Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15Pares, Bernard
History
Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15
Pares, Bernard
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Poland; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
Returning to our _halupa_ in the little village, I rode over in the
night to the General to convey the results of my journey. It was almost
pitch dark and the road was in most places a simple swamp of mud,
sometimes with gaping holes in the causeway or with beams or trunks
of trees lying about; and though I had a soldier and a lantern, the
ten miles took over four hours. Next morning we left the _halupa_: the
dismantling process made the hut look more desolate, and while our
things were being packed, the peasant family sat on their bed, looking
on like moony spectators at some rustic entertainment. They showed more
than satisfaction with their payment, which they expressed after the
local fashion by kissing every one's hands; but they had now to expect
the arrival of a fresh batch of strangers.
Our forward move of a few miles was carried out with great expedition;
but our carts made quite a long train, and the movement of even a
small ambulance section is in itself, under such conditions, almost an
exploit. Just in front of me went our Austrian field kitchen with three
separate cauldrons, which is found very useful. In a few hours we were
installed in our new quarters, a great improvement on the _halupa_,
within a stone's throw of the divisional lazaret and the now reopened
railway station. From beyond a near wooded hill came the sound of
almost continuous firing.
We were now close behind the line of the front ambulance points. At
the station, which we put in order for their reception, there was a
constant dribbling stream of soldiers who had come almost straight from
the front. Most of them had walked in with their kits, and many seemed
almost unconscious of their wounds. Their conversation was of comrades
who stood at other points in the line, of the relative distance of the
enemy and of the conditions of work in the rifle pits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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