Part 23

Day after day, night after night, the great retreat of the Russian forces continued, until, single-handed as she was, Stephania Ychas was almost dropping with fatigue. A hundred times she told herself that human flesh and blood could never stand such a strain. It was not the fatigue alone which was crushing her. Added to her physical tortures were mental ones, the feeling of being alone, so horribly alone, and the knowledge that the enemy, as announced by the retreat and the nerve-racking booming of the guns, was rapidly advancing on Shavli, and that until Russia had had time to recover, the hated Teutons would inevitably overrun Lithuania as far as Vilna. At night her brain was filled with pictures of burning farms, ravaged orchards, and indescribable scenes of brutality such as she knew the German soldiers had been guilty of in Belgium and Poland.

A dozen times a day, dizzy and sick at heart, she had been on the point of staggering to the telephone to inform the commander of a neighbouring station that she could continue no longer. But a sense of duty had held her back. When it came to a point of renunciation, her stout Lithuanian heart said "Nay," and she recalled the parting from her husband and his final adjurations.

Buried in thought, while waiting for a train which has just been signalled from Shavli, she recalled the morning when Michael Ychas, suddenly called to the Colours, had left her. It seemed like an eternity since those days of the mobilization.

II--"GOOD-BYE, STEPHANIA--GUARD THE LINE WELL!"

"Good-bye, Stephania," he had said. "Be of good cheer whilst I am away, and guard the line well. It is sad to leave you here all alone. Sad to be obliged to leave one's native country and abandon it to unknown dangers. How much better I should have liked to have defended Lithuania, I, a Lithuanian bred and born, than to have been drafted into a regiment bound for the Caucasus. As if the Government could not trust us in our own country! However, Stephania, you are left, and you are doing a man's duty. It makes me happy, in the midst of my misery, to think that you are there to look after the home and the crossing and the rails. Guard them well, Stephania, and rest assured that, in my absence, I shall constantly pray to the Virgin to watch over you."

Her reflections were interrupted by a shriek from the locomotive of the expected train, which was made up partly of compartments packed with soldiers, partly of wagons filled with the most heterogeneous collection of things she had ever seen in her life--pieces of machinery piled one on the top of the other, heaps of metal articles of every imaginable description, and every scrap of copper or lead, apparently, which Shavli contained. A waving of hands from the soldiers, a friendly yell from a hundred throats, and the train had sped on its way.

Stephania Ychas had no time now to waste over daydreaming. Hurrying into her cottage, she went straight to the telephone and rang up the commander of the station farther up the line. After ringing in vain for fully a minute, she got the connection and made her report.

"Train number three hundred and forty-six passed North Shavli crossing a minute ago," she said. "A mixed train, men and materials. Any news?"

"Shavli reports that things are getting warm," replied a voice. "I should not be surprised to hear that we have to leave before the day's out. You'd better 'phone to headquarters."

She lost not a moment in carrying out the suggestion.

"Halloa, halloa! Is that Shavli?"

"Yes," came a quick answer. "You're the North Shavli crossing-keeper, aren't you? Good! Well, we were just about to call you up. Matters are coming to a climax here. There are only two more trains to go through now. One with men will be with you in a couple of minutes at the latest; the other, with goods, should follow ten minutes afterwards. We are telling the driver to pick you up."

At this point the speaker was called away from the telephone, and an indistinct buzz as of a whole office in conversation, mingled with the trampling of feet and the slamming of doors followed. But finally the speaker returned.

"Halloa, halloa! Are you still there, North Shavli? Telephone forward all I have said, and prepare them for the worst."

Stephania Ychas, now tingling with excitement, did as she was bid. Once more she stood on duty to see the reported train pass, and again she went to the telephone to send her report forward. Having finished, she was about to hang up the receiver when, on looking through the window on her left, her eyes caught sight of something unusual far down the line, almost at the point where the metals curved out of view. To run and fetch a pair of glasses which, ever since the beginning of the war, she had kept hanging in their leather case by the side of the fireplace, to bring them to bear on the point in question, and at the same time to ring up Shavli, was the work of a minute. What she saw, though her calm voice in no way revealed her inner emotion, made the blood run cold through her veins.

"Halloa, halloa! Are you there, Shavli?"

A reply came in the affirmative.

"For Heaven's sake remain at the 'phone. There's foul work going on near the great curve. You must give orders at once to keep back the train."

"One moment, and I will return," replied the railway official.

III--A WOMAN'S MESSAGE: "THEY ARE DYNAMITING THE RAILROAD!"

