The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1905-03-27
PORT ARTHUR HORRORS
What a Russian Naval Officer
Saw of the Siege.
PLAYING PINGPoNG FOR BLOOD.

Captain Ill. A. SAKE Says One Eleven
Inch Shell That Refused to Burst
Was Fired Back and Forth Four
Times-Terrors of Hospital Work
without Bandages. Antfseptfcs or
Anaesfhetics.
Imagine playing pingpong with an
eleven inch shell for ball, huge can
non for bats, mountains for net! The
story Of this, unqucstlonably the big
gcst game of pingpong ever played,
was recently told to the New York
World by Captain III. A. SAKE OF the
Russian navy just before he sailed for
France on his way home on parole.
Captain SAKE was one of the Russian
naval officers who were In Port Ar
thur throughout the siege and who fell
into the hands of the Japanese when
the fortress surrendered. lie was In
command of the naval transport Ger
max, which was sunk just before the
capitulaton. The game Of artillery
pingpong he described as follows:
I'VE had used up all the ammunition
for our big guns. We sailors were on
shore fighting side by side with the
landsmen on the Notifications, our
ships having been sunk or destroyed
one after another, The Japanese kept
UP bombardment that was incessant
Night and day their shells rained down
upon us. But not all of them burst,
and this fact gave US ammunition
when we had none of our own The
eleven inch shells burst less frequently
than the smaller ones, the reason for
THIS being that they are loaded with an
extremely powerful explosive and the
men who fit the Illuminating caps to
them are afraid to handle them except
very delicately. The consequence Is
that to many of them the caps are not
properly adjusted, aud the explosion OF
the illuminate falls to explode the shell.
The smaller shells. loaded with black
powder, are handled with less delicacy
because they are not SO dangerous, and
their caps rarely fail to explode them
MANY shells were tossed back and
forth more than once. know of one
that was SO used at least for times
The Japanese fired Ii at us. We fired
it back at them. They returned Ii, and
we tossed 1t back, and so on. The last
time | saw Ii / wrote this message on
a piece of paper, If this does not ex-
plode this time you should put 1t In
museum and directed the man In
charge of the battery to place 1t inside
where the Japanese would find IT, He
did so and fired 1t at the enemy.
don't know whether 1t exploded or not.
but we never saw 1t again
"We could tell the number OF times a
shell was fired through the thread of
the screw In the cap hole. The Japanese
screws turn from right to left, the Rus
sian from left to right And every time
a new fuse was screwed In 1t left it's
mark In the brass lning-ours from
left 10 right, those Of the Japanese
from right 10 left SO there was no diff
ficulty in knowing the number of times
Ii had been fired by each side"
Were there many women in the
city?"
More than n hundred We kept
them busy in the hospitals. and there
was plenty Of work for them to do.
Most of them were the wives and fam
flies of officers of the garrison or resi-
dents of the town, and few were pro
fessional nurses. But they behaved
nobly and ministered to the sick and
wounded day and night as If they had
been specially trained for nursing.
~ s,. Al A.
CHASTITY affair In the last few months.
Ii you can imagine performing serious
surgical operations without antisep-
ties, without anaesthetics and without
bandages, you can form some idea of
what our surgeons had to do. liz you
can imagine treating hundreds - aye,
thousands of men sick with scurvy
and having no medicine for them, You
can form an idea of what our physi,
clans did.
1T was frightful thing, cutting Off
legs and arms without chloroform or
ether or antiseptics, but the soldiers
stood 1t nobly. Operations like lapa-
rotomy and trephining were also per
formed on conscious men, but OF
tOuTSt tIc pcltthlGSC VI dSuihS was
terrific, for without antiseptics such
wounds are hard to heal What
often wonder at Is that so many brave
fellows recovered and went back to
the trenches to fight the enemy.
when we exhausted our supply of
bandages we took old ones and washed
them for use again. This was not diff
ficult SO long as we had soap. We
made our own soap out of fat and
potash, but the time came when there
was no more potash, so we could make
no more soap. All we could do to re-
new the bandages then was to steam
them. This only partially cleaned
them, and the absence OF any anti
septics rendered their use perilous.
But they were all we had. and we
made the best use we could of them.
MANY a man was wounded three or
four times and each time was cured In
fha haSnifaI aud returned to the trench