By the time we reached Windennen, the fields had turned white and when a soldier told us we would be delayed here twenty minutes, we got out. A sullen murmur, almost as of animals, met the ear, and walking up the tracks in the direction of the murmur, we saw presently, the glisten of bayonets and beyond that in the obscured light of a station lamp a horde of Russian prisoners. Herded within the confines of a barbed wire square that gave the impression of having hastily been built as a _Gefangenenlager_, the Russians watched our approach with suspicious eyes. Splendid types of the human animal, deep chested, tall fellows, with mighty physiques and stupid faces, the Russians of that greater Russia, who exist in the fiction of those who portray the "beautiful Russian soul." One recognized the great coats of sheepskin and goat, the round shaggy fur hats, that had succeeded the natty peaked caps of the first mustering in; one recognized the Russian smell which sickens you in the great prison camps all over Germany. As we looked at them the muttering ceased and uneasily they shifted about seeming to be waiting for something and instinctly you thought, upon realizing the utter ignorance of their faces waiting for a sentence of death. "Over here are the officers," remarked Captain von Stietencron, and we followed him to a separate enclosure where a yellow bearded Russian glowered at us from the doorway of what had been a signal tower, while another drew his tall form up straight and smiled. The Captain spoke to this man in German. I caught the words: Doctor of Medicine, Esthland, which is one of the Baltic provinces of Russia, where five centuries ago the inhabitants were German. "As a surgeon," the Captain was saying to tall, smiling, beardless Russian, "you might be returned to your country. There is a possibility." Emphatically the Russian shook his head. "No," he replied. "I've had enough of their army. I want to remain in Germany." And then both evidently having interest in some proper noun that happened to fall into their conversation, they talked with increasing pleasure and speed. "Queer," mused Von Stietencron, as we walked back to the freight car. "That Russian's father is the priest who gave me my first communion--and I meet him here." But then anything is possible in this war. From Lötzen to Lyck, by rail is twenty-five kilometers; in times of peace, the average passenger train takes little more than half an hour. In times of war, the run of a heavy supply train such as ours, is about an hour. We left Lötzen before seven; four hours and Lyck was still away. Rattling along, jumping the switches into sidings while coaches filled with troops rushed clanking past, faintly luminous phantoms in the snowy night, stopping at one little station after another, the weirdest ride of my life, even before we came to Iucha.