Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-03
SCENES AT LIA0YANG
FIGHTING oF5AP
AND ShAv IN THE DARK.
Shell and Siaughter-Downpour Of Rain
Washes Out Bloodstains-Col-
Letting the Wounded.

From with Kuroki In Msnehuria.'' BY Frederick
|. Palmer. Charles Seribners Sons)
THAT old question which we had ever
asked in the months of our waiting in camp
on the way from the Yalu-'Will Kuropat-
kin stand at LiaoyangT-was answered for
the trouble of climbing to the top of
ridge by the flashing of 800 guns. like the
sparks from wood when red-hot iron is
drawn across it, says Frederick Palmer
in his book with Kuroki in Manchuria."
THAT scene of armed strength the most
magnificent since the Germans were before
Sedan, did not turn my thoughts to Kuro-
patkin but to another general. the head Of
the Russian railroad system. One sweeping
glance told you that Prince Hilkon had
made good with his single-track railroad.
cit was strange that the first great battle
with modern arms should be fought in the
suburbs Of a Manchurian town, and strange
to find here on this day tribute to n Rus
sian nobleman because he had learned rail-
reading from bureau to locomotive over vast
expanses in America" =
War in the Dark.
So the enemy, in turn. undertook a right.
attack. Again: the shrapnei burstS flashed :
over Hayentaf after the sun went down,
while the rifles blazed out from the crest
which had been a dead gray against the sky
during tue udy- "A olDtiidu fSSiuleut anu u
regiment fresh from Russia-the old too
steady, the new under the first staggering
blast and the new bringing Ingenious faith
in his invincibity-came with drums
drums in the night. There! WINS no artiace.
The heavy Slav, like some mad giant rushed
upon skill with the rage of brute force. A
torrent of men swept up Hayentai. They
ingulfed the Japanese who were there as
the Japanese had ingnlfed the Russianssthe
night before. Then the fight In the dark
began. The Japanese driven back on their
reserve in the village reformed Shel-fire
no longer shook their nerves or broke their
ranks. The batteries of neither side might
fire in the dark without firing into their
own men. Hayentafs was a debris-strewn,
blood-strewn. shel-torn. open arena for
men and rifies-and particularly for the bay
onets the ends of the rifles. Creeping
upward like cats. the little men put their
steel in the big men and swamped the Rus
sian advance before its reserve could be
brought into action. In the morning the
mist of shrapnel hanging over the crest was
still Russian. which told US that the Japa-
nese still held that little hiIl'' as vital to
either side a bridge to a roadstead
The Aftermath of Battle.
The days fighting was finished, but not
the days work. nor the days drudgery. nor
the days misery. The wounded were yet to
be brought in. and the dead and the fuel to
burn them collected by weary limbs The
plunging fire of the Russians against their
foe, struggling through the rough fields and
over rougher, untitled slopes. had caused
the division 600 casualties, including the
death of colonel.
Late in the afternoon deluge of rain
washed the blood off the grass. The flood
of water turned dry beds into dashing rfvu-
let's. The flood of slaughter, also settling
towards the valley. passed on by the single
hospital tent-already congested at day
break from the night attack-into the viii
lage, whose population was crowded into a
few houses in order that the wounded might
be crowded into others. Through every
doorway you caught a glimpse of PROSTATE
figures and of white bandages with red
spots which made them like wrapped flags
of Japan.
Dripping hospital corps men brought in
dripping burdens covered with blankets or
with the mating in which the rice and
horse fodder of the army are transported.
When darkness came, the lanterns of the
searchers twinkled in and out on the hill
side. Dawn found them still at work col
lecting stray Russian wounded, who had
lain suffering all night in the rain for dol
lar and fifty cents a year and the glory
which the cars service brings them. In
the> bushes, in the declivities between the
rocks of many square acres-could every
fallen man be gathered? How many cries
coming family from feverishly dry lips and
finally dying into a swoon were an
answered? At some future time, when a
Chinese peasant stumbles over set OF
bones, the world will not be the wiser