The leader of the villagers escorted his young guests to the largest
house in the town, where immediate preparations were made for the
finest dinner that German housewives--and there are no better!--could
make. All of the townspeople who could crowd into the room did so, and
both windows and the doorway were jammed with the curious faces of
others who wanted to hear news of the Great War.
There were not stools enough to go around, so they all sat cross-legged
on the floor and talked as they ate.
“First of all,” said Bob, “what is this place called and in what
country is it?”
The question struck the simple villagers as being very funny and they
all laughed uproariously.
“You will have to excuse us,” smiled the spokesman, “but we supposed
that everybody had heard of Kolwinsk, which is the name of our town.
You are now in East Prussia, about twenty miles over the boundary
from Poland, and perhaps thirty or thirty-five miles from where the
nearest fighting is going on. Lying this far to the northwest, we are
out of the line of invasion and so far have been lucky enough to escape
Russian raiding parties about which such terrible stories are told.
They say that the Cossack horsemen have perpetrated the most inhuman
atrocities. No village through which they pass is left unpillaged.
They butcher or torture the aged in cold-blood, dash out the brains of
babies against tree-trunks, and reduce the screaming, helpless women to
worse than shame. If they resist, the Cossacks mutilate them in awful
fashion.”
“Oh, I can hardly believe all that,” interposed Alan. “The Russians are
civilized people.”
“Maybe so,” replied the village head-man with some heat, “but remember
the old saying: ‘Scratch a Russian and you’ll find the Tartar
underneath.’ This war has made brutish beasts of everyone taking part
in it. Also remember that this Russian army is made up not only of
full-blooded Russians, but also of Baltic Province men, Jews from Riga
and Libau, huge, hairy Siberians, barbarous Circassians and Kalmuck
Tartars, who are half Chinese--as mongrel and savage a horde as ever
devastated a Christian country. But, of them all, the wild Cossack from
the steppes is the worst and most to be dreaded. He knows no religion,
no law, no pity, and couples with that a daring which even our own
gallant Uhlans cannot surpass.”
Ned tried to get the German to change the subject, for he was working
himself into a frenzy.
“How has the war progressed here in the east?” he asked. “We Americans,
you know, have been watching the western struggle more closely.”
The village spokesman shrugged his shoulders.
“Here it has been now in favor of the Germans, now with the Russians.
At first General Rennenkampf led millions after millions of his wild
men swarming into Poland. We had too few men on the frontier to
resist and so were beaten back. Then the Kaiser sent us General Von
Hindenburg, a hero who won the Iron Cross for distinguished services
when we captured Paris in the time of the present Emperor’s father.
Von Hindenburg is of the old hard school, but he is a great commander.
He rallied our troops and in turn pressed the Russians back. He lured
Rennenkampf into a trap at Tannenberg and nearly annihilated the whole
Russian army. Then the Grand Duke Nicholas arrived from Petrograd with
millions more Russians. The struggle seesawed back and forth all of the
way from Angerburg to Gumbinnen and between the Warthe and the Vistula.
We lost a big battle before Warsaw in Poland, lost again at Lodz, and
then won on the same battlefield, and again at Lowicz, in which two
engagements we captured over 120,000 prisoners. So it is going on
even now. We are still fighting hand to hand with the Russians around
Warsaw; and Lowicz, which was ours yesterday, may be theirs to-morrow.
Our army is holding eight times their number of Russians in check, and
that’s enough to be proud of.”
“But what about the Austrians? Haven’t they helped any here in
combating the Russian invasion?” asked Bob.
“No, the Austrians have had quite enough to do protecting themselves
at home, and have left Germany to fight the whole world single-handed.
The Austrians invaded Servia six months ago, captured Belgrade, the
capital, and then were driven out of the country altogether. Now the
Serbs and Montenegrins are themselves invading Austria in the south
and east, while the Russians have completely overrun Galicia and
Transylvania. No, Austria has been of no real help to Germany in this
war.
“But you, sir, were going to tell us about what has been going on in
the west. Who is winning there now?”
So Bob and Buck, both of whom spoke German with fair fluency, went on
to outline the operations in France and Belgium. They were still in
the midst of this when all at once there came a noise as if bedlam had
broken loose on the other side of the village.
The thunder of furiously galloping horses filled the air. Then came
fusillade and fusillade of shots and hideous demoniacal yells, with
which were intermingled the shrieks of terrified women and children and
the clang of the alarm bell.
“Help! Help! Ah, help! The Cossacks are upon us!”
Everybody gathered in the big room leaped to their feet. Terror seemed
fairly to paralyze the peasants. Some few seized clubs or knives to
defend themselves, but most ran aimlessly about wringing their hands
and calling upon heaven to save them. Those men having wives and
children at home unprotected, rushed forth into the street directly
into the path of the wild riders from the steppes.
The boys dashed for the door at the first warning, but the raiders were
thundering down the street almost upon them. There were perhaps sixty
Cossacks all told--barbarous looking, swarthy fellows with flying long
black hair and sheepskin jackets. Their beards were a-bristle; their
eyes rolled red and wickedly; they brandished curved Mongolian swords
or shot to right and left with sawed-off carbines pressed against their
thighs. The shaggy, under-sized ponies were as wild-looking as their
worse than savage masters.
Seeing them come galloping pellmell not a stone’s throw away, the
boys dodged inside the house again, barely escaping a random volley
which was fired at the cottage as the horsemen swept past. In a few
minutes they had overrun the whole village, and the horrid noise of the
slaughter was half drowned in shrill, uncouth Siberian yells and the
roar of flames from houses which had been ruthlessly set on fire.
The glare of the burning hut across the street shone weirdly through
the doorway, making the boys’ faces look ghastly. The rolling clouds of
smoke half choked them and smarted their eyes.
“We’ve got to get out of here--_quick_!” gasped Ned. “Those fellows may
discover the _Ocean Flyer_ at any moment, and there’s no telling what
may happen then. Follow me and have your weapons ready!”
Straight out into the street they plunged and found themselves in the
midst of a scene more frightful than words can adequately describe.
Half of the village was already ablaze, the thatched roofs of the
cottages spurting yellow flames high up into the air and giving off an
intolerable heat. The scene was almost as light as day. Silhouetted
against the lurid glare, wild Cossacks were cutting down the
fear-crazed peasants.
One fleeing woman with a babe in her arms was caught by her unbound
hair and dragged screaming to her knees. As her frantic husband leaped
at her assailant, the Cossack shot him deliberately through the
heart. The dead lay fallen in grotesque postures half out of doorways
or huddled bleeding on the street. Here and there a wounded man was
crawling away to die in the fields.
Crack! Crack! Crack! sounded the revolvers of the intrepid boys as they
charged down the street. Shot for shot answered them from the surprised
marauders, who had not expected quarry like this. They leaped upon
their prancing ponies again and tried to ride down these determined
opponents, but, sheltered behind a yet unburnt hut, the boys met them
with so withering a fire that they galloped on past.
“Run!” yelled Buck. “It’s our only chance!”
The boys did. It was heart-breaking work, but they arrived unwounded at
the side of the _Flyer_. As they bounded up the hanging rope-ladder,
their pursuers galloped madly up behind them. Shots rattled against the
metal hull of the airship like hail against a window-pane, and half a
dozen wild fellows tried to follow their escaping prey up the ladder
before it could be drawn in.
It was a matter of seconds, but just in time the ladder was jerked out
of the reach of clutching hands.
“All ready there, Mr. Engineer,” shouted Buck from up above the pilot
room.
Buck made a dash for his post, the current was turned on, and in
a minute more the _Flyer_ was soaring high above the scene of the
massacre.