Evening journal., 1914-12-12
BY WILLIAM C. SHEPHERD.
rr.t.5 pross StaT co,respondent

Mail to New York The Austrians
have begun retirement from Przemysl.
As left the town three days ago, es-
corted by Austrian officers, in the first
hack wash of Austrian forces, the Rus
sian right end was swapping around
Przemysl like the tip OF whip snap
ping around sapling.
We went out in the evening OF NO
vember on train southbound. On our
train were 10 Red Cross cars filled with
badly wounded men. Earlier in the DAY
| had visited the hospital at Przemysl
and found it practically emptied except
for hundred Asiatic cholera victims
Or filled Red Cross train explained the
empty beds. The wounded were beng
carried in the retreat.
To our establishment we found the
Russians were south OF Przemysl. we
cot this information in startling man
ner. Orr train began 10 travel infinitely
slow. I'VE were ordered to put out the
lights in our compartments. ms was
All a point twenty miles from FRENZY ST.
When we asked the reason for the ORDER
an officer told MS that Russian battery
in the hills, two miles away from the
railroad track, nad shelled train hke
ours in the afternoon and had deralled
two cars killing four wounded men. we
were passing through billy farm coun'
try; a wet fog hung over Us. When the
train came 60 a halt at 10 o'clock IN
the evening, blasts of sound from an IN
fantrv battle less than two miles away
came to MS through the fog, over the
black ploughed farms. Rifle firing was
MAINLY heard and now and then the
| terrific rattle Of machine guns came
through the fog like rushing walls OF
noise.
The firing was parallel TO the track.
Our train was pitch dark except Tor the
Red Cross cars. From the ploughing, a
third of mile from the track. whence
we ran during the long halt the better
TO hear the rifle firing, We could look
back to the train and see only indis-
tinctlv in the gloom, the thin line OF
light. hundreds of feet long, which was
formed by the glare from the root ven
tilators of the Red Cross cars. In those
cars il was impossible for the nurses %
do without lamps.
We should have been travelling at top
spced for there were wounded men IN
the cars behind us who were dying for
lack of the care that can be given only
i'm the hospitals of Vienna or Budapest
But we could not speed For scores OF
miles ahead of us there were trains Ike
ours: back TO Przymysl stretched a lik,
line OF trains. For hours we Travelled
only bv train lengths. The block sys
tenn did not operate. The necessities OF
the retremen. were so great that al
system had fallen TO pieces. When the
wagon road approached the railroad
tracks we saw il filled with trains ol
two-horse wagons; these wagons were
travelling Just as we were, one team FOL
lowing another and all stopping whcr
one did. The wells and shoutings of the
drivers, the rafting of thousands o.
wheels over the stony roads and thu
clatter Of horses hoofs made an indie
scribable tumult in the night
With this maelstrom Of noise on oil
right. the sounds of infantry fighting OF
our left, behind us the silent, misery
laden Red Cross cars. and before u'
dimlv seen through the fog. the wrec
= of the train which had been struck b
Russian she'll some hours before, on
; retreat from Przcmysl was like far
p tastic nightmare, in which one mu:
J move but cannot.
At midnight VIC saw FIRE before Il
= IL was house at one side Of the trac
{ burning to the ground. How it wa
= fred we did not know A Russian she
c might have done it. The effect Of tn
blaze and the sparks in the rcd fog wa
. all that was needed to complete tn
weirdness of the night
The officers on orr train were oil
viouslv worried. They evidently be
lieved that some Ruthenian sympathize
of the Russians might have set th
house aire to give the Russian batter
les in the hills two miles away rang
on the railroad truck. But we had
= worm our way past the fire as slowl
p as we had moved in all the less danger
c Gus spots. Probably the fog saved I'll
- long string of trains. In the morning
for all | know. the Russians might hay
opened up again on the trains. But
= saw / don't know, for every inch "
] nut behind us sank into the fog of wa
e. as impenetrably as we were hidden
= the night fog. Even today | cannC
A learn what happened at Przemysl aft
we left. OF how near the Russians has
got TO its forts by this time.
We went only thirty miles in the FIR
: twelve hours. and in the morning u
y Red Cross nurses put of at little ST.
u tion the bodies Of three men who ha
i died in the night.
5 During the day we Travelled as slow
e as before. In the afternoon our Re
q Cross train was given right of way f.
!. five hours and was shifted TO the dow
q track. As we sped past the trail
e which had been ahead of us we cou
look through the windows of the ca
and see hundreds of wounded men lyiI
on filters. For twenty miles the tra'
d alongside of us was filled with train
<, COW catcher to caboose. Most OF the
y carried wounded; others carried cann'
n and artillery wagons; still others, ma
, ND of fat cars, carried soldiers, who h'
" built fires on the car floors and s.
y about them. in the evening gloom,
ie they gather about camp fires IN 4
Ia fields
During the day two more men di
k, on our train. Their bodies were turn
l. over 10 soldiers at small railroad st
a. ton for burial. Two more men, ma
e. ing seven in all, died during the ne
q. night. and | saw their bodies carri
II from the train on stretchers by r.
Cross men who ordered the soldiers
the depot 10 inter them.
We occupied eighty hours in trav'
r ing 200 miles, and our train was CIV
" special privileges. How many days
r took the ordinary trains to pass fro
the danger zone of Przemysl cannot
estimated.
look back on those stalled trains
wounded men with deeper feelings
pity than have been stirred by al