At the beginning of the year I had been living in Suhudyapu, or Suhupu, with Mishchenko's Cossacks, and my feelings on returning to it were like those of a man who returns to his native village after a long absence. Suhudyapu had been quiet, sequestered, roomy; now a railway ran past it, and it was dreadfully busy, overcrowded, and forgetful of me. General Mishchenko's former residence was choke-full of stores; and the former " Sobranie " (club) of the Verkhnyudinsky Cossacks had been converted into a Red Cross Hospital. RikacheiT and I managed to discover a Greek store, in which some tinned provisions still remained, and here we made the first decent meal that we had had for some days. While we were eating, a strange thing happened. I chanced to see at the door a venerable Manchu woman, with a fine face, almost Roman in the regularity of its outline, and with a striking dignity of manner which was sadly in contrast to the dry leaves and pieces of straw which, frozen to her dress, indicated that she had been sleeping out in the open. She was looking wistfully into the house, and, anxious to air the few words of Chinese that I know, I asked her what she wanted. She then came into the room, carrying a little child in her arms and leading another by the hand, and, pointing with a dramaticgestureto the "kang," shesaid inawhimpering voice and with tears in her eyes that her children had been born there. It was a striking way of saying that the house belonged taher, and the superstitious Greek became visibly uncomfortable. He became still more uncomfortable a few hours later, when a Japanese shell frightened him out of that house and almost out of his wits.
At Suhudyapu railway station I saw a sight that made a greater impression on me than anything that I had witnessed so far. A large quantity of " vodka," bread, conserves and other eatables and drinkables had been thrown to the soldiers, as it was impossible to save it; and, considering the thousands of men there were around who had not eaten a morsel for days, it is easy to imagine what occurred. Fierce currents of humanity set in simultaneously from north, south, east and west towards this loot. Many of the men immediately carried away loads of preserves, most of which they would undoubtedly have to drop before they had marched a mile. Nevertheless they snapped ferociously at any comrade who offered to relieve them of a tin or two. Some sat down on the ground and began to cut open tins with their swords and bayonets and to devour the contents on the spot. The veins stood out like whipcord on their temples, their eyes were bloodshot, and the perspiration streamed down their faces as they savagely attacked the food. Others cut open more preserves than they could eat in a week. Their hunger seemed to be appeased by the mere sight of the food, and their excitement was so great that they sometimes cut their fingers without noticing it. But the great scenes raged around the " vodka" casks. The barrels had been stabbed with bayonets and hacked open with knives, swords, and axes until they bled from scores of wounds. A frantic crowd of men struggled around these openings, seeking to apply their mouths to them or to catch the precious liquid in cups, cans, empty sardine tins, and even in the cases of the Japanese shells that were falling conveniently around. A huge red-capped Orenburg Cossack jumped on one of the barrels, wielding an axe, with which he soon stove in the head of another barrel amid wild cries of drunken triumph. The sight of that red-capped Cossack and the frenzied crowd that surged around him recalled ominous historical scenes from the pages of Carlyle.
" This is more dangerous for you than Towtaidze," whispered Rikacheff, white as a sheet; " for God's sake don't speak English."
This warning was necessary, for of late the soldiers had developed a distinct tinge of Anglophobia. They had all got the idea that the Japanese could not have carried on the war so long had it not been for the financial assistance given them by the British and the Americans, and this financial assistance they seemed to regard as a breach of neutrality, a casus belt almost.
A drunken infantryman rolled unsteadily towards me, his beard and the breast of his coat all wet with " vodka," and began to speak volubly and unintelligibly; but Rikacheff, who probably did not want to see my head smashed in with the butt of a rifle, as soon as the soldier had discovered that he was addressing a Britisher, edged in between us and took up the tangled thread of the discourse.