But these harrowing experiences of the women fighters have steeled them and hundreds of other girls to a new determination to see it through. Girl soldiers drilling in the streets are now a common sight in Petrograd. Huge crowds gather daily about the Engineers' School, where 1,000 girls are drilling preparing to go to the front. In Moscow 1,000 men are training, while Kieff and Odessa have smaller bands. Premier Kerensky has also authorized the formation of women marine detachments and has promised to assign them to ships. The new women commands attempt no sort of decoration. Their heads are shaved and they wear the regulation uniform, including the heavy, ugly army boots. The five women fighters I visited at the hospital were partially paralyzed by shell shock. One of them, a peasant girl, smiled joyously as she pointed to a German helmet on the bed beside her. It was the first war prize of a Russian woman. "I saw a German in front of me as I ran forward with the others in the charge," she told me. "It was his life or mine. I raised my rifle. I plunged with all my strength. I stabbed him. The bayonet went deep into his body. At the same moment I pulled the trigger. He dropped dead. Then I took his hat as a souvenir." The girl soldier smiled with delight. "What was the battle like?" I asked another of the legionnaires. "I was very nervous just before the charge," she replied. "We knew the order was coming and naturally we were just a little scared. But as soon as the orders to go forward came we forgot everything else in the advance. "I could hear our girls yelling and shouting throughout the march forward. None of us were afraid once we got started. We were in the midst of a great fusillade of shots. Then terrific big shells began breaking all around us. "We were again frightened a little when we first saw dead men about, but before very long we were jumping over the dead, and quickly forgot all about them." "We couldn't tell what was going on anywhere," said a third girl in describing the final stages of the battle. "Commander Bochkoreva was everywhere, urging us to fight and die like real Russian soldiers." Then the girl told how the legion took its first prisoners. "As we ran forward we suddenly came upon a bunch of Germans immediately ahead of us. It was only a second until we were all around them. "They saw they were caught and threw down their rifles, holding up their hands. They were terribly frightened. "Good God! Women!" they exclaimed. "We saw wounded German soldiers raising themselves on their elbows and shooting," interjected another wounded girl. "We just forgot ourselves entirely. We were simply Russia, fighting for her life.