I next engaged the Manchurian who had guided us to Yinkow to guide me across the Liao-ho. He was a young dare-devil of nineteen or twenty, probably a bandit, and if the Japanese had caught him I am afraid that he would have had a short shrift, for in his purse were the rouble notes which he had received from his Russian employers. I might also mention the fact that I carried some telegramswhich the commander of our brigade had casually asked me to send for him; and though they were apparently private messages, the Japanese might have made short work of me too if they had found them on me. Worst of all, however, I carried on my person rouble notes to the value of about one thousand pounds sterling. At this time it was necessary for a correspondent on the Russian side to carry these large sums of money with him, as he never knew when he might have to send off a telegram which would require every kopeck he had got, for the Russian telegraph officials would not adopt the " receiver-to-pay" system that obtains elsewhere. And if a Japanese or Russian scout had caught me, searched me, and found all this money on me, I am extremely afraid that he would not have spared my life.
1
At first our young Manchurian guide was very reluctant to go with me, but when our regular regimental Chinese interpreter had told him that I was Yingwa (English), and therefore a great favourite with the Japanese, his hesitation was at once overcome.
In order to get past the lake which lay to our west, I had to ride some distance to the south — that is, in the direction in which a body of Japanese infantry was said to be advancing to attack us; and I felt excessively uneasy, therefore, until I was able to ride due west.
As soon as I got clear of the Russian scouts I took off the Cossack jacket which I wore; but my Astrakan cap, my high boots, and a number of other things gave everybody I met the impression that I was a Russian soldier. Besides, it is nothing less than mysterious how closely one comes to resemble, even in face and manner, a foreign people among whom one has lived for any length of time.
On approaching the first village on my line of march my heart beat rapidly, for the heads of all the inhabitants thereof were visible above the earthen wall which surrounded the hamlet, and it was as likely as not that somebody would have a pot-shot at me. I passed through in safety, however, and, in four or five hours, was near the Liao-ho.
These four or five hours were not, however, among the most agreeable which I have spent in my lifetime, for the eyes were ready to start out of my head with the strain of keeping a look-out for Japanese. At one place I saw ten or twelve horsemen on the verge of the horizon, but my guide told me that they were Chinese peasants: and, anyhow, we did not encounter them. As a rule I made out distant objects myself, and I was surprised and gratified at the accuracy I had acquired; for I remembered that at the battle of Ta-shih-chiao I had been practically unable to see anything of the enemy, while the officers around me were able to see them easily.
Having at length come near to the Liao-ho, I was horrified to discover casually from my guide that there was a Japanese guard in Tenshwantai, and I made no secret of my alarm.
" But I thought you were a friend of the Japanese? " gasped my young Hunghuze.
I tried to explain that I was not fighting against them, and had nothing to fear from them except delay, which, considering the business I was on, would have been fatal; but all this failed to reassure the youth, who now came evidently to the conclusion that I was, like himself, a dangerous outlaw. I sometimes heard him discussing me in the villages through which we passed. He always referred to me as the "p'ing" (soldier), and did not, I think, give the inhabitants a very reassuring account of me. He took to lagging behind in a very sulky manner, and I began to wonder if his object was to shoot me from the rear — for he was armed — and then, in good old Celestial fashion, to carry my head to the Japanese as a peace offering. I induced him, however, to bring me to a crossingplace some four or five miles north of Tenshwantai; and when I finally did — albeit not without some difficulty— effect a crossing at this point, under the guidance of a middle-aged Celestial, who trembled with fear as he stared at my strange accoutrements, I felt as elated as if I had discovered the North Pole.
It was not quite a safe place, however, for it was about here that, after the battle of Ta-shih-chiao, the unfortunate Russian gunboat Sivoutch was so pestered by Hunghuze, who fired on her night after night from the bank, that the position of the crew became almost as horrible as that of the Master of Ballintrae when he was tracked in the woods of America by vengeful Indians.