“Perhaps tomorrow 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 tonight, 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!
At that moment I cursed my lameness that would prevent me from ever being a soldier. How poor, on that afternoon, it seemed to be unable to defend with one’s own hand those fields, those rivers, those hills! “Ah but Russia, I will serve you faithfully for this!” was the prayer at all our hearts that afternoon. …
Semyonov had wisely directed our little procession away from the main road to O⸺ which was filled now with the carts and wagons of our Sixty-Fifth Division. We were to spend the night at the small village of T⸺, twenty versts distant; then, tomorrow morning, to arrive at O⸺.
The carts were waiting in a long line down the road, the soldiers, hot and dusty, carried bags and sacks and bundles. A wounded man cried suddenly: “Oh, Oh, Oh,” an ugly mongrel terrier who had attached himself to our Otriad tried to leap up at him, barking, in the air. There was a scent of hay and dust and flowers, and, very faintly, behind it all, came the soft gentle rumble of the Austrian cannon.
Nikitin, splendid on his horse, shouted to Semyonov:
“What of Mr.? Hadn’t someone better go to meet him?”
“I’ve arranged that!” Semyonov answered shortly.
It was of course my fate to travel in the ancient black carriage that was one of the glories of our Otriad, with Sister Sofia Antonovna, the Sister with the small red-rimmed eyes of whom I have spoken on an earlier page. She was a woman who found in every arrangement in life, whether made by God, the Germans, or the General of our Division, much cause for complaint and dismay. She had never been pretty but had always felt that she ought to be; she was stupid but comforted herself by the certain assurance that everyone else was stupid too. She had come to the war because a large family of brothers and sisters refused to have her at home. I disliked her very much, and she hated myself and Marie Ivanovna more than anyone else in the world. I don’t know why she grouped us together—she always did.
Marie Ivanovna was sitting with us now in the carriage, white-faced and silent. Sofia Antonovna was very patronising. … “When you’ve worked a little more at the Front, dear, you’ll know that these things must happen. Bad work somewhere, of course. What can you expect from a country like Russia? Everything mismanaged … nothing but thieves and robbers. Of course we’re beaten and always will be.”
“How can you, Sofia Antonovna?” Sister Marie interrupted in a low trembling voice. “It is nobody’s fault. It is only for a moment. We will return—soon—at once. I know it. Ah, we must, we must! … and your courage all goes. Of course it would.”
Sister Sofia Antonovna smiled and her eyes watched us both. “I’m afraid your Mr. will be left behind,” she said.
“Dr. Semyonov,” Marie Ivanovna began—then stopped. We were all of us silent during the rest of the journey.
And how is one to give any true picture of the confusion into which we flung ourselves at O⸺? O⸺ had been the town at which, a little more than a month ago, we had arrived so eagerly, so optimistically. It had been to us then the quietest retreat in the world—irritating, provoking by reason of its peace. The little schoolhouse, the green well, the orchard, the bees, the long light evenings with no sound but the birds and
