Part 4

The speed is reduced to six knots. The funnels still emit too much smoke and too many sparks. The commander is furious. Orders are megaphoned and every word seems to crowd the adventurous air with danger. The manoeuvre is executed with sort of rhythmic precision. Maintaining their distance, and one by one, every ship files to the starboard of us, standing black over the foaming wake, lighted every now and then by a strange phosphorescence.

"On reaching the eastern route for the planting of the mines, extinguish the stern lights," cries the megaphone. Under the playing searchlights the enemy's coast is clearly visible. We are in low water, and the speed is further diminished.

"One--Zero--Zero."

We almost touch bottom, and proceed by feeling our course ahead. We also take soundings continuously to avoid running aground. The ships seem to pant and puff grievedly, as great mammals in danger of running ashore.

"Reverse engines. Full speed!"

One of the ships feels she cannot manoeuvre any longer, having actually struck bottom, and endeavors to free herself. She lies ahead of us, and within speaking distance. We see the water glitter under the blue light of her stern lanterns. It seems to us now that every other ship is in danger. The sky is veiled. Long Medusan tresses of clouds drag the constellation as the net drags silvery fishes. The engines throb painfully.

The commander is there, all soul, defying the darkness with his eyes. What if at that moment the enemy should sight us?

"The _Invitto_ leads."

His clear orders through a series of manoeuvres draw away the flotilla from the shallow waters and on to the safe course. Beyond, on the shore, the enemy's searchlights are seen crossing each other like white blades. Under the light the shore seems so near as to give one the illusion of being about to drop anchor. We are all tensely waiting. In a few seconds we shall be in the prearranged spot. Minutes seem hours. The rubber stoppers have been removed from the tubes. The mines are ready, on their supports, to be lowered into the sea. The sailors await the order standing.

IV--"WE BREATHE DANGER AND DEATH"

The minutes are eternal. We may be detected every second. The shore is only a mile from us. The funnels are our despair. They still emit too much smoke and sparks. At last a warning is heard from the bridge.

"Ready."

The Lieutenant looks at his watch, lighting the dial with the lamp hidden in his hand. The enormous mines, whose heads are charged with destruction, are there silent, like gigantic, gray, petrified sea Medusas, fixed on their support, whose double tooth projects over the waters.

"Ready! Let go!"

The first mine rolls over with the sound of a shattering barrel, falls in the foaming sea, disappears.

"Ready! Let go!"

Eighteen seconds elapse. The second falls, followed by the third, fourth, and all the others, on every ship which maintains a diagonal course nearing the coast. In three minutes the operation is over; the mines are planted in the exact spot. The teeth of the crew gleam in a wild smile. Each sailor sees in his heart the enemy's battleships rent and sinking.

"Four--Three--Three--Zero."

We assume our position at the head of the line, returning on our course with the initial speed. The ships seem now to me to be quivering with warlike joy. In the distance over the mainland the white beams of the searchlights still cross each other. Ever and anon a rocket explodes. Our wake now is so beautiful as to resemble a whirling milky way. A sailor mounts the bridge and gives us a cup of steaming coffee, whose aroma titillates our nostrils and our heart. We light our cigarette.

But here is a Marconigram.

"Look out, two submarines are lying in wait for you on the safe route."

And in the first quiver of dawn, with expanded lungs, we again breathe danger and death.

THE BLOOD OF THE RUSSIANS IN FIGHT FOR LIBERTY

"_The Deserted Battlefields I Have Seen_"

_Told by Count Ilya Tolstoy, Son of the late Count Leo Tolstoy, Famous Russian Novelist_

Count Tolstoy has been serving with the Red Cross branch of the Russian Army. During these tragic experiences, he kept a war diary on the battlefields. This is the first English translation of excerpts from this diary, translated from the Russian by Miss I. Rojansky for _Current History_--Copyright 1916 by Otis F. Wood.

I--"I CAN SEE THE SCENE UNFOLDING BEFORE MY EYES"

The war relics of devastated structures leave a sad and painful impression. Of the many deserted battlefields which I have seen during the two years past, the nameless little graves faintly marked with little wooden crosses, of the deserted trenches, nothing gave me so much food for deep and sad reflection as the bare and lonely chimneys projecting from amid piles of rubbish, melancholy blackened pots, the scattered remnants of domesticity; a smashed pail, a broken wheel, a binding of a torn book, the splinters of what was once a crib.

To think that hereabout dwelt a family; that they were contented and possibly happy! Those walls, stripped and crumbled, what have they not seen!

