<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX<br/> <span class="cheaderfont">A FIGHT WITH WILD COSSACKS IN POLAND</span></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>There were not stools enough to go around, so
they all sat cross-legged on the floor and talked
as they ate.</p>
<p>“First of all,” said Bob, “what is this place
called and in what country is it?”</p>
<p>The question struck the simple villagers as
being very funny and they all laughed
uproariously.</p>
<p>“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<span class="pagenum">[158]</span>
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.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I can hardly believe all that,” interposed
Alan. “The Russians are civilized people.”</p>
<p>“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<span class="pagenum">[159]</span>
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.”</p>
<p>Ned tried to get the German to change the
subject, for he was working himself into a frenzy.</p>
<p>“How has the war progressed here in the
east?” he asked. “We Americans, you know,
have been watching the western struggle more
closely.”</p>
<p>The village spokesman shrugged his shoulders.</p>
<p>“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<span class="pagenum">[160]</span>
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.”</p>
<p>“But what about the Austrians? Haven’t
they helped any here in combating the Russian
invasion?” asked Bob.</p>
<p>“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.<span class="pagenum">[161]</span>
No, Austria has been of no real help
to Germany in this war.</p>
<p>“But you, sir, were going to tell us about
what has been going on in the west. Who is
winning there now?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Help! Help! Ah, help! The Cossacks are
upon us!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[162]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to get out of here—<em>quick</em>!”
gasped Ned. “Those fellows may discover the<span class="pagenum">[163]</span>
<em>Ocean Flyer</em> at any moment, and there’s no telling
what may happen then. Follow me and
have your weapons ready!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[164]</span>
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.</p>
<p>“Run!” yelled Buck. “It’s our only
chance!”</p>
<p>The boys did. It was heart-breaking work,
but they arrived unwounded at the side of the
<em>Flyer</em>. 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.</p>
<p>It was a matter of seconds, but just in time
the ladder was jerked out of the reach of clutching
hands.</p>
<p>“All ready there, Mr. Engineer,” shouted
Buck from up above the pilot room.</p>
<p>Buck made a dash for his post, the current
was turned on, and in a minute more the <em>Flyer</em>
was soaring high above the scene of the massacre.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum">[165]</span></p>
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