d the
professor of my intention to accompany my patients.

"The little Alsatian girl went and asked the German servants to
carry the luggage to the station for the last civilian train, which
was to leave at six in the morning.

"I don't mind carrying anything for you, _Schwester_," said the hall
porter, "but I won't do a thing for those dogs of Russians and
English."

"The Sister came back and said timidly, 'If the doctor and Your Grace
don't mind helping me, we might perhaps take at least some of these
things together.'

"So Wiesdorf station beheld the extraordinary sight of the Duchess
pulling an enormous portmanteau and perspiring freely, and behind her
Princess Uriassof, James P., and myself, each pushing a wheelbarrow.
The station was already thronged with soldiers in _Feldgrau_. We were
ravenously hungry. I asked the young Alsatian girl to accompany me to
the refreshment-room, and she was able, thanks to her nurse's
bonnet, to obtain two pieces of extremely dry bread from the military
canteen.

"I found my patients ensconced in a fourth-class carriage. Their eyes
were shut, they were leaning against the duty wooden back of the
seat, and on their faces was a smile of indescribable bliss.

"The Princess greedily seized the piece of bread I handed her, took
an enormous bite out of it, and said to the Duchess:

"'What nice bread!'

"'What nice seats!' replied Her Grace, leaning voluptuously against
the hard, greasy boards."

CHAPTER XIV

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

"All the way talking of Russia, which, he says, is a
sad place."--Pepys (Sept. 16th, 1664).

For three days our soldiers had been advancing over the devastated
plain of the Somme. The crests of the innumerable shell-holes gave
the country the appearance of a sort of frozen angry sea. The
victors were advancing light-heartedly, as though preceded by
invisible drums.

It was just at the time when the German army was swaying and
tottering like a spent boxer awaiting the inevitable knock-out.

The Division had suffered heavily. All along the roads they had seen
for the second time the sinister spectacle of villagers in flight
and furniture-laden carts drawn by bowed women.

General Bramble had looked at the map with painful astonishment. He
had been ordered to resist at all costs along the trenches on the
green line; but when he reached the green line he had found no
trenches; the Chinamen who were to dig them were still at sea