Chapter XII: Part 12

The second case is that of Frido J. C. von Meyerem, who was sentenced to death on September 6th last by the First Court-Martial in Paris and then tried again in November by the Third Court-Martial, the first sentence having been quashed owing to a technical fault in the procedure. Meyerem was accused of concealing his German nationality at Nice in March, 1916, and also of entering the entrenched camp of Paris in the same month. While at Nice he corresponded in invisible ink with an espionage agent, who sent him a cheque for about forty pounds. He was also charged with having furnished the enemy with information prejudicial to the operations of the army and compromising the security of the forts and other military establishments. Meyerem was again adjudged guilty and sentenced to death.

Thousands of these men and women, ready to risk their lives for the love of money and the German Fatherland, undoubtedly continue their dangerous work all over France to-day. The majority of them are women, either the German wives of French subjects or alleged "neutrals." They are thus free to go about under the protection of their borrowed or neutral flag, without let or hindrance. Some who are unmarried play, I am convinced, a more hazardous game by remaining in hiding until night, when they come forth like nocturnal birds of prey. This is by no means so difficult in a large city like Paris as one would think, as witness the case of an Austrian, Michel Augmeister, aged thirty-eight, a native of Martensdorf, who remained hidden away by his French wife in his apartment at 24, Rue Brey, for no less than twenty-six months. It was not until October 25th last that, as his health was suffering seriously from seclusion, his spouse considered it the wisest plan to give him up to the police.

IX--EXPOSURE OF THE "LONELY SOLDIER" TRICK

Among the multitudinous means employed by German female agents in France is the insertion of small advertisements in the Parisian papers proposing an exchange of correspondence with British officers at the Front. Until a stop was recently put to this practice, as the result of an inquiry at military headquarters, I frequently saw advertisements of this sort in a daily published in Paris. Here is a specimen of one announcement:--

"Refined Parisian lady wishes to exchange correspondence with cultured person at the Front, to improve knowledge."

A few days later the same advertiser varied the wording as follows:--

"Young Parisian widow, having greatly travelled, wants to exchange correspondence with cultured officer at the Front."

In a series of similar advertisements she became "an artist," "an actress," and "an independent lady." That a large number of "lonely" British officers were deceived and entered into correspondence with her is certain. It is satisfactory to be able to say that, through the vigilance of the authorities, she did not succeed in her object. A certain foolish young lieutenant had a narrow escape from falling into her clutches. He wrote--quite in good faith--that he would be glad not only to correspond, but also to meet her when he next came to Paris with his colonel, as he fairly frequently came to the capital, and put up at the Hôtel Continental. However, very fortunately for him, the meeting never came off, for before the letter had reached its destination the lady had received her warning and sailed for the United States.

X--TALES OF THE SPIES AT THE FRONT

Mr. W. Beach Thomas, the _Daily Mail_ correspondent with the British Army, recounted on October 19th last a strange incident which occurred at Armentières, where the old and more regular method of warfare then prevailed. "Two days ago," he wrote, "a civilian was seen to leap over the parapet of our front trench and run for the German line, which is not far distant. He was shot dead before reaching it, _and in the evening the Germans recovered his body_. How had he reached our trench? Who was he? Was he spy or madman?" Few readers will hesitate over the answer.

There must indeed be numerous spies at the Front. I am told that in certain sectors the country people whose homes are still within the war area are frequently suspected, and wonder has often been expressed that the military authorities have not long ago ordered them to retire far to the rear.

I have heard of a ploughman who, for the guidance of Hun airmen, ploughed two converging furrows pointing directly to the position of a concealed battery, which was later severely shelled, and of a seemingly unsophisticated countrywoman who laid out a white sheet on the ground, wherein to pack her wares for market, hard by another important position that German planes were searching for. Both these people turned out to be disguised Boche agents.

The liberty of the _mercantis_, or itinerant merchants, who infest the rear and rob the French _poilu_ or British "Tommy" by selling him wretched goods at an exorbitant price should likewise be curtailed.

Spies are to be divided into innumerable categories. Within the limits of a magazine article it is impossible to do more than touch on the fringe of this great topic. One could devote two or three chapters of a book merely to the subject of those spies who, from time to time, are carried at night-time within the French and British lines by German airmen, who pick them up again when dawn is about to break. This is the most perilous game which the spy is called upon to play. It leads to the most extraordinary adventures and hairbreadth escapes, and some of these I hope later on to have the opportunity of relating.

HOW STRONG MEN DIE--TALES OF THE WOUNDED

_Experiences of a Scottish Minister_

_Told by Rev. Lauchlan Maclean Watt, Minister of St. Stephen's, Edinburgh_

The courage of the Scots is one of the epics of the Great War. An
insight into their strong character may be seen by this minister's
story to _The Scotsman_, revealing the pathos and fortitude of men on
their death-beds.

I--STORY OF THE MINISTER AT THE DEATH-BED

It is truly a great thing to see that the day of willing devotion to the noblest ideals is not yet gone from the life of our people. Suffering and death are faced without repining, and men say farewell to the promise of their youth ungrudgingly, feeling that the investment for the sake of the future of the world is worth the cost which they are paying. To the greatest life and death are very simple alternatives, lying easily to either hand, accepted without complaining.

