The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1877-07-05
ONE AGAINST EIGHT.
A Russian Soldiers Defence of His
COmrade The Story of Ter
Tible Struggle.
from the New York Times

There is well known story Of the find
ing upon the battlefield of Inkerman OF
the corpses of an English guardsman and
Russian grenadier, lying breast to breast
each with his bayonet driven to the very
shank in his opponents body. Such
proofof hardihood might have satisfied
Leonidas himself; but still more MEM
orable example OF the qualities which
characterize the Russian llnesman occur
red during the almost unknown siege OF
the fortified town of Kitab, in Central
Asia. The story is best told in the words
of the Russian officer who related it to
our informant
"The town of Kitab lies in deep mar
row gully. surrounded on every side by
steep hills, so that we could only bring Il
small force to bear upon any one point
and the wall, though built Of dried mud,
in the AsiatiC fashion, was quite high,
and strong enough to be tough morsel
for any storming party. However, it was
decided to try it by escalade, (for you see
we had beaten those fellows so often thai
we undervalued them for onCe), and |
was with the detachment that was told of
to do it. But the whole thing was It's
sue of blunders from beginning to end,
as bad as t. assault of Kars under Mou'
ravieff in 1866 which was my first taste
of fighting. First and foremost, the sig
nal for the fororn hope to advance, was
given by some horrid mistake, before the
supports were ready to follow up so for
ward we went, under smashing fire,
(Shekri Sebzians can shoot aud no mis-
take) without a man to back us. And
then, when we got to the wall, 10 and
behold our ladders were too short, just
as it happened at Kars; and there we
were being shot down like partridges,
without chance of doing anything Our
men behaved splendidly, must say (;
some tried to splice the ladders together,
while others attempted to scramble up
over each others shoulders, with the
enemy peppering right down among them
as hard as they could pelt. But it was
all Of no use. They fell upon one anoth-
er, just like fish out of net; and our
Colonel was hit in the side, and | got a
bullet through my shoulder, and the rest
dropped one by one Oil there was hardly
an officer left. At last we heard the sig
nal of recall, but our men were 80 mad
with the repulse, and the losses, and what
not, that they wouldn't retire even when
they were ordered, and just then the
enemy, seeing how few we were came
rushing out upon us in body. Now, it
happened that in my company that two
young fellows who were like a second
edition of the 'Corsican BrotheTs'-regu-
lar inseparables, in fact, one of them
having got through the fight with what
he called slight wound Il should have
called it a pretty sharp one myself, was
just turning to retire when he saw his
comrade lying on the ground, helpless,
with a ball through his leg. In an in
slant he had him on his shoulder and
was carrying him away, when eight of
the enemy Came rushing upon them at
once. Thereupon the rough fellow laid
his wounded friend on the ground as
gently as mother, and standing astride
of him, dubbed his musket and fought
the whole eight of them single handed (;
and when the supporters came up they
found one Shekri-Sebzian lying with his
skull smashed like an egg shell, and the
Russian with five sword wounds in him,
keeping the seven other rascals at bay,
But when we praised him and called him
a hero, he looked at us quite surprised
like and said, What was to do, father? =?
l could not forsake my Comrade ="