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des, a sun-clock, and the like. The soldiers mostly wear their medals, and naturally have a large number of them. Each has a war-history which all might envy to possess and none envy to go through. Questioned individually, one found them loyal to their chief, but complaining bitterly of their rations. Not many were preparing for Brazil or for a return to Russia. Their future presented itself as a strange and difficult problem--both collectively and individually. Of the people in the married quarters one did not obtain such a favourable impression. Rooms were divided into three parts by hanging army blankets, and a family was in each part. Windows were lacking, insects very plentiful, and dirt unavoidable. Here were a number of typhus hospitals in charge of the Red Cross, a children's feeding-station and nursery, a lying-in hospital. Two mosques were used as hospitals and presented a remarkable picture, the patients lying in a circular group amid columns covered with Arabic inscriptions. Russian doctors were at work, and disease had been well stemmed. Mortality was very low. Only when the hot weather comes--if the army is still here--one fears for the ravages of dysentery and fever. Of course there were discontented spirits in the army, and some who talked of marching on Constantinople should rations cease, but there were only a few rifles and little ammunition left in the men's hands. By sheer weight of numbers they might achieve something, but Constantinople is a hundred miles away, and that is a great distance for famished men to go. Two nights lying on the deck of one of Wrangel's transports brought me back to Constantinople. This vessel was controlled by French officers, but captained by one-eyed Admiral Tsaref, of what was once the imperial Fleet of Russia. She did five knots an hour when the weather was fine; the railings at the stern had been carried away, and many parts of the ship were tied together with rope. The five French officers on board each had a cabin to himself; Russian officers, American Red Cross, and myself, slept where we could. The French also had their meals served to them separately. Nevertheless, we were a jolly company on board, and played an absurd wild game of solitaire each night, and the only tedium was the slow way we splashed like a lame duck up the narrow seas. In the harbour in Constantinople in the morning a bright sun shone on four hulks packed from stem
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