That day we heard a rumour that the Germans had been driven out of Ratcha by two regiments who had rushed on them with bayonets, in disregard of the general order to retreat. I tried to believe it was true. On the evening of that day, when again marching orders arrived, I wondered, as I opened the white envelope, whether, on the strength of the last rumour of a German repulse, we might not at last be going to have the joy of an advance. No one who has not experienced the depressing effect of retreating, day after day, in the home country of the retreating army, can picture the eagerness with which the slightest hope of a change of fortune will be hailed. But, alas! a glance at the order soon dissipated hope. The direction of the place detailed for the next halt was still southerly. It was nine p.m. when the order came. Immediately everything, tents, surgical boxes, kitchen materials, etc., were packed in readiness for departure, when suddenly, as we were about to start, a batch of fifty badly wounded soldiers arrived in ox-wagons, from the battle-field, to be dressed. We could hear that the Germans were now close behind us; their big guns were banging ominously, as the wagons discharged their burdens on the ground, and disappeared. At once I gave the order for the necessary surgical boxes to be unpacked. The night was cold, and dark, and by the light of hurricane lamps, the doctors and the nurses set to work and cut away the torn and bloodstained garments and dressed the wounds of the gory, groaning, battered objects, who were placed upon the ground, round impromptu bonfires, which we made of hay, and straw, and wood, to give warmth. One man was already dead; I ordered a grave to be dug, saw that it was the regulation depth--three feet--and then sent to another column for a priest. For the Serbian soldier is like many another of us, he is not particular about saying his prayers during his lifetime, but he is very particular that prayers should be said over his dead body. Then I stood beside the priest, a few yards behind the scrimmage round the bonfires, whilst he, in his gay embroidered robe, chanted, all out of tune, in the old Slavonic language, which no one now understands, the words of the Greek Church burial service. He held the prayer book in one hand, and read by the light of a small piece of tallow candle held in the other. The groans of the wounded, and the thunder of the guns, coming ever nearer and nearer, made an effective accompaniment. The only incongruity was the frequent repetition in the priest's prayers, of the word "Allelujah!" Why "Allelujah!"? I asked myself in the intervals of my "Amen" responses, as the scene round those bonfires burnt itself upon my mind.