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 CHAPTER VIII

THE STAINED ALTAR OF WAR

S soon as I could get about, I went at once to my laboratory in Harbin, where, according to the report of my assistant, an engineer, there was a big accumulation of important work and problems. The Staff of the Army and the Railway Administration had submitted numerous samples of different varieties of coal which had been found by Chinese throughout northern Manchuria. Though I was able to help my engineers and the young chemists with the analysis and other tasks, work was still very fatiguing for me in my weakened condition.

I was keenly absorbed in the news from the front. These first days of the great battle of Liaoyang passed in ominous silence, while the bulletins from General Kuropatkin's headquarters dwelt upon several strategic movements of the army but gave little or no information about the battle itself. In the meantime my Chinese servants told me in secret that the Russians were retreating along the whole front and that the Japanese were working round to the west to cut the railway line in the rear and to capture Harbin. This same day a friend of mine, who had just returned from a hunting expedition in the vicinity of Harbin, told me that he had seen fortifications being prepared not far from the city along the bank of the Sungari and said that it was very evident the Staff 91