band; experience soon taught the Japanese soldiers the dangers of a little colour.  It was just ding-dong open fighting, wonderfully spectacular in character.  Then a shell burst plunk under the line behind the two foremost enemy trains, which made retreat for them impossible.  Desperate efforts were made to repair the line, but well-directed rifle and light machine-gun fire made this impracticable.  Another well-placed shell dropped just under the gunners’ quarters on the front train, and instantly the car was enveloped in flames.  In turn the fire spread to the gun-carriage, which had become untenable from rifle-fire.  This proved a complete catastrophe for the enemy, who from positions on our extreme left and centre had a full view of the slaughter around the doomed trains.  Their nerves were completely shattered, their fire became spasmodic and erratic, and then among the trees on a hill to the left appeared a white flag.

That flag was too late.  The Japanese cavalry shot out in file as a straight extension of our left.  Having come parallel with the farthest group of resistance, they right turned, and instantly swept up the slope in a beautiful line and forward over all resistance, white flag and all.  They took no prisoners.

My men were only “B one-ers,” and the pace was beginning to tell; still they were leading, owing to the fact that our advance was along the railway and the usual tracks at the side, while the Japanese had to contend with the marshes and woods farther away.  I therefore ordered a rally, and advanced only with such troops as could be reasonably expected to keep the line.  This party numbered about sixty, and included Captain Clark, the Padre (Captain Roberts), Lieutenant Buckley, my Czech interpreter (Vladimir), Regimental Sergt.-Major Gordon, Sergeant Webb (who, I am sorry to say, died a few days later at Spascoe), Colonel Frank (my liaison officer), and rank and file.  With this party we advanced within fifty yards of part of the burning train, amid a shower of debris from the exploding shells stored in its magazine.  The second train looked quite deserted, and therefore, beyond examining the ammunition cart of a 5-inch gun left derelict on the road and counting ten rounds of unfired ammunition, we passed without molestation up the railway embankment on the way to Kraevesk.

We had passed the trains and left them about two hundred yards in our rear when we were startled by rapid rifle-fire behind us.  On looking round, we were astonished to see spiteful jets of rifle-fire issuing from both sides of the uninjured train directed against thick bunches of Japanese troops who were passing along the track over which we had just advanced.  Even the Eastern temperament has limits to its serenity.  For a moment the Japs were completely off their guard, but they soon recovered, and dropping flat in the grass, they opened a brisk fusillade.  The Magyars were protected by the plated sides of their wagons,