The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1905-01-02
"SOLDIERS, SOLDIERS
SONS OF THE TZAR''
INTERESTING EXTRACTS FROM
LETTERS FROM MEN AT THE
FRONT UNDER KUROPATKIN.

Russian newspapers today, like their
English contemporaries during the
Boer War, print large numbers of in
teresting extracts from letters of sold
iers at the front The Russian Tom
my Atkins" takes war seriously. The
following extract, culled from an ex-
change, of a Cossack named Korniloff
to his mother at iStavropol is highly in
, teresting:
I'VE had an awful fight today with
about twice as many Japs, and before
we had to clear off stuck a score of
them. l myself killed two, running the
second through the body so hard that
he slipped half way up my lance.
Finally the Japs shelled us, and drove
us off It's an awful thing to retreat
before these heathens. Still when we
got back, prayed and thanked God for
making me brave, and His instrument
in Staying His enemies. One Of our
men said, Why do you pray?' I an
swered, I killed two heathens.' He
laughter and said, Don't tell those
yarns. Our old Cossack, who chopped
up the French used to bring back their
ears to prove it,
Apparently slight wounds do not
trouble Private Ivan" Mikhail Du-
bovsky, an infantryman, wounded at
Wa-fang- ten. is quoted i'm the "Sibir-
skiya Viedomosti' as follows;
Il have seven wounds, all bullets, yet
can write to you, my dear mother, just
like a whole man. The Jap bullets
are small, and don't hurt " In our
big battle, where we cut the whole
Japanese army to pieces and captured
thousands of prisoners CD, we never
minded bullets. Stchuka, who is well,
| and sends his bow to the starosta, got
shot in his left arm, and up he takes
a handful of wet mud and plastered it
on, and that stopped the bleeding. In
fact we like to be wounded, as we get
rest, and Captain Sukharin calls us
molodtsi Qine fellows), and gives us
money. 1t only hurts if you get one
! i'm the heart. The brain doesn't mat
ter"
| Dubovsky's ideas of medicine are
however not more primitive than
Kniazeff, an artilleryman, who, writ
ing of the Motienling fight, said:
"Our men have got a grand way OF
curing wounds. You cut off the gao
Ian milleD ears, chew them into a
paste and bind it on. If you can wet
it first i'm vodka, so much the better,
but our chaps would rather drink the
vodka"
A letter from another private, writ
ten from Haicheng over two months
ago relates the following tragic story:
zone of our Poles, who was called
|
day He deserved it, too. His real
name was Pier. This good Pier was
set TO guard over two Japanese. They
said they were officers, but they looked
like privates, and dirty privates too.
They were no sort of men. Anyway,
they escaped, and next day there was
a row. Pier says, I don't know how
they escaped. There's a hole cut in
the side OF the house
when they searched Pier, ne had
two twenty-rOuble notes in his boot
Where did you get them?' asks the
colonel. got them from my father
Didn't l, Prokhor?' turning to me. Now
knew that he had got money from
his father, and said Yes But the
colonel asks as cold as ice. Does your
father forge notes? These are forged
and, what's more, they're forged IN
Japan. Youll hang And so he