THE RUSSIAN SUN—ON THE TRAIL OF THE COSSACKS
"We Are the Don Cossacks—We Do Not Surrender!"
Told by Herr Roda Roda, the Austrian War Correspondent
The story was written for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse by Herr Roda Roda, the most prolific and brilliant of the Austrian war correspondents. It shows a high literary skill and a fine simplicity of feeling. Unlike most war correspondents, Herr Roda Roda can see both sides of the picture. He reproduces the real experiences of the men who do the fighting, throwing into relief their true humanity and their lack of hate; and it is out of such material that the true history of the war on its human side will have to be constructed. When the time for that work arrives Herr Roda Roda will be rated as an invaluable authority. This story, with editorial comment, is translated by William L. McPherson for the New York Tribune.
I—A NIGHT MARCH WITH THE AUSTRIANS
Such a silent advance into gloomy, unknown Russia has its own beauty. The night is still, hanging like a dark veil over the land. One sees nothing of the villages which lie to the right and left; one has no idea of the depth of the woods which open before him and then close again; one feels only the sand or the clayey soil under his feet, and has but one measure for everything—the passing of time.
For two days past we have been out of touch with the enemy. On the whole front our machine guns have driven him out of his invisible positions. He has vanished, and only the trenches are there in which he sought again and again to carry on a rear-guard fight. They stretch on both sides of the road which we follow. Deep, black and wavering, the line runs in the dirty gray of the half-melted snow. And on the tops of the low ridges a tender, silvery light glimmers. It is the new day which pierces through the darkness.
Our brigadier trots by with his staff. The tall, big-boned bay which he has ridden for the last four months throws in our faces for a second the foam of his flanks. The old gentleman sits bent forward in the saddle, as if that forward lurch would help him to see further into the blackness.