and were making sad havoc amongst the soldiers of the Rising Sun.  Taking in the situation at a glance, a Japanese officer gave the order to charge.  Every man instantly bounded forward, and, like a disturbed nest of ants, they swarmed all over the train, stabbing, clubbing and bayoneting every Bolshevik they could get at, tossing their dead enemies out of the carriages off their bayonets with the same motion as if they were shovelling coal.  Then they posted a sentry on the highest part of each train, and the gun in the road, and called them their “trophies of war.”  My great regret was that no Bolshevik was left alive to tell us the reason why they allowed about sixty English officers and soldiers to pass unmolested at point-blank range of about forty yards, and only began to fire when the Japanese soldiers came under their rifles.  Many explanations were given at the time, none of which seemed to be quite satisfactory, so the mystery remains.

It was here that a polite request was made that the British detachment should not keep so far ahead of the other troops, but I was anxious to keep well ahead for an important reason.  The Bolsheviks had ravaged and tortured both young and old, rich and poor, male and female throughout the country till their very name stank in the nostrils of the common people.  Their blood lust had been so great that when they had no Russian peasant to torture they fell back on the poor unfortunate Czech soldiers who had fallen into their hands as prisoners of war.  Many authentic cases of this kind are so revolting in character that it is better to keep them in the dark rather than advertise how fiendishly cruel men can be to one another.  I knew that the Czechs had threatened to retaliate.  The incident of the white flag previously recorded may have had something to do with the same sentiment, though I can scarcely think it had.  I decided, however, that the more humane rules of war should apply so far as I was concerned, and I soon had a chance of making a demonstration of my views before the whole army.  A fugitive Bolshevik soldier had escaped from the Japanese cavalry, and started to make his way across our left front in an attempt to join the retreating Bolshevik trains.  Exhausted by the heavy going of the marsh, he had dropped for cover and rest.  The Japanese line was fast approaching the spot where he had taken shelter, so he raised himself from the grass and began to run.  I levelled my servant’s rifle, but misjudged the distance, and he took no notice.  I took aim at a point over his head, and he dropped in the grass so suddenly that Colonel Frank thought I had killed him.  As we approached the spot his black hair showed up above the green, and I took aim again, but did not fire.  I informed Colonel Frank I wanted the man, if he would surrender, to be an example of how a prisoner of war should be treated.  Colonel Frank shouted to the man to surrender.  The man shouted back that the Japanese killed all prisoners.  He was