We spent the day exploring the hospital, built upon ground once occupied by the Germans, and from trees felled there in the forest and sawed on the premises with a primitive two-man-power Russian saw. With the exception of one hospital captured from the Austrians, there was not a more complete plant along the entire length of the great front; and the flag flying over the tiny bungalow had a real significance--an American was responsible for that hospital. Dr. Eugene Samuelevitch Hurd, the Russians called him, and, though he was already on his way to France to help his own countrymen, he had left a record that made me realize what one unofficial American can do in the matter of diplomacy. Peter and I in the days to follow had cause to be profoundly grateful; for on this sector of the front one needed only to be American to have all ways opened unto him. At dinner we sat down to excellent Russian fare: _shchee_ (sour cabbage soup), _kasha_ (boiled buckwheat), stewed meat, potatoes, and bread at least three shades lighter than any we had seen in Petrograd. After dinner, Johanna Ivanovna, head nurse for the military hospital next door, took me for a walk through the woods. Johanna Ivanovna was young, fresh, and softly, sadly pretty in her Sister’s garb. She was lonesome out there on the edge of the forest. She spoke a little English, rusty from long disuse. She was the only person in all those fields and forests who understood even a stray word of my native language. As we turned back toward the lazaret, a Russian rocket flashed into the western sky. It was followed by another, and another. “A German scouting party had been sighted outside the barbed-wire entanglements,” Johanna Ivanovna explained from long experience at the front. “The rockets are torches to help trace their movements.” I slept that night on a narrow army cot in a typical camp room, the only unfamiliar feature of which was a strange contraption like a knapsack hanging on the wall. It proved to be a gas-mask, and bore the warning: “Keep your gas-mask always with you--it will save your life.” I put the mask back on its nail, and turned down the gray army blankets, to find white sheets. My clothes had not been off for two nights, and those sheets were alluring. My last recollection was the sound of the low grumble of artillery on the firing line to the west.