A pause, which seemed to the woman with the glasses fixed to her eyes an eternity, followed.

"You were just in time," continued the voice to her infinite relief. "Courage! Fear not. Orders have been given to pick you up, with the others along the line, when we evacuate the town by car. But tell us what is happening."

"I can see a number of men tampering with the metals," telephoned Stephania Ychas. "They have dismounted from their horses. One of them, an officer, is giving orders. Yes, I can see now. They are Uhlans, and are going to dynamite the line. There are at least twenty of them, evidently a portion of an advance guard that has made a turning movement round Shavli by way of the woods. Halloa, halloa! In the name of Our Lady of Vilna, do not leave the instrument. It is a blessing they did not begin by cutting the wire. Now they are scattering to await the explosion. There!"--as the speaker beheld the explosion, followed by a cloud of smoke and dust, which rose high in the air--"it is done. Holy Virgin! They are making off now. No, the officer is pointing here. They are coming towards me. Telephone to the nearest military station to send me help immediately. And for the love of the saints, come back to the instrument!"

Stephania Ychas left the receiver dangling by its cords, and made her little home ready to withstand a siege. She locked and doubly bolted the door, and with the object of giving the Uhlans the idea that the place was uninhabited prepared to block up the windows with the boards which, as in most Lithuanian country cottages, served as shutters, fastened from the inside.

"Perhaps," she thought, "if they see the house shuttered, they will conclude it is uninhabited and will ride away."

Unfortunately, the Uhlans rode quickly, and Stephania had more than she could do with just one shutter, that which protected the little window on the left of the telephone, and which, when up, plunged the room into semi-darkness. Whilst she was fixing this barrier, the Uhlans surrounded the house and the officer momentarily caught sight of her. Simultaneously there came a violent knocking at the door with the butt-end of a rifle, a command to open, and the sharp crack of a revolver. A bullet crashed through one of the panes, traversed the centre of the shutter-board, and buried itself in the opposite wall.

The brave woman was now back at the telephone, but not before she had managed to make the entrance to her home doubly sure by dragging a heavy dresser against it.

"Halloa, Shavli! You have sent for help? Thank you. They have surrounded the house, and are trying to force an entrance. They have discovered that I am here. But they will have a difficulty in forcing open the door, unless----"

She paused and listened. There was a long and ominous silence, which made her think at first that the enemy must have decided it was not worth while to waste further time over a woman. But the hope was short-lived. She heard a sharp command in German, the sound of muffled voices, a burst of laughter, and the clatter of horses' hoofs around the house. What was happening? Were they really riding off?

Again her hopes were shattered. The scampering backwards and forwards continued, one of the horses neighed, and she imagined she could almost hear the Uhlans' heavy breathing, sounds which brought back to her the danger which she had hesitated to frame in words. Very soon her fears were confirmed. A vision flashed to her brain and made her sick with fear. A faint cracking sound broke upon her ears from several points simultaneously, spreading until it seemed to envelope her on all sides, and especially over her head. By slow degrees the crackling grew to a roar, and then she fully realized what the barbarians had done.

IV--"HELP! HELP!"--A VOICE FROM THE BURNING THATCH

"Help, help!" called Stephania into the telephone. "They have fired the thatch. For Heaven's sake, send me help. But a few minutes and the rafters, I fear, will catch fire. Are you still there, Shavli? Oh, speak--speak!"

An exclamation, mingled sorrow and anger, came from the telephonist at Shavli.

"Oh, the ruffians, the abominable assassins!" he cried. "I beseech you to have courage. Help is surely on the way."

"I will try to be brave and do my duty to the end, as Michael told me," replied Stephania, as though to herself. "But unless they come soon, it will be too late. The thatch has burnt like tinder. I can hear the flames roaring like a furnace underneath the rafters. There! One of them has given way and fallen on to the joists of my room. Already the heat is suffocating, the smoke almost unbearable. Holy Virgin! What a death."

"Alas, what more can we do than beg you to bear up?" returned the voice at Shavli, in an agonized tone. "We have just been informed that a party of Cossacks left twenty minutes ago to rescue you. Once more, courage! And may Our Lady of Vilna indeed protect you."

When Stephania Ychas next spoke through the telephone the roof fell in with a crash and pierced a hole, through which the burning embers fell, in the ceiling of her room. At the same time communication with Shavli was suddenly interrupted, either through the Uhlans having discovered and cut the wire, or, as is more probable, owing to the fire having fused the terminals. She could not, however, have sustained her appeals for help much longer. Indeed, it was not many minutes afterwards that, stupefied and blinded by the smoke, as she groped her way to the door in an instinctive movement towards the open air, she sank to the floor unconscious.

