On this day, March 4, the excitement at the railway station reached fever-point. From morning till night troops poured in — Cossacks, artillerymen, dragoons, infantry. What became of them afterward I do not know. I suppose some were sent west and some north. Great numbers of wounded were also brought along. Long rows of tents were run up alongside the railway line for the reception of these wounded. Outside these tents were piles of blood-stained first-aid bandages as high as your armpits. The great square in front of the station was black, or rather grey, with troops. There was a large Cossack escort waiting outside Kaulbars' railway train on a siding. There was another escort near Kuropatkin's carriage, which nobody was allowed to approach. There was a third escort outside the carriage of General Tserpitsky.
Crowds of officers were also standing outside these carriages awaiting the behests of these and other generals. Inside heated discussions were going on. Through the window-panes you could see that some of the officers were standing up, gesticulating and pointing to maps. Messengers were arriving every few moments. Once an excited Cossack rode up shouting that the Japanese were only three versts off. The restaurant at the railway station was as crowded as ever. There was hardly standing-room on the platform.
The number of trains that were in would have been no discredit to a big depot in America. Most of them, however, were Red Cross trains, white, and bearing the name and coat of arms of some princess or other.
There was a crowd of czvoscheeks in front of the station. Private soldiers who seemed to have nothing else to do turned many a decent penny by holding horses. The collection of fine horses there reminded one of a horse show. The little village of Greek stores near the station did a roaring trade, and, strange to say, the prices were not exorbitant.
In the censor's office, No. 15, sat Colonel Pestitch, the head censor, displaying a gold molar in an unceasing smile, the result of the good news he hourly received. This news he generally communicated to the correspondents. Colonel Pestitch was a personification of optimism.
In an open space on the road leading to the city there was to be seen on the 4th a sight which would, even in the days of miracles, have been considered striking. Four or five hundred of the former Hunghuzes which Russia had for some years past kept in her pay were there marshalled. They were all young men, well armed, well mounted, dressed in flaring silk, yellow cummerbunds tied around their waists, golden ornaments hanging from their necks. One could hardly believe that these men belonged to the peaceful Chinese race, so firm were their handsome faces, so fiercely did they return through their oblique eyelids the stare of inquisitive foreigners. On Russians whom curiosity led to finger those very unusual specimens of Celestial manhood they promptly drew their swords, and it was easy to see that when they did so they were not showing off, as Russian officers sometimes show off with naked sabres in the cafes chantants.
These interesting gentlemen had evidently attained that enviable state of mind (which, with the exception of Japanese soldiers, few people in the modern world can be said to have attained) in which, every morning that they open their eyes, they are»perfectly prepared to regard their own violent death as one of the most probable occurrences of the coming day, and when men reach that stage their conduct is not always distinguished by an excess of caution and self-restraint.
From afar off, the good citizens of Nurhachu's ancient capital watched, in awe and wonder, this band of freebooters. Village legends and tales and old nurses' rhymes had often spoken of them, but never a single specimen had the good burghers of Mukden seen before, save, disarmed and bound, on the execution ground outside the west gate of Mukden.
Where these desperadoes came from I do not know. Where they were sent to I do not know. I can only say that they all disappeared mysteriously next day. But on this day of troubles and rumours, their apparition excited no great attention, and, with the exception of a local photographer, I think that I was the only foreigner to notice them or to snapshot them. They seemed to me like one of those mysterious but necessary signs which are, according to the Apocalypse, to precede the end of the world. Their coming and their going were alike mysterious, but in that day of death and destruction and red ruin, of the imminent fall of Mukden and the tottering of the Muscovite throne in Manchuria, the dead would hardly have excited attention had they risen from their graves and walked the streets.