It always seems to me that an event having occurred at a given place, the memory of the occurrence attaches permanently to it. Whenever I happened to find myself in a locality in which some memorable events had taken place I could not think of those events without at the same time visualizing the surroundings amid which they occurred; and the more recent the occurrence, the more vividly I can see the scene unfolding itself before my eyes.

The vast number of such impressions which the present war has produced make a film, vivid and endless.

II--"I REMEMBER ... A HORRIBLE TALE"

I remember one such pile of ruins, which I saw not far from the road leading to Jaroslav. This ruin remained permanently fixed in my memory by reason of a horrible tale connected with it.

Some time ago there lived on a farm a well-to-do Galician gardener. When the war broke out he was drafted into the army. He went forth, leaving behind him a wife and three small children. Shortly following his departure, troops commenced appearing in the immediate neighborhood. At first came small detachments, but these were quickly followed by more formidable bodies. In a short time lines of trenches were dug on both sides of the farm and real warfare began.

The firing was continuous. The family sought safety in the corners of their hut. They hid in the cellar under the heaps of beets and potatoes, but the children soon became accustomed to the hissing of bullets and lost all fear of them.

The wounded soldiers, for the most part Austrians, began crawling toward the farm. There they bound up their wounds. The children looked on and sometimes gave aid, holding with their tiny fingers the blood-soaked cotton, or winding long and transparent bandages around the wounded limbs. They became accustomed to pain and to the groans of the dying, and in their naive and simple way rendered all the help of which they were capable.

At night, when darkness fell and when firing from both sides would cease, the Austrian relief workers would come, place the wounded on long and unsteady stretchers, and carry them to the rear. On one occasion the wounded sent the eldest girl to the pond to fetch some water. She stayed away for a long, long time. Later she was found lying on the grass with a bullet in her slender little shoulder. The pails lay near her empty.

During the night she, too, was placed on a stretcher and was carried away. With her went the mother and the rest of the children. From that night on the farm remained forsaken.

The wounded, however, continued crawling to the hut, their numbers increasing from day to day. At times the litter bearers could not manage to look into the farm, and the wounded lay for days at a stretch without aid.

III--"THERE WAS NO ONE TO BURY THE BODIES"

At the end of October a serious cholera epidemic broke out among the Austrian troops. From that time on there appeared among those creeping toward the lonely farm large numbers of emaciated and pale-blue forms--shadows of men. On reaching the farm they fell on to the straw, coiled and groaned in agony, and for the most part remained lying there, silenced by everlasting sleep.

There was no one to bury the bodies, and they gradually began decomposing. On top of those bodies fell more and more. It became impossible to live amid these hellish surroundings, and if by chance some unfortunate wounded happened to come along most of them would leave the little hut and limp ahead, preferring to dare the firing line rather than be stifled in this horrible atmosphere of death and stench.

The engagements, having lasted several weeks, became more and more stubborn. The trenches crept nearer and nearer, until they resembled two live, gigantic horns about to embrace each other. Presently one of the Austrian trenches came so near the farm that the house became an obstacle to firing, and an order was issued to apply the torch to the incumbrance.

It was a dangerous task; all knew through experience that the Russians keep a sharp lookout on all that transpires in the enemy line and do not allow to pass with impunity the most insignificant move on the part of the enemy. At night the men, while smoking, would lie low at the very base of the trench, as the mere striking of a match sufficed to draw fire from the opposite lines.

As a result of some faint noise or a slight movement, vigorous firing would not infrequently burst out all along the line, and instead of getting the much-needed rest, the soldiers would pass nights on their feet and remain fatigued from sleeplessness and nervous exertion.

A young Second Lieutenant, recently promoted, and clean-shaven, volunteered to apply the torch. Though an ambitious man, he was at the same time limited and cowardly. He always tried to conceal his cowardice under a mask of arrogance, pushing his way forward whenever there was an opportunity to get into the spotlight and have his name mentioned. To brace himself, the officer emptied a large glass of spirits, and, taking along one of the men, left a cozy, sheltered trench and began feeling his way across the fields.

IV--THE TORCH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH

The night was dark as a grave, and over the lowland of the garden hung a thick, milky fog. The feet sank deep into the sticky, soaking mud. The Lieutenant's assistant went slowly, bent to the ground and breathing heavily.

They continued on their way without seeing anything ahead. Though the distance between them and their object was only 200 yards, it seemed to them from time to time as if they had lost their bearings and were going in the wrong direction.

Soon they were aware of a heavy, suffocating smell; the next moment there loomed up before their eyes a sombre silhouette of a building. It stood there enveloped in fog.

Reaching a corner of the house, the Lieutenant stopped short, drew from his ulster a big field revolver and whispered to the man to come near.