It is a characteristic of the Cossacks, many times admitted even by German military critics, and those who have been describing the operations in Lithuania for the enemy Press, that they rarely if ever waste a shot. Unlike the French cavalry, they do not fire from a distance, but fearlessly swoop down upon their adversaries and seek to bring them down, one by one, at a range of but a few yards. And that was the fate of the Uhlans, who, hungering to feast their eyes and ears on the suffering of a defenceless woman, lingered a little too long around the burning cottage of Stephania Ychas. Not one escaped.

Stephania Ychas did not lose her life after all. The brave Cossacks broke in the already half-consumed window and dragged her forth. She was badly burnt, but lived to tell this tale to a nurse in a Russian hospital, whither the railway officials of Shavli transported her, almost immediately after her rescue, in one of their motor-cars.

WITH A FLEET SURGEON ON A BRITISH WARSHIP DURING A BATTLE

_Under Fire on His Majesty's Ship, the "Fearless"_

_Told by Fleet Surgeon Walter K. Hopkins, of the Royal Navy_

I--ON A HOSPITAL SHIP IN BATTLE

On August 27 (1914) we were hoping to meet the enemy early on the following morning.

On August 28, at 3:45 A.M., "Action" was sounded off. Two cruisers (supposed enemy's ships) having been suddenly observed, had caused us to take up "stations" somewhat earlier than had been anticipated. It was quickly discovered, however, that the cruisers were our own. Shortly after, therefore, breakfast was piped to each watch in turn, and at about 7 A.M. the enemy's ships were actually sighted. From this time on to close upon 2 P.M., successive

## actions were fought between various opposing forces of the two fleets.

The day was fine and calm, while the sun gleamed through a very hazy atmosphere, in which patches of fog shortened up the visual distance from time to time.

I remained on the upper deck during the earlier part of the affair, and found it a most interesting and inspiring sight to watch our destroyers and the _Arethusa_ and her divisions dashing at full speed after the enemy, while soon the frequent spurts of flame from their sides, the following reports, and the columns of water and spray thrown up by the enemy's shells pitching short or over, began to create in most of us a suppressed excitement which we had not hitherto experienced, telling us that the "real thing" had begun, that an action was actually in progress.

Shortly our interest was to multiply fourfold, when the order to fire our own guns was given. After a time shells began to drop ominously near. I retired to my station, a selected spot just below waterline in the after bread room, one of the few available places in a ship of this class where some of my party of first-aid men could be accommodated; the other half of the party in charge of the sick-berth steward being situated at a similar station forward. This period one found trying. For knowledge as to how matters were progressing we had to rely upon fragments of information shouted down the nearest hatchway from someone in communication with those on the upper deck.

The rat-tat-tat! rat, tat, tat, tat! on our side from time to time, as we got into the thick of it, told us plainly of shells pitching short and bursting, whose fragments struck but did not penetrate the ship's skin; it was a weird sound, occasionally varied by a tremendous "woomp," which once at least made the paymaster, who was reclining near me on a flour sack, and myself, look hard at the side close by us, where we fully expected, for the moment, to see water coming in. As a matter of fact, this shell entered some forty feet away, bursting on entry into the Lieutenant Commander's cabin, while its solid nose finally fetched up in the wardroom, where later on it was christened "our honorary member." For this trophy I believe we have the _Mainz_ or _Koeln_ to thank. The wardroom steward found a similar piece of shell in his hammock that night. It had penetrated the ship's side and a bulkhead before finally choosing its highly suitable place of rest.

The shells that missed us burst upon the surface of the ocean near by and, strange as it may seem to those not familiar with such things, the fragments flew from the water with sufficient force to dent the sides of the ship and to kill men when they dropped on the deck.

When a shell actually struck our ship and penetrated the structure there was a reverberating crash that roared from end to end and nearly drove our eardrums in and made work of any delicacy impossible. It was bad enough with us, but what must have been happening on some of the German ships that were now sinking and were being pierced by great shells from three sides at once I leave to some one with imagination.

II--"I WATCHED THE BURNING CRUISER SINK"

It would surely require the pen of a Dante to depict all the horrors that were happening on the German cruiser _Mainz_, as she went down. We knew that she was burning. The men stayed at their guns until the flames actually began to burn up their legs. The wounded lay in heaps on the deck and the flames destroyed them without help. The blood ran on the decks so that the men who were still trying to work the light deck guns slipped in it and fell.

