how very much surprised they would be. Then I hoped they were
very busy, as perhaps then they would welcome our help. But again, I
meditated, if they were really busy, we with our stumbling Russian
phrases might be only in the way. It was all very well in Denmark to
think one would come and help Russia--but supposing they did not want us
after all?

By the time I got so far we had arrived at the hospital, the old
familiar hospital smell of disinfectants met my nostrils, and I felt at
home at once. I found that I had been tormenting myself in vain, for
they were expecting us and apparently were not at all displeased at our
arrival. The Sister Superior had worked with English people in the
Russo-Japanese War and spoke English almost perfectly, and several of
the other Sisters spoke French or German. She was very worried as to
where we should sleep, as they were dreadfully overcrowded themselves;
even she had shared her small room with another Sister. However, she
finally found us a corner in a room which already held six Sisters.
Eight of us in a small room with only one window! The Sisters sleeping
there took our advent like angels, said there was plenty of room, and
moved their beds closer together so that we might have more space.
Again I wondered whether if it were England we should be quite so
amiable under like circumstances. I hope so.

I began to unpack, but there was nowhere to put anything; there was no
furniture in the room whatsoever except our straw beds, a table, and a
large tin basin behind a curtain in which we all washed--and, of course,
the ikon or holy picture which hangs in every Russian room. We all kept
our belongings under our beds--not a very hygienic proceeding, but _a la
guerre comme a la guerre_. The patients were very overcrowded too, every
corridor was lined with beds, and the sanitars, or orderlies, slept on
straw mattresses in the hall. The hospital had been a large college and
was originally arranged to hold five hundred patients, but after the
last big battle at Soldau every hospital in Warsaw was crammed with
wounded, and more than nine hundred patients had been sent in here and
had to be squeezed into every available corner.

My work was in the dressing-room, which meant dressing wounds all day
and sometimes well into the night, and whatever time we finished there
were all the dressings for the next day to be cut and prepared before
we could go to bed. The first week was one long night