The river press., 1904-11-30
INCIDENT OF THE WAR
Russian Officers Story Of the
Fight at Khvantsuitsui.
TERROR OF A MIDNIGHT suRpR1sE


TERROR OF A xIDNIGHT SURPRISE
Experience Of = Russian Battalion
Attacked hy the japanese During .
Terrific Thunderstorm-Bomb
by Gigantic aallstones - Russians
shot Wildly, Flrlng ON Their Men.
The fight Mt khvantsuitsui, In Man
churia, an incident Of the Russo-Japa.
nese war, Is thus described by Sublieu-
tenant Grigorenko. says the London
News:
killing men by daylight, with the
blood flowing before your eyes, is hor-
rible enough. but it is nothing COM
pared with the hideous uncertainties
and suggestions Of terror Of mid
night surprise. In my hrst night At
tack we fought two enemies, for an
extraordinary thunderstorm ragged all
the time.
'This took place at Khvantsuitsui
during the Haicheng business. was
asleep so soundly from exhaustion that
did not hear the firing and yawned
and nearly went to sleep again. when
my denstcl,il; came in and shook me.
He pulled me out t,lnicless, giving me
my sword and revolver.
Il rushed out into the scene of ap-
pallipg confusion. The whole world
around, 1t seemed. was being bonn
barded not with shot and shell. but
with gigantic hailstones which banged
my bare head SO hard that put up
my hands to protect it. Then there
was Il bright flash of pink lightning,
and ON the hill beyond I saw three
companies Of our battalion lying flat
on the ridge and firing I rushed UP,
breathless and stung by the hail. and
took up my position. Two officers lay
on the ground dead or wounded. No
one else had been hit. But every few
seconds after the lightning flashed a
roar broke from the Japanese rifles
beneath, which I should have taken
for thunder had 1t not been preceded
by storm Of lead.
Every moment we thought we were
being surrounded. The men shot Wild
three or four times showed about thir-
ty faces peering over black ridge Of
rock. The men poured In volley.
Then some one swore, and heard Cap
tain Khrebtson shouting. idiots, don't
fire; those are our men,
THE men from the ridge soon crept
up, terrified and pale as ghosts, so pan
icky and nervous that they would have
bayoneted their own mothers. We had
wounded one Of them, poor lad Of
nineteen, and he had been left there
untended among thousand real and
imaginable horrors. A corporal named
Ovtcharof volunteered to fetch him,
and, taking another man, set OF In the
pitch dark. They lost their way.
When the lightning flashed again we
saw them running quickly up wrong
hill, and the top Of the hill was crowd
ed with Jap infantry. They never
came back.
THE hail had ceased, but the thunder
and lightning rumbled and flashed as
before. Then there was lull. Pitch
darkness ensued, and we waited In
tense terror. with the Japanese, as we
knew, creeping up the hillside in over
whelming force. One man laid down
his rifle, crossed himself and began to
pray. Another followed his example,
and the sight Of these two white faces
hanging, as 1t seemed, in the black air
gave me nightmare feeling.
ITO break the suspense the men were
ordered to fire volleys every half min
nfo tI11 c1o n..A ..4n
flashes give our position away, and the
Japanese, who had dragged a machine
gun up the hill, poured in n tempest of
lead. We crept few yards down the
slope for shelter, waiting vainly for
supports or orders from Headquarters.
Neither came
"The Japanese decided to end the
fight with the bayonet In the last
faint fash Of lightning we saw them
in confused thick mass not fifty
yards away. We poured in volley
and must have killed many. but the
rest rushed us. There was no idea Of
fighting. Our men gave way before
the rush like IN acr0bat's paper hoop,
and in a shouting. screaming mob we
raced down the hill. Seven men were
bayoneted and few shot down. But
1t was nerves, not bullet or steel. that
lost the fight.
Next morning, when the enemy had
cleared on, party set out to bury the
dead. Seventeen among them We're
japanese. But among our corpses
We're two, unwounded, who had been
spared by bullet and STEEL but slain
by lightning"
"ArIn D0gs'' ~ Society Pets.
Arm dogs are being carried about
by women Of fashion, says writer in