It seemed that his main care was not to carry out the task he had undertaken, but to hide conveniently from the Russian fire, and then slip off to the rear as soon as the house caught fire. He figured that while the flames were spreading over the structure, and before they had reached the last wall, he could quietly and without the least danger remain under shelter. As soon as the fire enveloped the structure, and before the walls began crumbling, he would run back in time to avoid exposure by the conflagration.

With this in view, he gave orders to his subordinate to pile up straw on the side of the building directly facing the trenches. In the meantime the officer, having taken shelter behind the opposite wall, lit a cigar and remained waiting for developments.

A few moments of long and painful suspense followed. The poor Lieutenant was in a state of frenzy. It was not the personal danger alone that now excited his imagination. He was tormented by the mystic fear of that which he was about to carry out. In the darkness he drew a sombre sketch of all that was hidden behind the wall, the inevitable which he was to face within a few moments.

How many of them are there? In what stage of decomposition? How do they lie?

The officer suddenly recalled a conversation in which some one had told him that when the flames touched the dead in the crematory they coiled and twisted as if alive. In his excited imagination he quickly pictured a wild dance of the dead which was about to begin.

"When they calm down," he thought, "after they are burned, as soon as roast meat is scented I will run, and then let the Russians shoot at them. All I have to do is to get away in time. If we were only done with this! Quick! Quick!"

At this moment he became aware of a pleasant smell of straw smoke, and immediately afterward the opposite corner of the structure burst into a bright flame. Almost simultaneously with the flash firing began from the Russian trenches, and it seemed to the officer that a few bullets hissed near him.

The soldier succeeded in pouring a great quantity of kerosene into the interior of the house. The fire spread with unusual swiftness. In two minutes the structure was all ablaze.

V--"THESE WERE THE HORRIBLE VISIONS"

The officer stood at the open door, watching curiously the interior of the main room. Scattered all over the floor there lay contorted and twisted forms. They lay in irregular heaps. It was an appalling and gruesome sight. From somewhere protruded some one's long, bare legs; near the wall lingered a lonely arm, curled, swollen, and slightly lifted, it hung in a threatening posture; from under a tattered old military coat projected a thick brush of black-blue hair; and at some distance, leaning on the furnace, there half sat the mighty figure of a stately corpse. The majestic body was bent in gloom, two huge, rough, and calloused hands supporting a big head.

Suddenly it seemed to the Lieutenant as if he heard some one groan. The sound became more and more audible, coming nearer and nearer; one voice, a second, somebody called, a cry rang out, and suddenly pandemonium broke loose. Air-rending cries came from all sides, and men began to drop, one by one, falling about the officer and stretching at his feet. Some fell straight from the ceiling to the earthen floor, others came creeping down the ladder; they dropped into the flames, choking and writhing in deadly agony.

The officer, half dead from fright, drew his revolver and opened fire. He ceased firing when his supply of bullets gave out. His ammunition gone, the Lieutenant threw down the weapon and ran. No one will ever know the number of unfortunates he thus killed. All I know is that of all the men hiding in the garret of that farm only one was saved. It was he who told me this terrible tale. He did this while lying in one of our hospitals. According to his version, there were at the time in the building a great number of wounded soldiers, who had come there during the last engagement. When fire was set to the house, they endeavored to get down. All perished. Some were burned alive, while others were shot to death by their own officer. Among those who perished was also the soldier who had served as the Lieutenant's assistant.

These were the horrible visions. I saw them every time I chanced to pass the ruined and devastated spot.

The fate of the vain and unhappy officer does not in the least concern me. I am not even disposed to blame him for his weakness. For this we can only pity a man. One is bound to pity also those who met death at his hands.

But for some reason or other I cannot help remembering the wounded little girl. There she lay, dying from loss of blood; there at the turning of the footpath, near the two little birch trees.

MY EXPERIENCES IN THE WAR HOSPITALS OF RUMANIA

_The Horrors of the Little Balkan Kingdom_

_Told by Queen Marie of Rumania_

Driven into exile with her many subjects, who had to retreat before the Hun just as the Belgians and Serbians were forced out of their peaceful homes in the debacle of war, Queen Marie of Rumania turned to the pen, and with it pictured the horrors that have engulfed the pretty little Balkan kingdom. Queen Marie was married to King Ferdinand in 1893, and was then the Princess Marie of Edinburgh, the daughter of Alfred I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland. Noted for her beauty, idolized by her people, she has devoted herself to Red Cross work and the care of her stricken people ever since the entry of Rumania into the war. In devoting her pen to the cause of her adopted country, Queen Marie has followed the example of her husband's aunt, the late Queen Elizabeth (Carmen Sylva), whose charming books of poetry and prose deal almost entirely with the customs and folklore of Rumania. In this article in the _Philadelphia Public Ledger_ Queen Marie gives a graphic picture of war-torn Rumania.

