'Two early morning awakenings:—'Yesterday at Hsuchowfu, junction] of the Tientsin-Pukou and the Lung-Hai railways, I peered out from my car window through a drizzling rain at a wounded soldier on a stretcher 'The stretcher lay in a puddle' of water on a cement railway platform, open to an unkind heaven. - Both it] [and its occupant were drenched, But this soldier was luckier than some of his follows about him on the platform, for he held a Chinese paper Umbrella over his head—the sort of] umbrella which foreigners find one lof the most subtly ridiculous features fof China's wars. Thus I, a foreign lay in my comfortable berth, gazed out through a gray dawn at Hsuchowfu—behind the front of a Chinese war.
This morning here at Kueiteh 1) awoke to the barking of military commands and the popping of aeroplanes tuning up. Again I looked out, this time to find a squad of Chinese soldiers marching back and forth on the ground beside the train tracks, A mass of light railway rails lay near at hand, mute testimony to the army supply department's provision for sending up food and ammunition by modern methods. With a roar, a red fighting plane hustled up and away from the flying field. The front had moved nearer!
'A few minutes later the front had] begun to roll up on itself like a window blind, for in came a troop train from the west loaded with returning troops. But they were not coming back for rest and recreation; on their way to Hsucho fu where they would transfer northward for the Shantung front, The word "loaded" in the foregoing paragraph was ill-advised. "Plastered" re suited the flies around a honey pot the soldiers clustered on cowcatcher, along the boiler, on every conceivable ledge and even in the locomotive cab and on the coal in the tender.
Along the train there were soldiers] jammed into open coal cars 30 tightly that when a dozen jumped off fon the station platform it was impossible to see where they could have been among the remainder. Every truck and third-class carriage was! of course similarly crammed full, and on the tops of the ca broiling in the sun at mid-day—rode scores of others.
The real aristocrats of the train "rode the rods," not in the furtive} fashion of American bobas but openly. They had rigged ropes to form a sort of hammock, and they had lashed their boxes and pitiful packages of personal effects against the Bottoms of the cars. Even teapots] vere in evidence, The special desir-of such a location lay in its coolness; the great draw back lay in the drifting, all-permeating yellow dust of this valley which once was the bed of the Yellow river until in a single night, three-quarters} of a century ago, it shifted its course hundreds of miles to find an outlet fon the northern, rather than the Southern, side of the Shantung peninsula, Tu the course of my inspection 1 clambered up.on the locomotive and] it was immediately apparent why the engineer and fireman suffered. incussions into their domain with such patience. Here were wounded men dirty and bloody, but all bandaged after a fashion, lying on the comparatively uncrowded surface of the Coal or skipping frantically to keep! out of the way of the engine crew.
To a newcomer to China this might have seemed appalling. Certainly it could be no pleasant sight for any-tone, yet Thad seen wars in China before and it seemed significant that these men were getting even the rough care which was their lot, thus} far.~In Hsuchowfu, they would go] cither to a new and still rather Primitive army hospital or "they! would go to a more adequate Tonger-established institution, and in either case they would recelve.care and, from their point of view, relative Tuxury. If their eases proved obstinate and they could stand the moying they would be sent to better hospitals at Nanking and elsewhere.
Man-power in China is cheap. Care of war wounded has not, able investment. But times are] changing in this as in other respects.
"We estimate-that the National Army has bad" 2,000 wound-the present campaign," one Military leader said. "The rebels have not had so many on. their records, probably. The reason for this difference in showing is that we havel sent back eases of even slight wounds, although we ate trying to reduce' this by providing better facilities at the front. Certainly we are trying to do all we can to care for wounded. Our provision s far from perfect but we are improving.
Caresin another respect—the important matter of provisioning the active fighting foree—was described by General Yui Tui-peng, quartermaster general for the entire National Army" and a man of long ex: perience.
He is utilizing the light railway! extensively in reaching remote points of the front and insuring adequate] food supply. That the provision problem is a real one is shown by the estimated monthly consumption of 100,000 bags of rice, each bag weighing' in the neighbourhood of 200 1b, and 300,000 bags of flour, each bag] about 48 1b, together with salt, tea and other necessities.
do not include the Changsha} area, for example, where food can be purchased locally in abundance, said General Yui. "We give rice to the Southern troops—about 20 oz, 'a day is the ration—and flour to the! Northerners, about 24 ez. a day. If} the troops' are mixed, we serve rations according to the custom of the majo:
Some of the soldiers to be seen about are very, young, but none are] starving. It has been noticeable, moreover, that their relations with the townsfolk seem agreeable. Privates get from $10.50 to §18 in Chinese -gprrency a month. "When! hho does not get paid he loots but vhen he has money he prefers to pend it lawfully and keep out of} trouble, which is agreeable to all Thos it is plain, even at the rear and this fringe of the front, that civil warfare in China has taken on modern trimmings in the few years which have elapsed since even the Government's own soldiers took their pay from the people direct, wounded lay where they fell, and' the only' strategic use of a railroad provide private cars for general run trains in one direction only—toward the front—until the tangle of rolling-stock and supplies brought an automatic end to hostilities.—Unjted Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.