When darkness set in Captain Folstoffle, and an officer called Skidal, with Drs. Wolnoff and Falovki, myself and a dozen stretcher-bearers of the Red Cross Service, went out to try to be of some service to the suffering and dying. It was a dark night; but the snow rendered objects visible; and the miserable wail of the injured guided us to where they lay thickest. Nothing could be more awful: one man with the top of his skull blown off, and the brains exposed, was still alive, and most anxious to be saved. He begged piteously to be first attended to; but what could be done for such a case? We made him as comfortable as we could under such dreadful circumstances, and left him: though his cries to be taken away, or at least have somebody remain with him, haunted my mind for many days afterwards. It was puzzling to know where to commence work when so many required attention. We gave first aid to a great many, and sent some to the rear of our trenches; but it was obviously of no use to treat hopeless cases. We removed them to more sheltered positions, and made them more comfortable. One or two were groaning under heaps of their slain comrades: we released these, and dressed their wounds. Some were very grateful for the aid rendered. One man kissed the hand of the attendant helping him; and another was very profuse in his thanks. Others were cursing their Kaiser and their country, and even the Almighty, for entailing so much misery upon them. One man was insane, probably as a result of his fears rather than his sufferings. Many corpses were broken to pieces, probably as a result of the German's own shell-fire. When the arms of a dead man were taken hold of to release another soldier pinned down beneath him, they both came away at the first pull, owing to the body being completely shattered. Several dissevered limbs lay about; and also headless bodies: and we discovered one dead man, who had died in the act of holding his bowels in, the outside of the stomach having been shot away. While we were attending to these miserable men, a shell came from the enemy's line and killed Lieutenant Skidal and two of the men, and so severely wounded Dr. Wolnoff that he died a few days afterwards. Of course we abandoned our work, and returned to the shelter of our trenches. In a similar way the Germans often put a stop to the would-be good work our people attempted to perform. CHAPTER XV SMALL AFFAIRS AND PERSONAL ADVENTURES Throughout the night there was cannonading at intervals, some of the shells weighing about 100 pounds. We had no guns so heavy in our lines; and I attribute the fact that the Russians were never able to fully push home their attacks to this cause. Their artillery, of all classes, was decidedly inferior to that of their foes, and there was a sad lacking of large pieces of siege ordnance, without which a modern army can hardly hope to beat its foes out of well-constructed trenches.