Hudson Maxim, Dynamite
Stories and Some Interesting Facts About Explosives (New York: Hearst’s
International Library Co., 1916), pp. 108-9.
THE LOADED CHINAMAN
During the Russo-Japanese war a certain officer of the
Czar, who was an impatient, overbearing person and a great martinet, had a
Chinese servant whom he treated with the utmost harshness for the smallest
delinquency, or for none at all. One of his favorite methods of inflicting punishment
for offenses was to order the Chinaman to leave his presence, and, as the
fellow went, to give him a hard kick.
The Chinaman aired his grievances one day to a
Japanese spy, whom he took to be a brother Chinaman. The Jap suggested padding
the seat of the Chinaman’s trousers to prevent further contusions, and this was
done, the padding being furnished by the Jap. A rubber hot-water bag was filled
with absorbent cotton containing all the nitroglycerin it would hold. A small
exploding device armed with percussion caps was placed in the bag so that the
nitroglycerin would be exploded by any sudden blow. The unfortunate Chinaman
was wholly unaware of the nature of the padding.
At the next meeting of the Russian with his servant,
the poor Oriental inadvertently spilled some tea upon the officer’s new
uniform. Thereupon the enraged master proceeded to dismiss the Chinaman from
his presence in the usual way, but with somewhat more precipitation.
One of the officer’s legs was blown off, one arm was
crushed to pulp, four ribs were broken, and it was more than a day before he
was restored to consciousness. When he did come to, he found himself a prisoner
in a Japanese hospital, having been left behind by the retreating Russians.
As to the Chinaman himself, poor fellow, he never knew
that he had been loaded.