Finally, the adjutant, a young, handsome, voluble man, tells us he is ready to start. When we go out into the courtyard we find that it has been snowing, and that our horses and saddles are all white and fleecy. It can easily be seen, however, that the fierce cold which marked the first battle of Sandypu has passed. Lucky as ever, the Japanese have begun the battle at the right moment. A week earlier it would have been too cold; a week later the ice on the rivers would have been too thin to bear artillery. Alas! The stars in their courses have fought against us!
A few days before, I saw Davangangpu for the first time, and was powerfully impressed by the aspect of the place. It was like a busy railway terminus in Western America. A dozen sidings were filled with trains. Veritable mountains of provisions were piled along the railway and guarded by soldiers. Close by was a long row of hospital tents, whose inner shell was made of earth, and from the gables of which smoking stove-pipes projected. A dozen enormous siege-guns lay alongside the tents, and imparted an air of finality to the scene.
Davangangpu now wears a different appearance. The tents, guns, and railway trains are gone, and the mountains of provisions are going — going up in flames and smoke. The whole place is lit up by a furnace glare. The windows vomit great red flames. It is like the mouth of the Great Pit. In the lurid glare there rushes past a frightened flood of men, horses and cannon. There remains, however, one good house, the house set apart for the use of General Miloff's staff. In this house I am asked to eat and to sleep, for death and defeat have failed to make the Russian officers forget their traditional hospitality. I lie down in my boots, after midnight, and am lulled to sleep by the tremendous roar of the flames, which sound as if it were London that was burning, and am awakened at 3.30 a.m., though we do not leave the village till daybreak. I put in the interval looking after my horse, for which I had previously been unable to get a handful of oats for love or money, but which I am now in a position to present gratis with whole bags of corn — bags snatched from the burning. The great conflagration is still going on within a few hundred yards of me; and I now discern, as the light of dawn slowly filters through the eastern clouds, that what I at first took to be a low crenellated wall standing between me and the flames, is in reality an enormous swarm of humanity, the innumerable hosts of the Tsar, warming themselves, countless as a hive of ants, in front of the fire, against whose genial but expensive glow their heads show like crenellations.
Two groups of prisoners are now brought into our courtyard. One is a group of Japanese, all of them wounded, the slightly wounded ones supporting the badly wounded ones with fraternal arms. The other is a group of Chinese, who are accused of having been caught signalling to the enemy. The two groups are kept separate, are looked upon with different eyes, will be treated in a very different fashion. It is now nearly dawn, but not one of these Chinamen shall see the sun rise.
CHAPTER X
March the 3rd dawned beautifully. The stars faded away. The moon, which was the thinnest possible crescent, merely a geometrical line, also disappeared. The pale light of dawn was reflected from the snow, which lightly covered the ground.
Finally the sun rose, promising a bright day. With the rising of the sun the retreat commenced.
We pushed on towards Suhudyapu, along the branch railway, forming three columns of enormous length.