One day I was going through a tent of suffering men just after a big "stunt." It was a day of much and great agony for those who were in actual bodily pain and for those of us who had to try to help them to endure it. I saw two men carried in and laid on beds side by side with each other. One was obviously very severely wounded. The other was swathed in bandages over his head and down over his face, apparently blinded. For a moment I hesitated, thinking it might be better to come back when, perhaps, the agonies of the one might be somewhat abated. But I put my hesitation aside. I found that the two men were brothers who, fighting in the same trench, had been struck down by the same shell. Late that evening an ambulance came for me as a man was dying, and I found it was the soldier I had spoken to earlier in the day.

The camp lay beautifully still, for the clouds were heavy and the stars were veiled. I stepped into the tent, into the breathing dark. The beds were swathed in shadow, only one red lamp hanging from a central post.

They had brought the brothers quite closely together, and the man with the bandaged eyes had a hand of the other in his own. The dying man took mine in a grip of ice.

"Padre," he whispered, "I am going home. And I wanted you to come again to me. Write tenderly to my people. This will break their hearts. And pray that my brother may be spared." There is no ritual for a moment like that. One could but ask Him who was broken also for others to be near this broken man whose body was pierced unto dying for the sake of those he loved. We whispered together there a few lines of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and a verse of the immortally wonderful "Lead, Kindly Light." And then he put his arm about my neck and drew me closer.

"I tried to do what was right," said he. "O Christ, receive my soul. Have mercy upon me." I heard a man near me, in the dark, say "Amen." And I knew the fellows were not sleeping. They were lying there, in their own pain, thinking of him who was passing that night into the great beyond. Then I said, very quietly, the last verse of the hymn he had whispered:

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since and lost a while.

The silence lay between us for a little, till the dying man asked, "What o'clock is it?" And I told him.

"I'm so sorry for disturbing you so late," said he.

"Good-bye, padre, till we meet again." And with a sigh he passed away.

I heard a quiet step near me, and I looked around, with the dead man in my arms. I should not have been astonished if I had seen the very Christ, with His wounds shining there, behind me, in that quiet tent, now so terribly, infinitely still. It was only the woman with the red cross on her breast, the angel of the sick and weary in their pain, seeming always to us, in such a moment, the nearest we can get to Christ, for tenderness and help. And so I laid the dead man down upon his pillow; and had to turn immediately to the living one to comfort him.

II--LIFT YOUR HAT TO THE RED CROSS

As long as I live I shall lift my hat to the red cross. It is, of course, the symbol of the highest sacrifice earth's history ever knew; and it is still the mark of the tenderest devotion and most perfect self-surrender for the sake of others. Every man in khaki, and every man that has a soldier boy to love, should salute that symbol which speaks of love amid the hate and turmoil of war. For it means womanhood consecrated to gentle service, reckoning neither wage nor worry in aught it does, and it takes the sting from broken manhood that has ventured for the sake of honour and of duty, through comradeship in suffering, to the verge of life, and beyond it.

War takes a man in the splendid vigour of his full manhood and flings him out of trench and battlefield a bleeding thing. The devoted women of the hospital tent shrink from no duty when the suffering and mire-stained man is brought to them. There can be no greater self-mastery and no more sublime self-forgetfulness than the washing of the bodies of the stricken and the dressing of the terrible wounds that have broken their murderous way into the fair flesh of the soul's house. And how they work! It has to be seen to be understood, and once seen it can never be forgotten. Faithfulness, tenderness, and loving devotion are the marks of those ministering angels, "when pain and anguish wring the brow." There is no question of adherence to hours. It becomes a question of adherence to duty when a rush is on. There is no strike for shorter hours, or an increased wage, or a war bonus with them or the brave men whom they serve. The men, even to the roughest "grouser," appreciate it fully. "O sister! go to rest now," I have heard them say, pleadingly, to the tired woman with the red cross on her breast and the white cross in her heart.

III--THE LADS WHO DRIVE THE AMBULANCE CARS

So, also with the lads who drive the ambulance cars. I have felt my heart fill as I watched them bringing in the wounded. Gently as a mother carrying a sick child in her bosom, they creep with their agonized burdens over the rough roads, calculating every inequality, thinking through every stage of the journey. I remember, at midnight, standing by one that had just been brought in. The first to be lifted out on a stretcher was a fine fellow, an Irishman, with his right arm blown off. The doctor, with his lantern, leaned over and asked his name.

But the suffering man looked up in his face and said, "Sir, before we do anything, please thank the driver. He's a Christian and a gentleman."

The common sorrow of the allied nations binds them very tenderly together. I used to see a fine expression of this in the town where I was first stationed, where some women who had a garden, on the way to the cemetery, were wont to do a very beautiful thing. As, almost daily, the heavy lumbering wagons with the dead came rolling along, those kindly hearts came out and laid on each coffin, above the Union Jack, a bouquet of exquisite flowers. Then the wagons rumbled on toward the graves. It was a sweet tribute to the brave strangers who are fighting in France, so many of them giving their all in sacrifice for liberty, love, and home in this hideous uprising of all that was monstrous in the dark ages that are past.

