s, than I
could on return tell the Japanese the strength of his forces.

All that night the rebels dribbled in. Several wounded men who had escaped
from the fight the previous day were borne along by their comrades, and
early on the following morning some soldiers came and asked me to do what I
could to heal them. I went out and examined the men. One had no less than
five bullet-holes in him and yet seemed remarkably cheerful. Two others had
single shots of a rather more dangerous nature. I am no surgeon, and it was
manifestly impossible for me to jab into their wounds with my hunting-knife
in the hope of extracting the bullets. I found, however, some corrosive
sublimate tabloids in my leather medicine case. These I dissolved, and
bathed the wounds with the mixture to stop suppuration. I had some
Listerine, and I washed their rags in it. I bound the clean rags on the
wounds, bade the men lie still and eat little, and left them.

Soon after dawn the rebel regiments paraded in the streets. They reproduced
on a larger scale the characteristics I had noted among the few men who
came to visit me the evening before, poor weapons and little ammunition.
They sent out men in advance before I departed in the morning to warn their
outposts that I was an Englishman (really I am a Scots-Canadian, but to
them it was all the same) who must not be injured. I left them with mutual
good wishes, but I made a close inspection of my party before we marched
away to see that all our weapons were in place. Some of my boys begged me
to give the rebels our guns so that they might kill the Japanese!

We had not gone very far before we descended into a rocky and sandy plain
by the river. Suddenly I heard one of my boys shout at the top of his
voice, as he threw up his arms, "Yong guk ta-in." We all stopped, and the
others took up the cry. "What does this mean?" I asked. "Some rebel
soldiers are surrounding us," said Min-gun, "and they are going to fire.
They think you are a Japanese." I stood against the sky-line and pointed
vigorously to myself to show that they were mistaken. "Yong guk!" I
shouted, with my boys. It was not dignified, but it was very necessary. Now
we could see creeping, ragged figures running from rock to rock, closer and
closer to us. The rifles of some were covering us while the others
advanced. Then a party of a couple of dozen rose from the ground near to
hand, with a young man in a European officer's uniform at their head.