The din and confusion were awful, and from the bivouacs behind us shots and volleys were heard. Together with the other officers near me I rushed to the rear of the column to restore order. I also ordered our band to strike up a march, and, thank God, its martial strains restored confidence among the fugitives—the noise ceased, and the men became quite calm and collected.
The band played all the way to Nan-kuan-ling,[32] and we were saved further panics in consequence.
Having been shown where to bivouac, I sent to the baggage train for bread, tea, and sugar, but alas! the baggage was not to be found. What was to be done? Our men had had neither food nor drink all day. Tents and great-coats had been left on the field of battle, so that the men had nothing but their rifles and cartridges with them. We started to hunt for food.
I sent, of course, to the railway station. We saw through the window that all the rooms were packed with officers of every regiment, and the staff of the 4th Division was there too. Having forced my way into the buffet, I approached Lieutenant-Colonel Dmetrevski, the chief of staff of the 4th Division, who, in answer to my question, “Where has our baggage train been sent?” told me that it had been sent straight into Port Arthur by General Fock’s order, and he could not say where it was now. The commanders of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Regiments were there too. I asked the first of these for 200 poods[33] of bread, a quantity of which I saw loaded up on some wagons standing close at hand. In an hour we had unloaded them and distributed the bread, each man getting about 4 lb. I had a piece about that weight, as had also all the other officers; of meat, there was absolutely none to be had.
All available articles of food in the buffet had been eaten before our arrival, but I succeeded in getting some salt wherewith to flavour my bread.
Having slept for three hours on the bare ground, we got up to resume our march. No one molested us during the night; the morning broke cold and foggy.
According to the “order of march” we should have been at the head of the column, but some regiment forestalled us, and we had to wait nearly an hour before making a start.
At about midday we reached a pass in the hills, well lined with trenches, and, after making a short halt in the pass itself, we pushed on, marching at a good pace.
At the instance of General Fock the mountain road had been repaired at an earlier date, and now did us sterling service, but, hard as we went, we did not overtake our baggage, and the whole of that day we had nothing but the bread procured at Nan-kuan-ling from the 14th Regiment. We spent the night in a picturesque defile, and perforce lay down to sleep on empty stomachs.