One perhaps learns most by unlearning. I used to think of the spirit of pain as intensely, even immensely, vocal. I remember, especially, when I was young, a great gully in the north, beside the sea, up which the waves came dashing in perpetually recurrent warfare, the flood seeking ever higher, only to be drawn away down the sloping shingle again, shrieking, to the main. Often in the daytime I would listen, and, in the dark, would linger near, held by the awe of the unsleeping tragedy of that vast elemental grief which sways about the edges of the world. I told my heart, "This is the spirit of the world pain finding voice." But now I know otherwise. I have learned better in the school of suffering, in the land of war. The spirit of pain is silent--tholing, at its deepest. It looks at you out of those suffering eyes. There is no cry in it. For the mystery of duty is within its depths. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is its truest picture. So it comes to be that the nobility and manliness of the brave combine, with unforgettable splendour of ineffable beauty, the darkness of our times. When they do speak there is a majesty of stillness about their utterance, vast as the mid-deep, far away, out under the stars.

The lads are uplifted by the nearness of the Unseen. I have before me two genuine documents, letters of two fine boys who went godward up the highway of the sun--the way of sacrifice. They speak for themselves. No novelist's imagination could create so fine an utterance. One was scribbled in the trenches, the other in the hospital ward, to those who had the best claim on the best the writers had to give. Said one:

"I am in the trenches, and in half an hour we go over the top. Our artillery is going at it hammer and tongs, the biggest bombardment in English history. It is just like huge express trains rushing through the air in hundreds. All of us are happy in the prospect of a clean fight after so many weary months as passive spectators of anything but warfare, except on rare occasions. If I get through all right I shall add a postscript to this. If not, mother dear, I know you will not be beaten by a Spartan mother who had no heavenly Father revealed to her to look to for comfort, but yet could say, 'Come back with victory, or not at all.' With heaps of love. * * *"

The other is suffused with the same straightforward spirit of fearlessness and faith.

"I was so glad to see your answer this morning, but am sorry I have not enough strength to write much. A good few died of wounds in this hospital through weakness, but I am leaving all doubts with God, as He holds the key of all the Unknown, and I am glad. So if I die before long, and I cannot see anything more sure, I hope to meet you all in God's good time. My wound is numb. It is in my thigh, and I have no pain. * * * I am now at the balance, to live or die. So good day, and God bless all. * * *"

There was nothing really extraordinary about these boys among their fellows. But one is struck by the frequency with which the men, after a deep emotion, touch literature in their letters. Of course the secret of true style lies in a real experience. Some of them, it is true, tell absolutely false tales, and their letters are sentimental poses. But of the letters of dying men there can be no mistake, and these boys wrote these on the threshold of the eternal mystery. They are types of a large proportion of the army of to-day, fighting, suffering, and dying as those who have looked in the face of the Invisible, and are inheriting the promise, "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." It is surely an incentive to the people at home, for honour and remembrance.

THROUGH THE JAWS OF DEATH IN A SUNKEN SUBMARINE

_Told by Emile Vedel in L'Illustration, Paris_

Many a novelist and some dramatists have tried to imagine the last
agonies of the crew of a submarine boat that has received a mortal
wound and sunk. Here is a first-hand account of the dreadful reality,
told by men who actually experienced the tragedy. How these men
slipped out from the very jaws of death just as they were closing
on them, even they cannot fully explain; but some strange freak of
the machinery made their submarine bob back to the surface after
the water pouring into it had sent the vessel down 200 feet. Emile
Vedel, who is writing the story of the French naval operations in the
Adriatic and publishing it serially, under governmental authority in
_L'Illustration_, obtained the facts from the signed statements of
two petty officers of the boat. Translated by Arthur Benington in the
_New York World_. Copyright, 1917, Press Publishing Company.

I--STORY OF THE PRISONERS IN BOHEMIA

A composite flotilla of French, British and Italian gunboats and submarines attacked an Austrian flotilla which had sneaked out from the Bocche di Cattaro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic and shelled the port of Durazzo. The engagement resulted in the sinking of an Austrian destroyer. The following day the French picked up some sailors from another Austrian destroyer, the _Llka_, which had struck a mine and sunk. These sailors told them that in attacking the Austrian fleet the Allied boats had narrowly escaped killing the survivors of a French submarine that had been sunk and the crew of which had been rescued by Austrian gunboats.

What submarine it was they were at a loss to know, but as time passed and nothing was heard from the _Monge_, they became convinced that it must have been she. This conviction was strengthened two months later, when Mme. Roland Morillot, wife of Lieut. Morillot, commander of that boat, received a letter signed "Crew of the _Monge_," mailed from the concentration camp for prisoners at Deutsch Gabel, Bohemia, of which the following is a translation of a part:

"Notwithstanding the distance, we unite our grief with yours in weeping over the memory of him who in spite of all will ever remain our captain. Stricken by a blow of fate just when victory smiled most brightly, Commandant Morillot died like a hero, after having accomplished the almost impossible to save his vessel and his crew."

More months elapsed; then Chief Master Electrician Joffry and Quartermaster Mahe, both of the _Monge_, were returned to France from Austria in an exchange of prisoners. And they told the story.

