by a marine named Mitchel, who, seeing Petty Officer Moffat in
difficulties, turned on his knee and faced his pursuers. Their fire was
erratic, but his was cool and accurate, and after three or four rounds
the Magyars kept their heads well down in the long marsh grass, which
permitted the party to escape. The result of this skirmish, however,
allowed the enemy armoured train to advance to a point dangerously near
our defensive works, which, with a little more enterprise and
determination, he might easily have enfiladed. But though the enemy
train had mounted a 6-inch gun our 12-pounder Navals were too smartly
handled to allow any liberties to be taken. This was the situation on
the morning that the Japanese 12th Division began to deploy behind the
new Allied line at Dukoveskoie.

About 3 P.M. on August 23 I asked my liaison officer, Colonel R.
Antonivitch Frank, of the Russian Army, to accompany me towards the
front line, as I had heard rumours of large concentrations of the enemy,
who, elated with this small initial success, seemed determined to
dispute our possession of the village of Dukoveskoie. I arrived in time
to witness a duel between one of our armoured trains and a rather
spirited fellow of the same sort on the other side. The Bolshevik shells
would persist in dropping to the right of our train on a road on which
Colonel Frank and I were sitting our horses, so we decided to dismount
and send the animals out of range, while we boarded the train and
enjoyed the contest. One of our 12-pounders went groggy and obliged us
to retire slightly, but we dared not go back far, as the Terrorist train
had all the appearance of following, and would soon have made short work
of our infantry, which were occupying very indifferent trenches near the
railway, Captain Bath saw the danger and steamed forward, firing
rapidly; shells burst all round his target, and so bewildered his
opponent that he soon turned tail and retired to safety. I applied to