fight flared up. It took about an hour. From the village of Hondyaden, the enemy’s heavy chains moved again, and behind them, just a few miles away, four columns from our position, a thick column of two regiments appeared, with mountain guns on packs.
– Where is our field artillery? – the commander of the sixth company of the fifth regiment, Captain Gomzyakov, was perplexed. – When I, General Fok ordered that they should come here. After all, this is a brilliant order. See which chain.
“There has certainly been some kind of confusion,” said Lieutenant Pushkov, “Our old man has become unrecognizable in recent days.” He has a big drawback – to give oral orders, not written. We stand at a certain tip. You see, nobody still knows what we will do around Kinzhou. So today. A fight ensues. Was there a disposition? The enemy is visible, but there is no field and mountain artillery. We – the army of a great power – have a battery on the bulls from old piston Chinese guns. Laugh! We have nothing to do with the upcoming Japanese. We have no machine guns! You notice at every step – a misunderstanding.
– The position has a battery Romanovsky. Eight quick-fire guns. Can shoot at an invisible target.
– And they are arranged so that the first two shrapnels will sweep away all the servants and knock down thin instruments for firing at an invisible target. I, passing with my team, was surprised. Again, some kind, forgive, in my opinion, just rotozeystvo. My heart hurts today, and I’m afraid for that day.
Shooting on the line continued. The sun was shining brightly; clouds of dust spoke of advancing the enemy. General Fok traveled near the right flank and waited for Prince Machebeli and the batteries. The Japanese, without meeting artillery fire, were pressing.
“But where the hell are they?!” – asked Fok adjutant. – How did you send the order to the prince?
– Orally, Your Excellency.
– I ordered, do you want to say? But you could send a written order, even if it was not signed by me. Equip a second orderly!
Ten minutes after the newly sent orderly left, the first one returned. Fock pounced on him.
– Where is the battery? Where are the battalions?
“They are at your command at Kinzhou Station, Excellency.”
– Moron! Nit! Scarecrow! Under arrest!
The shooter held his hand under the visor and blinked his eyes. On the enemy side gunfire boomed. Japanese mountain batteries, sitting in the bushes near the village of Chenboloso, opened fire on the battery of Colonel Romanovsky. Inadvertently, the guns of this battery were installed in an open area. The first shells of two Japanese cannons fell not far away. But as soon as the distance was determined, the core of twenty-four enemy guns fell on the unfortunate battery. Although the cruel fire and mowed the gunners of the third battery, but their guns were not silent. Shells brought arrows infantry cover. The wounded commander and officers did not leave their post, awaiting revenue and support.
– Where did Laperov go? – worried Romanovsky, seeing the wounded captain Benoit. “The General assured me that he had called two more batteries on the front line.
“The guns should be removed from this position with the help of shooters,” said Lieutenant Ouspensky.
– Not! Now only answer, and this is our salvation. Until they distract the attention of the enemy, we cannot move. If all of our batteries were here, then the battle would have been twenty-four to twenty-four… Oh, then they wouldn’t have time for it!
In the midst of a duel, when almost the entire cannon servant was out of action, the lieutenant Sadykov entered the artillery battle with his bull battery. And immediately the picture changed. The hits from piston guns were exceptionally successful, and, in addition, they beat the enemy’s flank. The Japanese were silent and began to rebuild, waiting for the strengthening of our artillery fire.
– On the front! – commanded Romanovsky.
Horses, wound up in a continuous roar and the crackling of shrapnel, with a whirlwind of dust, took out one weapon after another. The teams were released on the right, then on the left. Distracted by the shots of the “bullish” battery, the Japanese did not immediately understand the Romanovsky maneuver. The battery has been saved. Launched after the shells fell far behind.
The first and second batteries never arrived at the height of the battle. The enemy attacked in thick columns: he understood our artillery impotence. On the left flank they wounded General Nadein, and on the right flank General Fock went out of himself. Lieutenant Sadykov stopped two field guns of the retreating third battery and took command of them.
“Let them go now,” he grunted to himself. – We will beat for sure and wait for support.
2
The fight subsided. Enemy guns were silent, not visible, and the chains of infantry. At this time, the battalions of the 13th regiment and the platoon of the first battery approached the railway bridge. Long before sunset, we moved away from our original positions. The departure deeply stirred the soldiers. Especially struck by all the careless attitude to the artillery. The third battery lost almost half its entire staff of officers and gun maids.
In the evening, wounded officers, soldiers, and gunners gathered at the Tafashin station waiting for the train.
“I don’t understand why we have a bad connection,” said Lieutenant Pushkov. – One battery is shot, and the rest somewhere far in reserve. They say that in the morning they were given the order to move to the bridge, but then some kind of confusion happened, and all because of an oral, rather than a written order. And now they do not know who messed up: the orderly, the adjutant of the general or the general himself.
– The command of the battery is also not at the height of his vocation. They installed the guns in the open, so much so that there is no place to remove them, said Second Lieutenant Bordyug.
“But they fought perfectly,” continued Pushkov. “Imagine shrapnel from twenty-four cannons that shot with quick fire fell on them. Let’s calculate how many bullets are per second. A modern field gun can launch about ten shells per minute without warming up the body. In each projectile two hundred sixty bullets. Within half an hour about two million lead bullets on the heads of forty people! Despite the huge decrease in people from the lead rain, our gunners responded with almost four shells per minute from each of their guns… Resistance showed extraordinary. For some reason I think that the Japanese would not have sustained such a murderous fire and would immediately abandon their guns.
“We don’t know our soldiers well,” Captain Benoit responded to the officers’ conversation. – In peacetime, we are far from them. Daleks, I would say, with their drinking and smartness. It would seem that they should boil malice towards us. It would seem that they should have left us in a difficult moment. But we see the opposite. Why? Soldiers consider us to be idlers, an inevitable evil, and their work sacred. When the danger of the country – not the time to settle personal scores. This formula must be firmly seated in their being. For them, the honor of the country, the nation is dear… Our soldiers are an amazing people. They are in the excitement.