II--STORY OF A COLLISION AT 30 KNOTS

The _Monge_ belonged to the class of submarines that have to use a steam engine for recharging their diving accumulators. It had been scouting ahead of the rest of the flotilla and had crept close to the Bocche di Cattaro that night when the Austrian fleet came out. At 12.15 A. M. Commandant Morillot sighted the lights of the Austrian vessels. How many he couldn't tell, nor how far away they were. He submerged to 20 feet, leaving the night periscope above the surface. Suddenly he was aware of a rapidly approaching huge black mass, and was giving orders to fire a torpedo from the port tube when a hitherto unseen vessel passed at 30 knots right over the _Monge_. Its keel struck the submarine; the shock was terrific. The little boat rolled almost over. The conning tower was smashed and the sea poured in through a gaping hole.

The crew of the _Monge_ tumbled in heaps against the partitions of the compartments in which they happened to be. The stern dropped, the bows rose, and the boat began sinking stern foremost at an angle of 30 or 40 degrees. Abominable gases rose as the sea water flooded the tanks of sulphuric acid.

The electric lights went out. The _Monge_ wabbled downwards in pitch darkness.

It is such moments as these that test master and men. How both were equal to the emergency, let Chief Electrician Joffry relate:

III--TWO HUNDRED FEET BENEATH THE SEA

"Clutching the periscope table," he said, "the Commandant faces this blow. He is a man whom nothing disconcerts. He orders that all submerging tanks be emptied. Several times he repeats the order to discharge the water. But the compressed air is not powerful enough to expel it, and we continue to sink. The hull creaks all over, but especially astern, for the stern, by reason of the angle at which we are going down, is sixty feet lower and under a pressure of two atmospheres greater than the bow. It is the steel heart of the _Monge_ that is groaning. We must have at least 180 or 200 feet of water above us. Believing that this is the end, we sing the 'Marseillaise.'"

Quartermaster Mahe says the electric batteries were short-circuited by the crash and the inrush of water. The turbines stopped at the moment the lights went out.

"But if we see nothing, we can hear," adds the brave Mahe. "We hear everything, and every noise echoes like a knell: dull murmurs of surging water, nerve-wracking falls of men and things; questions anxiously spoken, crash of objects upon each other, sinister creakings of the hull under the terrible and ever increasing pressure. The smell of burning, the vile emanations of chlorine--forerunners of asphyxia--are inhaled everywhere, and grip our throats. Tango, the bob-tailed Arab dog, is stuck somewhere between the boilers."

IV--THE SONG OF DEATH--FROM DOWN BELOW

All at once in this antechamber of death there rises a song! To the steel heart of the _Monge_ the even more highly tempered hearts of the French sailors are replying. They are singing! If the plates are springing, these hearts do not give way. Like their ancestors, the ancient Gauls, they fear nothing; and they prove it by intoning a hymn for France at 200 feet below the surface of the ocean. Yes, in their half overturned, flooded cage which threatens to crush like an eggshell, they sing! No audience is theirs and, so far as they know, none will ever know how they met their end. But no matter, it is for themselves they sing, possessed by the sublime exaltation that makes martyrs and heroes.

Groping about, they manage to make a lamp flash for a few seconds. This reveals the full gravity of the situation, for it shows the pointers of the manometers standing still at their limit, proving that they are far below the greatest depth permitted to the _Monge_.

Commandant Morillot's hand is upon the lever that controls the lead ballast, his last resource, but he hesitates to release it. If the leads be released the submarine will rise to the surface, but must be captured at once, for she will then be unable to submerge again. He looks at the men in the fitful light of the flashing lamp, questioning them with his eyes, as he thinks: If it is good to live it is also good to die for one's country. Their silence responding to his immobility expresses their acquiescence in the sacrifice.

But at last, under the direction of the Commander, the engineers get the turbines working again. The creaking diminishes, then it ceases. Ensign Appell strikes a match and holds it to the manometer. The pointer moves from its maximum (135 feet).

"Courage!" he cries, "we are rising!"

Quick to the periscopes! Alas, one of them has gone, and the other is blind!

Still they rise. Suddenly a crash above, and then another. Four shells explode right overhead. They are at the surface, and the Austrians are firing on them!

There is nothing for it but to submerge again, come what may. Scarcely has the Commandant given the order than a shell bursts right in the port periscope chamber, tearing a great hole in the hull. This time nothing can save the _Monge_. Only now does the captain let go the lead ballast. Since his vessel is lost, he will profit by the brief respite this lightening will give to save the crew. After closing the water valves he orders the forward hatchway opened and leads his men to it.

"Not that way, my boys," he says to those who take the wrong direction, "this way. As soon as you get out, leap overboard to show that the _Monge_ is sinking and stop the enemy's fire."

V--GOOD-BY TO THE "MONGE"

Flashes from a lighthouse on shore show the men leaping overboard and the boat sinking lower and lower. The Austrians have ceased their fire.

"We marched forward singing the 'Marseillaise,'" said Joffry, "and with a cry of 'Vive la France!' we jumped. Then, nothing under our feet. Good-by _Monge_!"

We felt the shock of an explosion. The floating debris of the deck helped us to swim. Twelve of us clung to a floating gangway, swimming with our feet, for half an hour. Quartermasters Morel and Goulard were missing.

At last boats from the enemy destroyers came and picked us up.

