I left my friends singing. The Raven, with a plaintive and sentimental look, was with bent head putting in his bass to the admirable tenor of Pickwick Junior. My own contribution was about the "leaders" who "marched with fusees and the men with hand-grenades" (British Grenadiers). One scout, who usually works alone, had taken an unexploded Austrian shell back into their very lines, made a small bonfire round it, and was waiting outside for it to explode; but the result, when I left, was not yet known. _March 13._ I have just visited "The Birds," a very tight place for the Russian soldier to sit in. I was in this part once before, for it was here that Dr. Roshkov set up his tent, or, to be more exact, his earthwork bandaging room in the foremost trenches. The divisional general was kindness itself; for I stumbled on him in the darkness by opening a wrong door, and his revenge was to ask me in and offer me a bed. The next day I visited the divisional lazaret, where an English lady, Miss Kearne, is working with admirable skill and devotion for the Russians. Nearly all the wounded came from "The Birds," and nearly all had been wounded while sitting in the trenches or looking through the embrasures--that is, without taking any risks, which in "The Birds" all are strictly forbidden to court. One soon felt one was coming to a warm place. The driver of my army cart explained that the open space over which we were passing was often covered with stray bullets, and there, sure enough, were the Austrian trenches just across the river. The village on our side had a high church, now smashed by the Austrian fire into an imposing ruin. Around it the shells continue to fall freely, and women and children going for water along the village streets are sometimes hit by stray bullets. Roshkov and his comrades have been sent to another part of the front; but a Red Cross "flying column" from the Union of Russian towns is working here under fire, and I met one of its students on horseback taking wounded to the rear. I delivered a greeting from England to the scouts who were drawn up in the village, and then set off with their leader for the advance posts across the river--as I may say, "The Birds Proper." The chief scout was almost a boy, who had joined the army as a volunteer only at the beginning of the war. He was a Musulman, with a most determined face and a manner of complete ease and indifference. He explained that we were passing over ground often swept by the fire, and added casually, "You've a bad coat; it is fur-lined; the fur might stick in your wound and give you lockjaw, so that you would probably die." Whether he was right or not I have no idea. The soldiers who accompanied us insisted on walking above the covered way, until we told them that we should join them unless they came down to us.