Our shells passed through their hospital ward and killed the wounded and the surgeons as they were working over them. That any men could have passed through such an ordeal and retained their senses is a tribute to the wonderful effect of naval training and discipline.

The _Fearless_ appears to have borne a somewhat charmed life--a large number of shells pitched just short and just over her--she was hit fair and square by seven, one of which played a lot of havoc with the middle deck forward and the mess gear there. Her sides showed some twenty-three holes of varying size, and yet her list of casualties was only eight wounded, none dangerously. She also had two narrow escapes from being torpedoed, one torpedo passing just forward from an unknown source, and another aft from a submarine.

During comparative lulls I went onto the upper deck once or twice, to visit the forward station and to see that all was correct. For suppressed excitement and vivid interest I should say the seeker after sensation could scarcely ask for more than a modern naval action.

The shells were falling all about us, and why we were not sunk I can never understand. The captain kept the ship zigzagging on her course to upset the enemy's aim. At one time we came within 2,000 yards of the Mainz, which had already been partly wrecked by the long-distance fire from our big battle cruisers, the _Lion_, _Invincible_, and _Queen Mary_. It was our duty to help finish her without sinking our big ships.

She made two attempts to torpedo us. I watched one torpedo skimming through the water like a shark about ten yards from the bow, as it seemed to me. We just escaped it by a turn of the wheel in the nick of time. Then another skimmed by our stern, running over the spot we had left only a minute before.

"She's a goner," I heard one of our men say. The German cruiser was a burning wreck, but she kept the two small guns, one at each end, firing away to the last. Then one of our destroyers rushed in to close quarters and gave her the finishing blow with a torpedo.

III--THE WOUNDED ON THE BLOODY DECK

It was not until the latter part of the affair that I was called upon to deal with any wounded, and then a rapid succession of cases were either carried or managed to walk to the main deck after, where, assisted by the first-aid party, I cleansed and dressed their wounds. Two or three returned to duty the same afternoon, the others being placed in the wardroom temporarily after dressings had been applied, a reliable first-aid man being placed in charge. In addition, one case was treated at the forward station, and later on in the day a man who had received a somewhat severe contusion and abrasion of the thigh from a spent fragment of shell reported himself. Seven of the eight cases were wounds due to fragments of shell and splinters of steel or wood from the ship. The exception was a scald of the forearm, sustained by a stoker while investigating a steam pipe burst by an exploding shell.

While I was occupied with the cases mentioned above, we had taken the destroyer _Laertes_ in tow, she being temporarily disabled by gunfire; and the order coming to retire, we proceeded from the scene of action for some considerable distance, when I was ordered to go to the _Laertes_ to attend to some seriously wounded, and tranship them. The _Laertes_ was cast off, and lay some two cables away. Arriving on board I found the worst case was that of a young stoker in a serious condition from shock and loss of blood. He had sustained several shell wounds, one of which involved the left tibia and fibula, some two inches of the tibia being torn away from its middle third.

Around this patient the deck was covered with blood, and so slippery that I had to send for cloths to be put down to enable me to keep a footing. The condition of the deck enabled one to form an idea of how decks were on the _Mainz_, where 200 men were killed. Near by were two others, somewhat less severely wounded, lying on the deck, while just behind me lay two figures covered with the Union Jack. The wounded had all received first aid, the wounds being neatly dressed, but considerable hemorrhage was going on. Returning with these cases to the _Fearless_ I found several other wounded had already been brought on board from other destroyers. The sick bay, which had been prepared to receive the most serious cases, was soon filled, and others were sitting or lying on the mess deck near by.

Owing to the probable proximity of the enemy I had to bear in mind the necessity for all possible speed, which was awkward, as they required very careful handling. However, I hurried up as much as I was able. Sudden manoeuvring or the shock of shells hitting us might make our work impossible. Firstly, iodine was applied to the majority of wounds and their immediate area, and a fresh temporary dressing applied. Then ably assisted by the sick-berth steward and two first-aid men, I spent the next few hours in endeavoring to get these, for the most part, very dirty patients, as clean as possible. It should be added that, at this stage, morphia was administered by hypodermic injection to three or four cases, and again once or twice during the night. It was found to be very beneficial.

Many of the men had lost an arm and a leg, and in some cases both arms and legs. Several poor fellows had their faces almost entirely blown away.

I had prepared masks of lint for the faces, specially medicated, to relieve the terrible burns caused by the picric acid used in shells.