And Morillot? He went down with the _Monge_. The details of his end are uncertain, but it is not difficult to reconstruct them. Joffry says: "He did not come up on deck. He remained at his post. Very calmly he stood watching the manometer reveal the gradual sinking of the vessel under him. He was surely saying in his heart 'If only my men can get away in time!' He told the last of us to hurry, and he helped us to find our way. What he did when he saw us all safe I do not know, but it seemed to me that the _Monge_ sank more swiftly. He might have opened the water ballast valves to make her sink before the hand of the Boches could touch her. That is undoubtedly what he did, but I did not see him, nor did any one."

And Mahe, who was in the control chamber, says: "The captain told us: 'Our poor _Monge_ is lost, but you have yet time. Come this way, my lads.' He opened the door and added: 'Au revoir, and courage, my lads!' I dared not tell him to come up with us, for I saw he had made up his mind to die with his ship, as he had already told some of us he would."

VI--THE LAST TORPEDO

The captain of the Austrian gunboat _Balaton_ told the survivors that he had delayed launching boats to pick them up, because a torpedo had been fired at his boat from the _Monge_ as she went down. He believed that Commandant Morillot, having seen all his men safely overboard, had gone below alone and deliberately fired a last torpedo. That is possible, or it may be that a torpedo was accidentally discharged from the sinking boat. Joffry spoke of feeling an explosion after getting into the water.

In an order of the day published as soon as the facts became known, Admiral the Duke of the Abruzzi paid tribute to the "heroic sacrifice in which Lieut. Morillot decided to remain on board his sinking boat," and added: "To do honor to this deed of the purest marine valor, his Majesty the King has deigned to confer upon him, _motu proprio_, the gold medal for valor." This was the first time this rare distinction had been conferred since the war began. In transmitting this notice to the French Admiral, Vice-Admiral Cutinelli-Rendina added:

"His memory will ever remain for us an object of admiration and worship."

ESCAPE OF THE RUSSIAN LEADER OF THE "TERRIBLE DIVISION"

_True Story of How General Korniloff Escaped Across Hungary_

_Told by Ivan Novikoff_

The story of how the famous Russian general, leader of the "Terrible
Division," was captured by the Austrians, and how he escaped in an
Austrian soldier's uniform, making his way right across Hungary, for
a distance of over three hundred miles, until he regained the Russian
lines. This is the first detailed narrative of the general's feat, as
it is told in the _Wide World Magazine_.

I--STORY OF THE DREADED GENERAL--THE RUSSIAN TIGER

The Forty-eighth Infantry Division of the Russian army had long been dreaded by the enemy. Their bravery and dash, their grim and almost desperate courage, had earned for them the name of the "Terrible Division."

Their leader was the redoubtable General Korniloff, a man of iron will and heroic courage. He was a worthy descendant of that other great Korniloff, whose dying words, "Lord, bless Russia and the Czar, save the fleet and Sebastopol!" are inscribed on his monument near the Malakhoff Hill, where he fell in the great assault of 1855. A tiger to his enemies was Korniloff, but very gentle where his own men were concerned, solicitous for their wants and comforts. Though they were among the bravest fighters in the Russian army, their leader never threw their lives away recklessly. As for him, they believed him to bear a charmed life. "Korniloff" was their war-cry, and they felt safe in his hands.

In those brave days when the Russians were attacking in the Carpathians, in the spring of 1915, Korniloff's men were ever foremost in the fighting. Mowed down repeatedly by the German and Austrian guns, which defended the ground yard by yard, they came back to the charge again and again with a furious _élan_.

The way of the Russians was barred by a commanding eminence held by two divisions of the enemy. From this height the fire had been devastating and unceasing, and the position seemed impregnable. Formidable defences of barbed wire guarded all the approaches, and mines and other murderous devices defied all their efforts to take the stronghold.

But Korniloff determined to accomplish the almost superhuman task. Deliberately he set about breaking down the defences. Two regiments were assigned to the task. Night by night they worked in as much secrecy as the darkness afforded, pressing on under a withering fire until at last the road was clear. Then they took the height by a furious assault, and were masters of the position that had galled them for so many months. Five thousand men had defeated twelve times their number. The Austrian general, with his staff, was taken prisoner, and when he learned of the numbers which had opposed his big army he broke down and wept with rage and grief. "Korniloff is not a man," he said; "he is an elemental force."

The Russians were now masters of this important strategical position. The town of Ivla lay in front of them, within reach of their guns, but it was strongly fortified; while in the neighbouring forests the enemy was concentrating in great numbers. The fighting continued with unabated fury.

It was in April, 1915, and the rugged slopes of the Carpathian hills and mountains were brightened with the new green shoots of the foliage, with the vivid splashes made by broom and poppy, anemone, and other variegated blooms.

The Austrian forces were receiving reinforcements rapidly, and the Russian general and his division, in their new position, were hard pressed. They were almost isolated, practically surrounded by sixty thousand fresh enemy troops. The Russians kept up a solid and heroic defence, but the enemy gave them no rest. Soon Korniloff's much-weakened force was in a desperate situation. All their bravery and sacrifice had been unavailing; the enemy was gradually gaining upon them.

