannot surpass.”

Ned tried to get the German to change the subject, for he was working himself into a frenzy.

“How has the war progressed here in the east?” he asked. “We Americans, you know, have been watching the western struggle more closely.”

The village spokesman shrugged his shoulders.

“Here it has been now in favor of the Germans, now with the Russians. At first General Rennenkampf led millions after millions of his wild men swarming into Poland. We had too few men on the frontier to resist and so were beaten back. Then the Kaiser sent us General Von Hindenburg, a hero who won the Iron Cross for distinguished services when we captured Paris in the time of the present Emperor’s father. Von Hindenburg is of the old hard school, but he is a great commander. He rallied our troops and in turn pressed the Russians back. He lured Rennenkampf into a trap at Tannenberg and nearly annihilated the whole Russian army. Then the Grand Duke Nicholas arrived from Petrograd with millions more Russians. The struggle seesawed back and forth all of the way from Angerburg to Gumbinnen and between the Warthe and the Vistula. We lost a big battle before Warsaw in Poland, lost again at Lodz, and then won on the same battlefield, and again at Lowicz, in which two engagements we captured over 120,000 prisoners. So it is going on even now. We are still fighting hand to hand with the Russians around Warsaw; and Lowicz, which was ours yesterday, may be theirs to-morrow. Our army is holding eight times their number of Russians in check, and that’s enough to be proud of.”

“But what about the Austrians? Haven’t they helped any here in combating the Russian invasion?” asked Bob.

“No, the Austrians have had quite enough to do protecting themselves at home, and have left Germany to fight the whole world single-handed. The Austrians invaded Servia six months ago, captured Belgrade, the capital, and then were driven out of the country altogether. Now the Serbs and Montenegrins are themselves invading Austria in the south and east, while the Russians have completely overrun Galicia and Transylvania. No, Austria has been of no real help to Germany in this war.

“But you, sir, were going to tell us about what has been going on in the west. Who is winning there now?”

So Bob and Buck, both of whom spoke German with fair fluency, went on to outline the operations in France and Belgium. They were still in the midst of this when all at once there came a noise as if bedlam had broken loose on the other side of the village.

The thunder of furiously galloping horses filled the air. Then came fusillade and fusillade of shots and hideous demoniacal yells, with which were intermingled the shrieks of terrified women and children and the clang of the alarm bell.

“Help! Help! Ah, help! The Cossacks are upon us!”

Everybody gathered in the big room leaped to their feet. Terror seemed fairly to paralyze the peasants. Some few seized clubs or knives to defend themselves, but most ran aimlessly about wringing their hands and calling upon heaven to save them. Those men having wives and children at home unprotected, rushed forth into the street directly into the path of the wild riders from the steppes.

The boys dashed for the door at the first warning, but the raiders were thundering down the street almost upon them. There were perhaps sixty Cossacks all told--barbarous looking, swarthy fellows with flying long black hair and sheepskin jackets. Their beards were a-bristle; their eyes rolled red and wickedly; they brandished curved Mongolian swords or shot to right and left with sawed-off carbines pressed against their thighs. The shaggy, under-sized ponies were as wild-looking as their worse than savage masters.

Seeing them come galloping pellmell not a stone’s throw away, the boys dodged inside the house again, barely escaping a random volley which was fired at the cottage as the horsemen swept past. In a few minutes they had overrun the whole village, and the horrid noise of the slaughter was half drowned in shrill, uncouth Siberian yells and the roar of flames from houses which had been ruthlessly set on fire.

The glare of the burning hut across the street shone weirdly through the doorway, making the boys’ faces look ghastly. The rolling clouds of smoke half choked them and smarted their eyes.

“We’ve got to get out of here--_quick_!” gasped Ned. “Those fellows may discover the _Ocean Flyer_ at any moment, and there’s no telling what may happen then. Follow me and have your weapons ready!”

Straight out into the street they plunged and found themselves in the midst of a scene more frightful than words can adequately describe. Half of the village was already ablaze, the thatched roofs of the cottages spurting yellow flames high up into the air and giving off an intolerable heat. The scene was almost as light as day. Silhouetted against the lurid glare, wild Cossacks were cutting down the fear-crazed peasants.

One fleeing woman with a babe in her arms was caught by her unbound hair and dragged screaming to her knees. As her frantic husband leaped at her assailant, the Cossack shot him deliberately through the heart. The dead lay fallen in grotesque postures half out of doorways or huddled bleeding on the street. Here and there a wounded man was crawling away to die in the fields.

Crack! Crack! Crack! sounded the revolvers of the intrepid boys as they charged down the street. Shot for shot answered them from the surprised marauders, who had not expected quarry like this. They leaped upon their prancing ponies again and tried to ride down these determined opponents, but, sheltered behind a yet unburnt hut, the boys met them with so withering a fire that they galloped on past.

“Run!” yelled Buck. “It’s our only chance!”

The boys did. It was heart-breaking work, but they arrived unwounded at the side of the _Flyer_. As they bounded up the hanging rope-ladder, their pursuers galloped madly up behind them. Shots rattled against the metal hull of the airship like hail against a window-pane, and half a dozen wild fellows tried to follow their escaping prey up the ladder before it could be drawn in.

It was a matter of seconds, but just in time the ladder was jerked out of the reach of clutching hands.

“All ready there, Mr. Engineer,” shouted Buck from up above the pilot room.

Buck made a dash for his post, the current was turned on, and in a minute more the _Flyer_ was soaring high above the scene of the massacre.