Another astonishing trait in the German Army was the remarkable way in which it frequently recovered lost ground. The Battle of Suvalki, and the operations further south, had the effect of causing a general retirement of the enemy's line; and amongst other places they abandoned was Radom; but in a week or ten days they were back in this place, and had even pushed much nearer to Warsaw. Our scouts ascertained that they were in force along the Vistula from Ivangorod to Varko; and their Uhlan patrols were seen at the hamlet of Vistikar, near Gora, not twenty versts from Warsaw. Whether they ever got nearer to the ancient city I do not know, but for a time we all expected and feared that it would fall. Nobody believed that the old capital of Poland could long stand against an investment by our powerful and cunning foes. But, while recovering themselves in the south, the Germans did not, at this time, do so in the Suvalki district, or in those parts near the Spirding See where the recent severe fighting had taken place: Russian soldiers still remained on German soil. The weather grew worse, and seriously affected most of our important operations. Gloom began to settle on the troops; especially when accounts of adversity to our forces in Galicia reached us. These generally came from German sources; but some of our own officers brought news that progress was being stopped by floods, and the enormous reinforcement the enemy had succeeded in bringing up. Often we did not know what to believe; the reports were so contradictory that it was evident one side or another was telling deliberate lies. A comical side was once or twice given to the matter, owing to German, Austrian and Russian "unofficial sources" giving diametrically opposite accounts of the same circumstances. Willing as we were to believe our own side to be the most truthful, it was not always possible to ignore the circumstantiality of our opponents. It became evident that all three sides were a little given to exaggeration--not to give it a harsher designation. The dreadful weather was more than I could endure, and I was obliged to fall out. I was taken by rail to a convent hospital at Grodno, and there so well and carefully nursed by the sisters, with whom were associated many of the ladies of the town, that I quite recovered and was fit for service again in less than a week. I could not find my old regiment, however, and my adventures with the Russians might have terminated at this point had I not happened to run up against an officer with whom I had some acquaintance. Captain Shalkotoff belonged to the commissariat department; and as he was going south with a convoy he invited me to accompany him as far as Ostrolenka, his first destination; and I accepted his kind proposal. CHAPTER X THE FIGHTING ON THE VISTULA IN THE MONTH OF OCTOBER, 1914