"In trying to hold on to our old position we had to withstand some terrible bayonet rushes on the part of the enemy in efforts to retake it, and our regiment, which entered the battle with 2,450 men, had just 585 left to respond to the order to retire. Another regiment lost 1,100 men. The place assigned us in this most, orderly retreat was in the rear-guard, and just as we took our places our brigade commander was decapitated by the explosion of a pom-pom shell, and I was ordered to hand over my regiment to a major and take charge of the brigade. "We had an awful time during the retreat, but every onrush was stemmed, and at each repulse of the foe our men, with bayonets dripping red, cheered to the echo. "The war was now practically over, and although every man of ours had two foemen opposed to him, the Japs had a narrow escape from defeat; nothing but the accident of a duststorm averting it, by enabling them in the darkness thereof to break the lines of General Linevitch when his men could not see a yard ahead of them. "When we reached headquarters I, having nothing but a temporary connection with the Russian army, went to my chief and tendered him my uniform and arms, telling him, as there was not likely to be any more fighting, I would return to Canada. He, however, refused to take anything, saying that as a mark of honor and appreciation I must retain them, and after saying 'Good-bye' to my battle-scarred comrades I went to the station to entrain for the coast, and as it steamed out a crowd of officers and men waved their caps and handkerchiefs, shouting, 'Canada for ever; long live Canada and the Canadians!' I felt I did not do much for them--any one, perhaps, would have done better--but I had done my little best, and they had trusted and honored me. I like the Russians; they are good fellows, and are greatly slandered in the West. They have a moral code, and with some exceptions, they live up to it, and any nation that crosses arms with them will pay a heavy toll. "In closing, I presume you would like to know more fully my opinion of war, and in giving it I will say that if you murder a man by shooting or stabbing him you are merciful, but if you kill him by exploding an eleven-inch shell, in many cases he will be torn to fragments and his dismembered body scattered over an acre of ground. In other instances that I have seen at Mukden and 203 Metre Hill, men have been mortally wounded and left an unrecognizable mass of flesh and blood, which for days heaved with anguish and life, while others, after hours and sometimes days of agony, died with broken bayonets protruding from their backs, having entered as gallant breasts as ever swelled with breath and life.