All was confusion, dust, smoke, noise of falling concrete, stones, and splinters of steel, cracking of bursting grenades, cries, the stench of blood, the suffocating gas of high explosives.... In the corner where Kondratenko, Raschevsky, Senkevitch, Zedgenidsey, and Naumenko had just been sitting at the table poring over the map, a bluish flame flickered for a moment over a heap of bodies half buried in débris. All was still, save for the groans of Lieutenant Kraiko (one of whose legs was torn off) and of Potapoff—buried under the ruins. Under this heap of rubbish the others lay dead, killed while in the execution of their duty.
Kondratenko had perished, but wherever Russian is spoken his name will ever be synonymous with duty, unselfishness, bravery, and honour.
MAJOR-GENERAL KONDRATENKO.
It was about 10 p.m. when Smirnoff received the news on the telephone from Khvostoff. He felt it bitterly. In one moment his best and most reliable assistant had been swept away. Not only was it on account of his skill as a soldier that Kondratenko could not be replaced: there were other ways in which he had been invaluable. His death meant more difficulties and a fresh struggle with Stössel. Roman Isidorovitch had always contrived to smooth over things, thus annulling, to a certain extent, the conflict of orders. But now the inevitable had come to pass: he was no longer there to help.
About eleven o'clock Khvostoff himself arrived, and briefly confirmed his telephone message:
'Sir, an 11-inch shell burst in the officers' compartment in the casemate of Chi-kuan-shan Fort. Generals Kondratenko, Raschevsky, Zedgenidsey,[36] and Senkevitch were killed on the spot. Colonel Naumenko was alive when brought out, but he has died since without regaining consciousness.'
Looking at the practical side of things, Smirnoff's first words were:
'We must go to Stössel at once. —— is next in seniority to Kondratenko, and Stössel will certainly try to give him the vacant appointment. This must at all costs be prevented. I will myself take over the command of the land defences in addition to my duties as Commandant, difficult though it will be. The state of affairs on the north-east front is so serious that I cannot under any circumstances allow —— to have charge. He can be sent to the western front, where the enemy are still a long way off, and he can't do much harm, and where, much as he may want to, he won't be able to surrender anything to them. It is different on the other front, where the Japs are almost sitting on the parapets. There he would undoubtedly surrender one position after another, carrying out his theory of the doctor and the gangrenous patient.'