Apparently that thought never occurs to Tzschirner. Being a good soldier, he does not indulge his imagination when he is in uniform. He and Ober-Lieutenant Hoffman are walking along, chatting easily as they might on some fine February day along the Linden. As the sentries stride by I catch the words, "_Wagner ist mehr wichtig_," and a little excited, the sentry with the beard cries: "_Quatch! Strauss ist wunderbar_!" Apparently to decide the merits of Wagner and Strauss is more absorbing than the Russians. A little bewildered, I walk on. Down where the road divides the woods into a limitless vista of green, I think I see something move. It is about 600 meters away and I focus my glass. Four Russian soldiers sitting on a log, a little fire, and in the middle of the road something that, while indistinguishable, suggests a menace. And even as I watch I see a tree sway and I can _hear_ it fall as it crashes across the road, falling like a barricade. "Look! Look! The Russians!" And the Rittmeister turns with an amused smile. How commonplace are the Russians, anyway! How incidental to those officers who have seen so many dead that even the living are not to be feared. "In the middle of the road," I announced, "there is a machine gun. It is pointed this way." Tzschirner and Ober-Lieutenant Hoffman are discussing some military problem. Tzschirner begins to trace in the road with his sword some formation that is beyond my pen. "Those Russians," I am saying without putting down the glasses, "appear to be leaving their seats on the log. I think they are showing sudden interest in the gun." Demonstrating his problem in the mud, Tzschirner turns to me. "This is the road to Riga. Follow it and we reach that fortress. As we are now midway between the German and Russian lines, I do not think it wise that we go further. Of course, if you would care to storm the Russians in the woods, we shall go on. Do you wish?" I do _not_ wish. Nervy little Tzschirner, one of the gamest men to straddle a horse in this war, has taken us quite far enough. We begin our walk back to the German lines, turning our backs with difficulty upon those silent woods. "If the Russians should fire," Tzschirner says seriously, "throw yourself at once on the road. The balls will pass over you." A simple remedy, indeed! "Strauss," the passing sentry is objecting, "is all chaos." "Why not?" his bearded comrade defends. "Salome is the music of destruction." Glancing back toward the woods, I see a flock of black birds fly leisurely across the field, and alighting, wait. Wait for what? Had the Ober-Lieutenant told them that darkness would bring the Russian attack? "And now, if you like, we shall go to my quarters," says the Ober-Lieutenant, to whom Tzschirner has delivered me. "I am sorry you will not find them very comfortable."