I--"I WATCH MY RUMANIANS GO TO WAR"

The trains are passing ... passing ... and the cargo they are hurrying thither is the youth of our country and the hope of our homes....

By thousands they are massed together; they sit on the roofs of the wagons, they hang on to their sides, they balance themselves in perilous positions, but all of them are gay, ... they shout, they sing, they laugh....

And the trains pass, pass ... all day the trains pass.... With hands full of flowers we hurry to the stations; our hearts are heavy; we long to say words they will remember, to tell them what we feel, but their voices raised in chorus drown all we would say.

One cry is on every lip when they see me, "We are going! Going gladly, going to victory, so that you may become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians!" There is hardly a voice that does not say it; it is the cry of every heart; they hope it, they believe it, they mean it to me, and I smile back at them offering them my flowers, which they clutch at with eager hands.

And thus the trains pass ... pass....

II--"THE SOLDIERS SHOWERED ME WITH FLOWERS"

One evening the sun was going down in glowing glory, turning all it shone over into glittering gold. I was late, other duties having kept me back; the train I had come to greet was already moving away.

In joyous crowds the young soldiers thronged the carriages; others had been before me to deck their caps, their tunics, even their horses and cannons, with bright violet asters of every shade. The prodigious radiance of sunset fell over all those flowers, enhancing their beauty, as though even the heavens were doing their utmost to render more blessed the departure of those eager boys, who so gayly were going to death.

Hurriedly I ran toward the moving carriages, distressed at being late. A great shout mounted from a thousand throats as they recognized me and a shower of flowers fell at my feet.

From their caps, their tunics, their cannons they tore away the flowers that had been given them to shower them over their Queen, while the usual chorus mounted to the skies: "May you become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians."...

And always more flowers fell over me; my arms were full; my hands could hardly hold them; the ground was purple where I stood....

Long did I remain there after the train had disappeared. A trail of smoke against the orange sky alone marked its passage, and all those fading flowers at my feet.

As one looks at the incomprehensible, I gazed at those two long rails running into the infinite, there seeming to join their separate ways, and wondered toward what fate those youths were hurrying; wondered if their dream would be realized; especially I wondered how many would come back....

The sun had set, the smoke had dissolved into nothing; the voices of my soldiers were but a remembrance ... slowly I turned my foot toward home....

III--"I BEND OVER THE SUFFERING FACES"

All day long I have been moving among the wounded, wandering from ward to ward--they all want me to come among them, each soldier desirous to see his Queen....

Never do I leave a call unanswered; everywhere do I go; no sight is too sad, no fatigue is too great, no way too long, but sometimes it is to me as though I were wandering through some never-ending dream.

Bed beside bed they lie there, and all eyes meet me, follow me, consume me; never before have I known what it means to be the prey of so many eyes.... They seem to be drawing my heart from my bosom, to be a weight I can hardly bear!

I bend over suffering faces, clasp outstretched hands, lay my fingers upon heated brows, gaze into dying eyes, listen to whispered words--and everywhere the same wish follows me: "May you become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians!" Stiffening lips murmur it to me, hopeful voices cry it out to me; it goes with me wherever I move: "What matters our suffering as long as you become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians!" Infinitely touching are the words when they mount toward me from the beds of so many wounded, who see in me the realization, the incarnation of the dream for which they are giving their lives.

It makes me feel so small, so humble before their stoic endurance; tears come to my eyes and yet, because of the beauty of it, I have a great wish to thank God.

Why should I be chosen to represent an ideal? Why should just I be the symbol? What right have I to stand above them, to buy glory with the shedding of their blood?...

And always more tenderly do I pass from bed to bed....

That was at a time when hope still sang in every soul, when in the first enthusiasm all hearts beat in unison, when belief in glorious victory gladdened the day....

But much later, under widely different circumstances in quite another place, the same words were said to me by one who could not see my face, for that morning he had been trepanned; his bandaged head was lying in a pool of blood....

Some one told him that his Queen was beside him, that she had come to see him, to inquire about his sufferings; to help him if he needed help.

A groping hand was stretched out toward me; I took it in mine, whispering words of comfort; bending low toward the parched lips that were murmuring something that at first I could not understand. The man had no face, no eyes; all was swathed in blood-stained cloths. Then, as though from very far, came the words, the same brave words: "May the great God protect you. May He let you live to become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians!"

IV--"I PRAYED TO GOD TO LISTEN"