Calm and self-possessed, General Korniloff viewed the situation. "We are too feeble to resist any longer," he told his officers; "we must attack." This was Korniloff's method. He called his men together and explained how things stood. A small force must attack the Austrians and thus cover the retreat of the main body. He called for volunteers, and from the serried ranks that presented themselves formed a small detachment pledged to make the supreme dash. It was a forlorn hope, this attack, but it might save the rest of the division, which was otherwise doomed to fall into the hands of the enemy.

II--MARCHING TO DEATH BEFORE THE HOLY IKON

Early on a beautiful spring morning the resolute band mustered, and were passed in a pathetic little review by their valiant chief, who knew that he should look upon but few of those faces again. As they bowed devoutly before the holy ikon raised above them, they cried, "For God, St. Nicholas, and the Czar!" Then they shouldered their rifles, and a moment later were on the move, headed by the commander himself.

The manoeuvre surprised the enemy, as it was intended to do, but the advancing force was violently assailed by a triple fire from artillery, rifles, and machine-guns. Still, however, they stumbled on, singing a chant popular with the peasants on the banks of the Volga. Man after man fell around the intrepid Korniloff, but the survivors pressed on unheeding; they knew that every yard they advanced meant more chance for the Forty-eighth Division.

Steadily they ploughed their way onwards till they were close to the enemy's lines. By this time there was but a handful of them left. Korniloff himself was wounded, and his strength was fast failing him.

The Austrians looked on with astonishment. Would these madmen never surrender? The ground was strewn with their dead and wounded. What could the last few survivors hope to accomplish? At last a bullet brought down the indomitable general, and the one-sided fight was over.

III--THE GREAT KORNILOFF A PRISONER OF THE AUSTRIANS

When Korniloff came to himself, and was able to take account of his surroundings, he found himself in a hospital, being treated for his serious wounds. He was a prisoner of the Austrians, as were the few of his men who had been left alive when he himself was taken. But he breathed a sigh of relief, for the gallant Forty-eighth Division had been saved by his devotion and the sacrifice of his splendid little band.

Dreary months of illness and convalescence passed by. At last the general was well enough to be moved from the hospital, and his captors conveyed him to a safer and more suitable habitation. As a prisoner of mark, a residence was chosen for him at the château of Esterhazy, at Eisenstadt, in the Sopron Department in Hungary. This was the famous castle, built in 1683, where Haydn was _Kapell-meister_ to the Prince Esterhazy of the time.

Korniloff made up his mind that Eisenstadt should not long have him as a guest, and with increasing health and strength he set about finding a means of escape. First of all he made friends with the men who acted as his guardians, and they were flattered at the notice taken of them by the redoubtable Russian general, whose fame had spread over the Empire. He took a great interest in these common soldiers; he talked to them of their lives, their homes, the fights they had been in; and learned from them a few words and expressions in Magyar.

Now, one of these Austrian soldiers (as General Korniloff afterwards related to the delegates of the Czech Brigade, when they welcomed him in Kiev and congratulated him on his escape) happened to be a Slovack. What more natural than that he should sympathize with the prisoner and agree to help him to regain his liberty? In exactly what way he did this, no one knows save Korniloff himself, and as regards such points he is naturally discretion itself. Anyway, one morning, as he was returning to his apartment from the park in which he was allowed to stroll, he passed a guardroom, the door of which was open. On a table just inside lay a private soldier's uniform, with forage cap and everything complete. No one was in sight, though he heard somewhere in the rear the voices of men at their morning tasks. It was the work of a second to slip in, snatch up the kit, hide it under his cloak, and hasten to his own room. Had it been placed there, by arrangement, by the Slovack? Presumably, considering what followed next.

For two days after that the general kept to his apartment, suffering from a fictitious cold. He feared that inquiries might be made as to the missing garments, but to his heartfelt relief he heard nothing further about the matter. As there was always a considerable coming and going of soldiers, he trusted that during the two days he remained invisible there might be some new arrivals who would not be familiar with his person when the time came for action.

IV--STORY OF KORNILOFF'S DARING ESCAPE

On the second evening Korniloff, who had already experimented with the borrowed uniform and found that it fitted him fairly well, dressed himself in it and shaved off his beard. For some time past he had practised to himself before a mirror his knowledge of the German language, which was fairly good, and its pronunciation with the soft Austrian accent.

At nightfall, arrayed in his disguise, he went down into the courtyard and across into the park, where, at a certain spot and hour, he had arranged to meet his Slovack friend.

Here he hung about near the gate for some time, talking to soldiers, smoking a cigar, and cursing in the best military slang. Nobody suspected him, and at a moment when the sentinel's back was turned he slipped out. At first he strolled along nonchalantly, hoping that if he had been observed the others would think he was only one of themselves going off for a spree without leave. As soon as he was out of sight, however, the general "put his best leg foremost" and made the utmost haste he could towards a figure which he recognized to be that of the man who had promised to guide him towards Russia. They had provided themselves with a map and compass, and had also accumulated a little store of money. But Russia was a long way off, and their plans for the future were somewhat vague.

