“A Russian airman, accompanied by an observation officer, was flying over the enemy’s territory, when he was obliged to descend, owing to engine trouble. The pilot and the officer were wearing leather clothes, without any distinctive mark. They were working on the motor when suddenly seven Austrian soldiers, in charge of an under-officer, appeared over the crest of a little hill and approached them. Resistance was impossible, for the Russians had no weapons but revolvers. Fortunately, the officer knew German. Calling loudly to the Austrian officer, he ordered him, in a peremptory manner, to come and help him mend the motor. The Austrian, believing he was in the presence of a superior officer, hastened with his men to obey, and soon the engine had been put right. The aeroplane started off, and as it ascended in spirals to the clouds a paper fell at the feet of the gaping Austrians. It contained a short message of thanks to the officer and his men for giving such timely aid to Russian aviators.” At the time of General Rennenkampf’s severe reverse near Soldau after his first brilliant incursion into East Prussia, it had been generally inferred that the brave General Samsonoff and other leading officers had been killed in the practical surrounding of a large Russian force of two army corps. A gleam came out of the fog of war when it was semi-officially announced that this was not the case. It was the deadly explosion of a chance shell that killed General Samsonoff, General Martos, and other officers of the Staff. The former was particularly beloved by his men, but he had a fatal facility for exposing his life unduly and recklessly. In reply to all remonstrances he would simply say, “My place is where my soldiers are”--and to this trait, not less than to his care for the comfort of his men, was due the remarkable popularity that he enjoyed among the rank and file. No officer was more universally regretted on the Russian side. The Tsar took the unusual but intensely popular course of conferring all four Classes of the Order of St. George, the Russian Victoria Cross, upon a humble trooper of Hussars. This man--a type of the many who honestly cannot see that they have done anything out of the common in performing a deed of the purest and most unselfish heroism--was orderly to an officer. The latter fell dangerously wounded, when this brave fellow rescued him from a storm of shot and carried him a distance of _four miles_. During that long and wearisome tramp with his helpless burden the soldier had to dodge the enemy’s patrols a number of times. Not only so, but in their path lay several canals, all of which he swam, supporting his officer in the water as best he could.