The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1904-12-01
INCIDENT OF THE WAR
Russian Officers Story of the
Fight st Khvantsuitsui.

TERROR OF a ITIDEIGBT SURPRISE
Attacked by The Japanese During
Terrific Thunderstornl-Bo1 barded
by Gigantic EaiIstones RuSsiana
shot Wildly. Firing on Their Men.
The fight at 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-
vible enough, but it is nothing COM
pared with the hideous uncertainties
and suggestions of terror of mid
night surprise. In my first 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
l did not hear the firing and yawned
and nearly went to sleep again, when
my denstchik came in and shook me-
He pulled me out tunicless, giving me
my sword and revolver.
II rushed out into the scene Of ap-
palling confusion. The whole world
around, it seemed, was being bonn
barded, not with shot and shell, but
with gigantic hailstones which banged
my bare head so hard that I put up
my hands to protect it. Then there
was a bright flash of pink lightning,
and on the hill beyond l saw three
companies Of our battalion lying fiat
on the ridge and firing. l 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
roar broke from the Japanese rifles
beneath, which 1 should have taken
for thunder had it not been preceded
by storm of lead
Every moment We thought we were
being surrounded. The men shot wild
~. One bright flash which fickered
three or four times showed about thir
ty faces peering over black ridge Of
rock The men poured in a volley.
Then some one swore, and l heard Cap
tain Khrebtsoff 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
INTENDED among a thousand real and
imaginable horrors. 4 corporal named
Ovtcharoff volunteered to fetch him,
and, taking another man, set off in tie
pitch dark. They lost their way.
When the lightning flashed again we
saw them running quickly up a wrong
hill, and the top of the hill was crowd
ed with Jap infantry. They neye,
came back.
1.-THE hail had ceased. but the thunder
and lightning rumbled and flashed as
before. Then there was lull Pitch
darkness enSued, and we waited i'll
tense terror, with the japanese, as we
knew, creeping up the hillside II over
whelming force One man laid dow
his rife, crossed himself and began tc
pray. Another followed his example
and the sight of these two white faces
hanging, as it seemed, in the black air
gave me a nightmare feeling
ITO break the suspense the men were
ordered to fire volleys every half min
ute down the slopes. But the rifle
flashes gave our position away, and the
Japanese, who had dragged a machine
gun up the hill, poured in tempest of
lead. We crept few yards down the
slope for shelter, waiting vainly for
supports or orders from Headquarters.
Neither came
1.-THE japanese decided to end the
fight with the bayonet. In the last
faint fash of lightning we saw them
In a confused thick mass not fifty
yards away. We poured in a 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 an acrobat's paper hoop.
and in a shouting, screaming mob we
raced down the hill. Seven men were
b2yoneted and a few shot down. But
& was nerves, not bullet or steel, that
lost the fight
Next morning, when the enemy had
cleared off, a party set out to bury the
dead. Seventeen among them were
Japanese. But among our corpses
were two, unwounded who had been
spared by bullet and steel, but slain
by lightning"
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