"_June 26th._ Very early--half-past five in the morning--we were roused and had to take part in an exodus like the Israelites. Most unpleasant, moving an inch an hour, Cossacks riding one down if one preferred to go on foot to being bumped in the haycart. Every one in the depths of depression. Crossed the Nestor, a perfectly magnificent river. Five versts further, then stopped at a farmhouse, pitched tents. Instantly hundreds of wounded. Battle fierce just other side of Nijnieff. Worked like a nigger--from two to eight never stopped bandaging. About ten went off to the position with Molozov. Strange to be back in the little town under such different circumstances. Dark as pitch--raining. Much noise, motors, soldiers like ghosts though--shrapnel all the time. Tired, depressed and nervous. Horrid waiting doing nothing; two houses under the shrapnel. Expected also at every moment bridge behind us to be blown up. At last wagons filled with wounded, started back and got home eventually, taking two hours over it. Very glad when it was over...." We had arrived, indeed, although we did not then know it and were expecting, every moment, to move back again, at the conclusion of our first exodus. Our only other transition, after a day or two longer at our farmhouse, was forward four versts to a tiny village on a high hill overlooking the Nestor, to the left of Nijnieff. This village was called Mittoevo. Mittoevo was to be our world for many weeks to come. We inhabited once again the large white deserted country-house with the tangled garden, the dusty bare floors, the broken windows. At the end of the tangled garden there was a white stone cross, and here was a most wonderful view, the high hill running precipitously down to the flat silver expanse of the Nestor that ran like a gleaming girdle under the breasts of the slopes beyond. These further slopes were clothed with wood. I remember, on the first day that I watched, the forest beyond was black and dense like a cloud resting on the hill; the Nestor and our own country was soaked with sun. "That's a fine forest," I said to my companion. "Yes, the forest of S----, stretches miles back into Galicia." It was Nikitin that day who spoke to me. We turned carelessly away. Meanwhile how difficult and unpleasant those first weeks at Mittoevo were! We had none of us realised, I suppose, how sternly those days of retreat had tested our nerves. We had been not only retreating, but (at the same time) working fiercely, and now, when for some while the work slackened and, under the hot blazing sun, we found nothing for our hands to do, a grinding irritable reaction settled down upon us.