As soon as his main business was done, we set out together yesterday morning in a long boat-like cart with three horses and a soldier driver; our plan was to find the motor and return to the town, sending back the General's presents in our cart. For some hours we made a sort of slow progress, rolling about in a way that exceeded the North Sea at its nastiest; however, we had time to talk over many subjects that interested us both. We pulled up at the Polish cottage, where V. S. had a most affectionate welcome from the children, and we lunched on bread and milk. We were not out of sight of the cottage when our axle broke; and after finding that there was no smith, and no other cart to be had, we loaded our benzine and chattels on the horses and left the cart at the cottage with a note explaining what was to be done with it. For several more hours we tramped on in the mud with our pack horses; it was quite impossible to follow the track of the road closely; it was thick with mud too deep to walk through and often the fields were a sort of swamp. At one point we turned in to a Jewish cottage and ate more bread and milk, while our old host asked ceaselessly when the war would end. At last we found the motor and the chauffeur, and, after a cottage dinner, started on the short remainder of our journey; but we were by no means at the end of our troubles, and this, I was told, was to be expected, because a hare had run across our track. We were going along, dodging the huge and deep ruts in the _chaussée_, when, close up to one of the hugest and deepest, a cart coming the other way compelled us to make a sudden turn, and we were landed on a kind of plateau between two deep holes with our wheels almost off the ground in them. We had tried almost all the ordinary expedients in vain, when a long train of soldiers began to pass us with artillery. Appeals of "Brothers, come and help us," brought about a dozen of them to our aid, and they performed prodigies of strength, pushing forwards or backwards, and at one point even raising the whole motor from the ground. Sometimes they counted "one, two, three," sometimes they sang a bargee's chanty, and each of them put the best of his wits to our service; but at last, just after one of them had said "Let's do something a bit more together," the officer in command felt it his duty to call them back to their work, and our brown-coated brothers left us in the semi-darkness while the guns boomed a few versts away.