The Battle of Moukden
Reservations—The Cupboard—Perfidious—"The Little More"—Winter Quarters—More Perfidy—Russians Concentrating—Captured Maxims—A Missing Messenger—The Battle Ground—Nogi dashes North—Hemmed In—Nogi cuts the Railway—The North Road—A Carnival of Blood
"You have sold us completely, Ivan Ivanovitch," said Borisoff as they walked back towards the inn. "I suppose that rascally guide of ours led us into this trap."
"All's fair in war, you know. He is Wang Shih, Ah Lum's principal lieutenant."
"He deserves to be hanged!" growled the captain. "So do you, Mr. Brown."
"We seldom get our deserts, Captain. But I think Lieutenant Borisoff had better make a round of the houses and tell your men of the surrender. I will send word to our man outside bidding him keep his Chunchuses in hand for the present. In a few minutes I will rejoin you at the inn."
As the lieutenant visited house after house he recognized how hopeless resistance would have been. At the given signal every dwelling would have been rushed, and before the Cossacks could have realized what was happening they must have fallen to a man. The crestfallen troops were paraded and disarmed in the street; then by the light of flares the convoy was got ready, and an hour and a half later it set off from the village up the hillside, escorted by the Chunchuses, to join Ah Lum some fifteen miles away. Jack stood at the door of the inn beside Captain Kargopol as the convoy and prisoners filed past. Nearly a hundred pack-mules heavily laden with ammunition, winter clothing, and provisions, and a hundred and fifty Cossacks, formed the prize of his ingenuity.
Several mules and their loads were left behind for the benefit of the villagers who had assisted in the plot.
"You had better hide them," said Jack to the headman. "There is a large Cossack force only ten miles away: they may be down upon you at any moment."
He learnt later that hardly were the last of the ponies and their loads secured in caves and hollows among the hills when, shortly after dawn, a squadron of Cossacks galloped up—the advance guard of the twelve hundred men whom Captain Kargopol was to have joined with his convoy. The commander was furious when he heard the news, told him with much sympathy by the headman, who reserved none of the details save only the participation of the villagers. Finding the track followed by the Chunchuses, the commander sent a galloper back with the news and himself pushed on in pursuit. But after three hours' hard riding his squadron was effectually checked by a handful of men in a defile, and by the time he had received sufficient support to force the pass the convoy had reached Ah Lum's encampment, and nothing but a battle could recover it.