All that night and most of the next day Korniloff and his unknown friend (the general confessed that he never knew the name of his benefactor) walked in an easterly direction. They slept for some hours in a lonely field, and then got on the move again. Here and there peasants helped them on their way; they were offered food and drink and a rest. Though they avoided small towns, they were making their way to Budapest, thinking that something might happen in that great city to help them, and that they could easily pass unchallenged where so many races intermingled.

But before reaching the great city on the banks of the blue Danube an unexpected and most unhappy incident occurred. The plan of escape was almost entirely wrecked.

"We had noticed that wherever we went the gendarmes eyed us suspiciously," said the general to the already mentioned delegation. "In every village through which we passed, at every farm at which we called for bite or sup, on every plain which we crossed, there seemed to be eyes watching us. Soon our provisions became exhausted and we began to suffer the pangs of hunger. One day, after a long, hungry march, my Slovack guide--the faithful companion of the early part of my sufferings--decided, since he was on the point of exhaustion, to ask for food and water at an isolated farm. I warned him that it was dangerous, but hardly had the words passed my lips than he was gone. I saw him enter the farm and waited in vain--waited for ten long hours! At last I comprehended what had happened. I saw the gendarmes surround the house and heard the sound of gunshots. Flight, instant flight, was the only course open to me, and thus, alone for the remainder of my journey, I continued with all speed towards Budapest."

V--THE RUSSIAN GENERAL DISGUISED AS AN AUSTRIAN

On reaching the Hungarian city, General Korniloff found it, as he expected, full of troops. Reinforcements were coming in to be dispatched to the various fronts, while other men were on their way home on periods of furlough. Amid all these soldiers nobody took any notice of the disguised Russian in his simple Austrian uniform. Needless to say, he carefully avoided attracting attention to himself, always keeping where the crowds were thickest.

Feeling hungry, he went into a small eating-house frequented by working-class people and ordered beer, bread, and sausage. Most of the customers in the place spoke Hungarian, but two sitting at a table near him were talking in German, and he overheard what they said. One of them was a woman, who, to judge by her appearance, was engaged in munition-making.

"_Ach, du Guter!_" she exclaimed to her companion. "That Russian general they captured in the Carpathians last year--Korniloff--has escaped, and they are offering a reward for his capture."

The fugitive felt for a moment as if all eyes were bent upon him, but as a matter of fact nobody took any notice of him.

"Ugh!" growled the man addressed. "Why couldn't they keep him when they had him? How much are they offering?"

"Fifty thousand kronen."

"_Fui tausend!_ Fifty thousand kronen for a _verdammten Russen_! And in these times, when the war costs so much!"

"_Ja, mein lieber_, but he's a general, you see," explained the woman. "I wish I could find him. It would be better than making munitions."

So there was a price of fifty thousand kronen on his head, reflected Korniloff, as he left the restaurant. He felt strangely elated at the thought that he was calmly passing among the enemy unknown and unsuspected with such a reward offered for his capture. He bought a newspaper to obtain confirmation of the woman's announcement, and there he found the notice in large type, with a curiously inaccurate portrait of himself.

The darkness was now falling, and he walked on until he found himself in the Franz Josefplatz. A large number of soldiers were camping in the square, lying upon the benches or on the ground, and evidently preparing to spend the night there. Artillery-wagons were lined up all round. A man he passed--an Austrian artillery man--looked up at him and smiled. He was fixing his haversack against the trunk of a tree to serve as a sort of pillow.

"As good here as anywhere else," said the man in German.

"To be sure," Korniloff replied. "Better than the trenches, anyway. Why is the regiment bivouacking here?"

"No room elsewhere, comrade," said the soldier. "Wounded and soldiers everywhere--all the barracks full; everything full. Well, it's a nice night. Have a smoke?"

He offered a cigar, which the disguised general accepted, sitting down beside his new-found friend.

"Where have you come from, and where are you going?" asked the Austrian.

"Rejoining my regiment after convalescence," replied Korniloff.

They sat and exchanged confidence for some time, the Austrian asking numerous questions which Korniloff parried as well as he could. The gunner confessed that he was heartily sick of the war, as were all his comrades. He heard nothing but complaints from his home, where conditions were getting harder and food was becoming scarcer.

"It's the same with you, eh, comrade?" he said. "I don't suppose you come from a part of the world that's any better off?"

The Austrian was a simple soul, and he told Korniloff many things that interested him. Finally, after he had babbled in this way for some time, both men fell asleep side by side.

VI--TRAMPING ACROSS HUNGARY WITH THE PEASANTS

Korniloff bade his chance host good-bye and was off on his journey again before the regiment was stirring. He decided that he must trust to his feet. He would march right across Hungary; and by means of his map and compass he hoped to make so straight a line that it would not take him more than a month. He was now in good health and in excellent trim generally, and he had no fear of the journey if he could only get enough food to keep him alive. He must not linger on the way, however, for every hour was now of importance to him.

Having taken a crust and a cup of coffee at a wayside tavern full of soldiers, he got out of the city while the day was still young. Then began a long and dreary tramp, mostly alone, for the peasants in this region were not communicative, for the simple reason that he could not speak their language. He tramped for whole days without passing anything bigger than small hamlets, and his conversation was limited to asking, most frequently at farmhouses, for _kruh_ (bread) or _viz_ (water).

Sometimes the peasants would look him up and down and ask him, "_Osztrak?_" ("Austrian?"), and he would nod his head.

