RikachefT and I now went further north. Behind many of the low mud walls that divided the fields we found lines of soldiers; and in one place there were no soldiers, but a great collection of boots, overcoats and blood-stained bandages, which probably indicated that a shell had wrought great havoc there. We sat down for a moment on this scarred, unlucky spot to eat some cheese we had brought with us, when suddenly a soldier rushed up and begged one of us to lend him a horse for a short time, as he wanted to order more ammunition. He got the horse and duly returned it, but no sooner had he done so than the Russian line in front of us — it consisted of a regiment belonging to the 1 st Siberian Corps — began to fall back. Thus, on this day I saw our firing-line give way at two different points, and in neither case was the movement such as I had previously imagined a retreat to be. It was no sauve qui peut, for the men trudged back slowly and sullenly, covered by their own batteries.
They were too tired to go back quickly, and the Japanese were too tired to follow them up. On both sides the limit of human endurance had almost been reached, and, if finally the Japanese won, it was because their fanaticism had made them more than human.
We now entered the great forest that surrounds the Imperial Tombs of Pehling, where, in the deep shade beneath the murmuring pines, the ancient monarchs of Manchuria had wisely chosen their last restingplace. The peace that prevailed here was in startling contrast to the uproar outside.
Even a company of soldiers who passed at a distance through the forest aisles seemed, in that cathedral light, to be transformed, beatified. Standing in the shady path, with the gentle rustling of the trees in our ears, Rikacheff and I instinctively lowered our voices as if we had been in a basilica. We seemed to have stumbled by accident on an ark in which God had preserved a specimen of a beautiful world which had been wrecked, smashed and over-run by a deluge of armed men. It suddenly occurred to me that the Almighty could not, after all, be the pitiless Jehovah whom I had heard about.
There was not a soul in the great shady quadrangles, not a priest in the reposeful ancient temples. Nest-building sparrows and the long line of gigantic stone animals which flanked the avenue appeared to be the sole inhabitants of this sequestered ruin. The manes of dead Emperors seemed to guard the spot.
At length, however, a Chinese guide advanced cautiously towards us from a distant hut, but, in spite of his stolid appearance, he must have been very much upset, for he forgot to ask us, as usual, for money before unbarring the various iron-studded doors that led to the interior of the Mausoleum. Expecting to get a good view of the Japanese, I ascended the highest tower, but the huge trees and the white semicircular earthen mound, beneath which lie the bones of Nurhachu, prevented me from seeing anything. Rickacheff and I wound up the day's proceedings by getting arrested as Japanese spies.
Thursday was a day on which no sensible person