RUSSIAN EXPECTATIONS
A retort that shows something of the attitude of Russian and Austrian officers before hostilities actually broke out is reported by a Petrograd correspondent.
In the course of his last interview with the Russian military authorities before the war, Prince Hohenlohe, the Austrian military attaché, expressed surprise that the Russians should be requisitioning so many automobiles, the extensive use of which since then may help to explain the rapid alternations of fortune of engagements that have so often proved confusing.
“Your roads are too bad,” the Austrian remarked. “Of what use are automobiles?”
“Ah!” replied the Russian, “but you must remember that your Austrian roads are very good!”
FREAKS OF BULLETS
Wonderful Escapes From Death
A sapper in the Royal Engineers tells the story of an extraordinary escape which one of his comrades experienced. A bullet took his cap off and cut a groove through his hair, without injuring the scalp, in such a manner that it looked as though he had carefully parted his hair down the center.
This is but another illustration of the tricks that bullets play at times. It is doubtful, however, if any soldier in the present campaign has had such marvelous escapes as Lieutenant A. C. Johnston, the Hants County cricketer, who relates how, shortly before he was slightly wounded, a shell hit the wall six inches above his head, while shortly afterwards a bullet hit the ground half a yard in front of him, bounded up, and hit him on the body, bruising his ribs. Then a bullet hit him over the heart, but was spent before reaching him, and when in the hospital he picked it out of his left-hand breast-pocket and sent it home to his wife.
A charmed life, too, seems to be borne by a private of the Manchester Regiment, who relates how, while smoking a cigarette in the trenches, a bullet took the “fag” out of his mouth, while another cut the crown off his hat, leaving the peak still sticking on his head. And it is characteristic of the humor of “Tommy,” even when the fire is hottest, that when a bullet took off the top of a tin of bully beef which another private had in his hand, he looked at it, coolly turned round, made a bow in the direction of the enemy, and thanked them for saving him the trouble of finding a can-opener.
A curious escape from what might have been a mortal wound was that of a Royal Scots Fusilier. During a severe fight he suddenly felt the shock of a bullet. “I am hit,” he said to his chum. Looking down, however, he saw that the bullet had struck a clip of cartridges in his top left-hand pouch, but had done no other damage. The first cartridge must have been a little loose, and as it twisted round when it was struck, the bullet was turned off instead of going straight through the soldier’s body, as it would have done had all the cartridges been firm.
Mr. Frank Scudamore relates an extraordinary incident which occurred during the Soudan campaign, when he saw an officer, a friend of his, go down apparently shot through the head. “To my surprise,” he says, “I met him walking about after the battle, apparently none the worse, save that his head was bandaged. Then he showed me how the bullet, striking and deflected by one of the hooks of his helmet chain, had run right round his forehead, cutting a groove under the skin, and had then glanced off the helmet hook at the other side.”