Very rarely did he get anything without paying for it, and as he saw his small stock of heller gradually disappearing, he had to be as economical as possible with those that remained. He slept mostly in the open air, since the weather was fine and there was little danger; once he was given a "shake-down" in a loft, and once he paid a few heller for a bed at a country inn.

Eventually Korniloff was reduced to almost his last pieces of money, and he felt that he must husband these in case of a very pressing need. A day came when he got nothing to eat but some wild strawberries picked by the roadside. A woman whom he asked for a bit of bread chased him away from her door with an oath, calling him "_Verdammten Osztrak!_" The next morning he got some bread, but again a day passed with no food but wild berries and water from a brook.

Things were getting worse and worse, but Korniloff knew he was near the end of his journey, and would be safe in another three or four days if only he could hold out. He had now been walking for nearly twenty days.

VII--"HALT!"--HE SALUTES A GERMAN CAPTAIN

One of his narrowest escapes happened in the little town of Klausenburg, a quiet place ordinarily, but now the centre of great military activity. He was walking through the town, as it was the best way of keeping to the direct route. Suddenly, from behind him, he heard a harsh voice cry in German, "_Halte!_"

Looking round, he saw that it was he himself who was being addressed. He halted; there was nothing else to do.

"Why did you not stop and salute me?" asked an offensive-looking young Austrian officer.

Korniloff clinked his heels together and saluted.

"I did not see you, Herr Hauptmann!"

"Ah! you are blind, then? Who are you, and where are you going?"

"Johann Bach," said the Russian, affecting simplicity, "and I am going home to my wife."

"You will come with me first, so that we can make a few inquiries about you."

Disaster stared the fugitive in the face. His first impulse was to run, but he resisted it. To obey, however, would mean his immediate discovery.

"I beg your pardon, gracious Herr Captain," he said, as humbly as he could, though inwardly cursing. "I beg you not to detain me now, when I am so anxious to get to my dear wife."

"An hour longer from your wife won't hurt you," answered the officer. "Come with me."

His tone was so utterly offensive that, almost instinctively, Korniloff made a gesture of defiance. Quickly the officer called two men who were passing. "Take this man to the Kiraly barracks," he ordered. "I will meet you there in half an hour."

The two soldiers saluted, placed themselves on either side of Korniloff, and marched him off. He knew it was no good trying to escape, so he thought he would try friendliness. "Give me at least a smoke," he said; and very willing one of the men stopped, gave him a cigar, and lighted it. They asked him what he had done, or not done, to bring on himself this disciplinary measure.

"Oh, it's only because I don't know the way," said Korniloff. "Come and have a drink with me, comrades. There is no harm in that."

VIII--STORY OF A GIRL AND A SHEPHERD'S HUT

One soldier looked at the other, and they nodded--it was not far to the barracks--and then turned into a small beer-garden, where drinks were ordered. They were served by a comely young woman, who looked with interest at the captive, for soldiers are not reticent in talking to the opposite sex. Korniloff did not know how it came about, but presently his companions, who took a second glass of beer, began to feel the effects in a way that he would never have expected. Korniloff left the table with an excuse to his comrades, who paid little attention.

The girl, who had been watching him, beckoned to him from the side of the house, grasped his arm, and led him to the yard.

"Flee," she said, "across those fields. I will keep them in talk. I have put something in their beer. Flee!" she repeated, and thrust a piece of bread and meat into his hand.

By way of answer Korniloff seized her hand, kissed her, turned on his heel, and hastened away as quickly as he could. In a very short while the town of Klausenburg was miles behind him. He walked almost all through the night, fearful that a hue and cry might be raised.

The next day the general felt a new sympathy, as it were, in the air. This was Transylvania, where he would run much less risk of being discovered. He had seen a newspaper at the inn at Klausenburg which told him great news--that Roumania was on the point of joining the Allies.

He stopped two peasants and asked them where he was. They pointed out the directions of Russia and of Moldavai.

"You're a Russian," said one the peasants, speaking in a dialect known in the Bukovina.

Korniloff nodded, waiting to see what the result might be, but his confession evidently evoked sympathy.

"See!" said the man, taking him by the arm. "Follow yonder brook, cross the hill as straight as you can, and to-night you will find a shepherd's hut on the right of the road at the bottom of the hill. Go there and ask for Mathias Meltzer; he will help you."

With a cheery "good day" they left him, and Korniloff trudged on. After a stiff day's march he reached the hut and found the old shepherd, with a younger man. Korniloff repeated the message he had been told to give.

"And who are you? An escaped Russian?" asked the old man as he sat beside his wood fire and shaded his hand to look at the stranger. "The Russian outposts are half a day's march from here," he continued. "I often hear the guns. To-morrow the Roumanians come in on the side of the Allies. Soon the Russians and the Roumanians will join hands and all this land will be laid waste."

"Will you take me to the Russians?" asked Korniloff. "It will be worth your while."

The old man pondered for a time. "I don't mind helping a Russian," he said, at last. "They've always been decent to me. Lie you down now and get some sleep, for we must start before daybreak."

He handed his guest a little bread, coarse cheese, and some onions. Korniloff made a meal and was soon asleep.