ith the creeping
movement of a woman who carries something tenderly. Then it stopped. Its
windows were frozen and dark, so that one could see nothing. I heard a
voice behind me say, "The blind are coming first," and from the train
there came groping one by one young men with their eyes shot out. They
felt for the step of the train, and waited bewildered till someone came
to lead them; then, with their sightless eyes looking upwards more than
ours do, they moved stumbling along. Poor fellows, they'll never _see_
home; but they turned with smiles of delight when the band, in its grey
uniforms and fur caps, began to play the National Anthem.

These were the first wounded prisoners from Germany, sent home because
they could never fight again--quite useless men, too sorely hurt to
stand once more under raining bullets and hurtling shell-fire--so back
they came, and like dazed creatures they got out of the train, carrying
their little bundles, limping, groping, but home.

After the blind came those who had lost limbs--one-legged men, men still
in bandages, men hobbling with sticks or with an arm round a comrade's
neck, and then the stretcher cases. There was one man carrying his
crutches like a cross. Others lay twisted sideways. Some never moved
their heads from their pillows. All seemed to me to have about them a
splendid dignity which made the long, battered, suffering company into
some great pageant. I have never seen men so lean as they were. I have
never seen men's cheek-bones seem to cut through the flesh just where
the close-cropped hair on their temples ends. I had never seen such
hollow eyes; but they were Russian soldiers, Russian gentlemen, and they
were home again!

In the great hall we greeted them with tables laid with food, and spread
with wine and little presents beside each place. They know how to do
this, the princely Russians, so each man got a welcome to make him
proud. The band was there, and the long tables, the hot soup and the
cigarettes. All the men had washed at Torneo, and all of them wore clean
cotton waistcoats. Their hair was cut, too, but their faces hadn't
recovered. One knew they would never be young again. The Germans had
done their work. Semi-starvation and wounds had made old men of these
poor Russian soldiers. All was done that could be done to welcome them
back, but no one could take it in for a time. A sister in black
distributed some little Testaments, each with a cross on it, and th