Evening journal., 1905-03-10

DANt1bh n n ouAu oAla Ouo fuAoFen
Inch she'll That Refused to Burst
Was Fired Back and Forth -Four
Timss--Terrors of Hospital work
without Bandnees, AntisepticH or
Anaesthetics.
Imagine playing pingpong with an
eleven inch shell for ball, huge can
non for bats, mountains for a net! The
story Of this, unquestionably the big
gest game Of pingpong ever played,
was recently told TO the New York
World by Captain II. 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. He was In
command Of the naval transport Ger
max, which was sunk Just before the
capitulatlon. The game Of artillery
plngpong be 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 fortlhcations, 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
] al ak
than the smaller ones, the reason for
this being that they are loaded with an
extremely powerful explosive and the
men who At the Eliminating 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, and the explosion Of
the illuminate fails to explode the she'll.
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 Il at us. We fred
It back at them. They returned It, and
we tossed II back, and so on. The last
time I saw It wrote this message on
a piece OF paper, If this does not ex-
plode this time you should put Il 10
museum and directed the man In
charge Of the battery to place It inside
where the Japanese would lnd II. He
did so and fred II at the enemy.
don't know whether II exploded or not,
but we never saw It again.
I'VE could tell the number of times a
shell was fred 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 its
mark In the brass Ilning-ours from
left to right, those of the Japanese
from right to left. So there was no diff
Rculty in knowing the number Of times
1t had been fred by each side"
Were there many women In the
city9"
More than a 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
ilies Of officers OF the garrison OF 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 IL they had
been specially trained for nursing.
"But the work in the hospitals was
a CHASTITY affair in the last few months
n you can imagine performing serious
surgical operations without antisep-
tics, without anaesthetics and without
bandages, you can form some idea Of
what our surgeons had 70 do. II 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 a frightful thing, cutting on
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
course the percentage OF deaths 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
dcult so long as we had soap. We
made our own soap out OF fat and
J potash, but the time came when there
was no more potash, so we could make
no more soap. All W. 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 man was wounded three or
four times and each time was cured in
the hospital and returned to the trench
es. I know one officer who was In the
hospital eight times, badly wounded on
eAch occasion, but as soon as he could
walk about he was back at the front
with his men. The spirit and the
. heroic self sacrifice OF some OF these
man were simply superb.
S "The pauclty and poor quality OF the
d food started an epidemic OF scurvy
The proper treatment for this disease
b q fresh fruit, lemon OF lime Juice. You
\ may imagine how much fresh fruit we
3 had. Therefore the death rate grew
e higher as the days passed. Even afteI
a the surrender and with the treatment