ithout minding in the least whether he is
in the most fashionable street in Warsaw or in camp at the front. The
other noticeable characteristic is the friendly terms he is on with his
officers. The Prussian soldiers rarely seem to like their officers, and
it is not to be wondered at, as they treat their men in a very harsh,
overbearing way. On duty the Russian discipline is strict, but off duty
an officer may be heard addressing one of his men as "little pigeon" or
"comrade" and other terms of endearment, and the soldier, on the other
hand, will call his officer "little father" or "little brother." I
remember one most touching scene when a soldier servant accompanied his
wounded officer to hospital. The officer was quite a young,
delicate-looking boy, who had been shot through the chest. His servant
was a huge, rough Cossack, who would hardly let any of us touch his
master if he could help it, and stayed by his bed night and day till the
end, when, his great frame heaving with sobs and tears streaming down
the seamed and rugged face, he threw himself over the officer's body and
implored God to let him die too.

The hospital began to grow empty and the work slackened down, as every
possible patient was sent away to Moscow or Petrograd to make room for
the rush of wounded that must be coming from the Lodz direction. But no
patients arrived, and we heard that the railway communications had been
cut. But this proved to be untrue.

One Sunday afternoon Sister G. and I, being free, betook ourselves to
tea at the Hotel d'Europe--that well-named hostelry which has probably
seen more history made from its windows than any other hotel in Europe.
We favoured it always on Sunday when we could, for not only was a
particularly nice tea to be had, but one could also read there a not
_too_ old French newspaper. I think just at first we felt almost as cut
off from news of what was happening on the English side as we did in
Belgium. No English or French papers could be bought and the Polish and
Russian papers were as sealed books to us, and when I did succeed in
getting some long-suffering person to translate them to me, the news was
naturally chiefly of the doings of the Russian side. Later on I had
English papers sent out to me which kept me in touch with the western
front, and also by that time, too, I could make out the substance of the
Russian papers; but just at first it was very trying not to know what
was going on. We had had te