I had hoped to have found an opportunity to escape during the operations mentioned above; but I found it impossible to go off except under circumstances that could only be called desertion. A day or two after the fighting a couple of Cossacks came, bearing a letter from Captain Sawmine, and making inquiries about me. Their arrival gave me joy of soul in no uncertain measure: for I was heartily tired of trench warfare. The letter, written in French, enclosed a request that any officer or person being shown it would do his utmost to forward my return to the battalion, which, it was stated, was now moving on Kulaki, described as a town east of Przasnysz. The letter instructed me, if found, to accompany the two Cossacks, who had orders not to leave me until I was in safety again with the battalion. It was afternoon when the Cossacks arrived, and it was decided that they should rest in rear of the trenches before departing the next morning. It seemed to me to be one of the longest nights I had ever spent, I was so anxious to get back to my old comrades. This anxiety was provoked by the terrible monotony, and no less abominable dirtiness, of life in the trenches. The Russian soldier, blessed, or otherwise, with that remarkable patience which is characteristic of all Asiatics, and persons descended from them, is yet a great sufferer if he is not regularly relieved from the trenches for rest: and it has been found necessary throughout the Russian Army to organize regular relays for service in these miserable living graves. This is what they really are. Soldiers posted in them are compelled to stand in their allotted places: they cannot move to the left hand or the right, nor change places with a comrade. If a man is wounded during the day it is seldom possible to remove him until darkness sets in, for the Germans fire on anybody--Red Cross workers, the wounded, and the dying. So the injured man is taken into a funk-hole, where the surgeon and the Red Cross man do what they can for him until it is safe to lift him out and convey him to hospital. Those killed outright lie where they fall, in the mire and the filth, trodden under foot, unless a lull in the firing gives time to bury them in the bottom of the trench; and even this is only done to get the body out of the way. As a rule the dead were buried at night, at the rear of the trench and close to it. Even then the Germans often heard the sound of pick and shovel at work, and in their usual dastardly way opened fire on the fatigue-parties engaged in this necessary and charitable work, leaving it to chance whether or not they killed a man or two, as they often did.