Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/17



We dug trenches madly for our lives. But the Russians got across all the same. We don’t know how they did it, but they were on our side before our trenches were half dug. We had no rest for twenty days. Each day a new position and each day a new stampede. We kept fighting and retreating, losing men, provisions, and material at every point we stopped till we got to Tarnov. Why the Russians did not follow us up and give us the finish at Tarnov on Sept. 26 was a wonder to us. They could have collected us in a handkerchief then. There was nothing left of us. My company consisted of eleven men. We got a little rest at Tarnov, which we reached on Sept. 26, and did not begin to fight again till Oct. 5. Our regiment got a reinforcement of 1.000 men. Similar reinforcements were sent to the other regiments to fill up. My company was again reconstituted with Ruthenians. I commanded them in German. But I might as well have let it alone. They did not understand Czech, and I did not know Ruthenian. It did not matter. In the Austrian Army the strict order was that only German was the language of command. I gave the command, it was for them to understand and obey! On Oct. 5 we got orders to march. It meant again to get into the thick of it all. We marched for six days, till Oct. 11. During that time at least, there was no fighting. We were near enough, though, to hear the guns all the time. Things were still blasing away all along the line. We reached the river San once more, an old acquaintance! On Oct. 11 we passed Mielez, and our orders were to take up positions on the river at a village called Svoly, some four kilometres north east of Nisko. I heard that the 28th Regiment of Prague was stationed at Nisko. I longed to get into touch with some of my compatriots and to tell them the time I was having. I had hardly come across a Czech for two months.

The first order we got from our colonel was to cross the river. It was all right to give the order from his comfortable cavern a mile behind us. My men did not like the task. The new Ruthenians who had been incorporated at Tarnov were not like the poor fellows I had before. They were not so eager to fight. I did not blame them. None of the new troops we got from that time on fought as well as those we had during the first days. The spirit of the whole Austrian Army was gone. All our regiments we had orders to cross the river and sham attempts were made. The Russians on the other side warned us off briskly each time the men approached the river. They also shelled us thoroughly, and it was all we could do to keep under cover. Our staff officers got impatient. 2