It is an old familiar text, only the name of Comrade Böhm has been substituted for that of the Archduke. 1914 ... 1919! Here in this place it is not very easy to hold a review, for the greater part of the garrison has evaporated. The place of Captain Bajatz has been filled by a local butcher’s assistant who commands the army from a coffee house. Comrade Riechmann is the chief of the general staff. [Illustration: EUGENE SZANTO _alias_ SCHREIBER. ASSISTANT COMMISSARY FOR WAR. ] Towards evening the news spread that the Czechs are going to surround Balassagyarmat to-night. A nightingale was singing in the moonlit garden, and voices rose in the garden next door: “If the Czechs do not come to-night it will be the end of the hostages. The soldiers have been shouting all day under the prison walls ‘You are going to die, you swine!’” At that moment a cannon roared in the vineyards. “Bless your sweet little throat,” exclaimed the voice of an old woman. “Don’t bless it so loud or you will find yourself in prison.” “But the nightingale!” stammered the old woman. “Of course,” someone laughed; “I thought you referred to the Czech gun.” Wild firing came from the Ipoly, and bullets whistled right and left. We ran towards the house. Near the shed a bullet passed so close to me that I felt the wind of it: it passed over my head and struck the wall like a mad wasp. The shutters of the houses were closed rapidly, they give one at any rate a feeling of shelter. Bullets continued to spatter on the walls. Every now and then we rushed out, looked round in the moonlight, and then rushed back again. All the while the wasps are buzzing round the house. * * * * * _May 9th._ On the sunny side of the street, tired, ill-looking, prematurely aged people came slowly from the direction of the prison. The hostages have been released. The order came from Budapest: “The Soviet takes hostages when danger is imminent. As the Soviet is at present in no immediate danger, we order their provisional release.” The wife of a railwayman came into the yard with eyes red with weeping. The soldiers had deserted their post, so Comrade Riechmann and the butcher’s commander ordered the railwaymen out. They at least love their country, and last winter they opposed the Czechs. Now they have driven them back again, having made forty prisoners. But thirty-eight railwaymen are missing, and Comrade Böhm is going to credit internationalism with this victory won by Hungarian nationalism. A carriage rattled down the street. Nowadays whenever a carriage stops anywhere all the windows and walls of the neighbourhood are on the alert. We noticed that everybody was looking in our direction. Gregory the coachman put his head through the door: “Here they are!”