The retreat struck us as breathlessly as though we had been whirled by a wind-storm into midair on the afternoon of a summer day. At five minutes to three we had been sitting round the table in the garden of the house at M---- drinking tea. We were, I remember, very gay. We had heard only the day before of the Russian surrender of Przemysl and that had for a moment depressed us; but as always we could see very little beyond our own immediate Division. Here, on our own Front, we had at last cleared the path before us. On that very afternoon we were gaily anticipating our advance. Even Sister K---- who, for religious reasons, took always a gloomy view of the future, was cheerful. She sipped her cherry jam and smiled upon us. Anna Petrovna, imperturbably sewing, calmly sighed her satisfaction. "Perhaps to-morrow we shall move. I feel like it. It will be splendid to go through the Carpathians--beautiful scenery, I believe." Molozov was absent in the town of B---- collecting some wagons that had arrived from Petrograd. "He'll be back to-night, I believe," said Sister K----. "Dear me, what a pleasant afternoon!" It was then that I saw the face of the boy Goga. I had turned, smiling, pleased with the sunshine, cherry jam, and a good Russian cigarette straight from Petrograd. The boy Goga stared across the yard at me, his round red cheeks pale, mouth open, and his eyes confused and unbelieving. He seemed then to jump across the intervening space. Then he screamed at us: "We're retreating.... We're retreating!" he shrieked in the high trembling voice peculiar to agitated Russians. "We have only half an hour and the Austrians are almost here now!" We were flung after that into a hurry of movement that left us no time for reasoning or argument. Semyonov appeared and in Molozov's absence took the lead. He was, of course, entirely unmoved, and as I now remember, combed his fair beard with a little tortoiseshell pocket comb as he talked to us. "Yes, we must move in half an hour. Very sad ... the whole army is retreating. Why, God knows...." There arose clouds of dust in the yard where we had had our happy luncheon. The tents had disappeared. The wounded were once more lying on the jolting carts, looking up through their pain and distress to a heaven that was hot and grey and indifferent. An old man whom we had not seen during the whole of our stay suddenly appeared from nowhere with a long broom and watched us complacently. We had our own private property to pack. As I pressed my last things into my bag I turned from my desolate little tent, looked over the fields, the garden, the house, the barns.... "But it was ours--OURS," I thought passionately. We had but just now won a desperately-fought battle; across the long purple misty fields the bodies of those fallen Russians seemed to rise and reproach us. "We had won that land for you--and now--like this, you can abandon us!"