at night. Upon coming to my senses I found my faithful orderly,
kneeling in the trench by my side. He fairly shouted with delight as I
opened my eyes. According to his story the Austrians, falling back
under the cavalry charge, had evacuated the trench without
noticing, in the darkness, that I was missing. But soon discovering
my absence he started back to the trench in search of me. It was a
perilous undertaking for him, for the Cossacks were still riding about,
and he showed me with pride the place where a stray bullet had
perforated his knapsack during the search. He revived me, gave
me first aid, and succeeded with great difficulty in helping me out of
the trench. For more than three hours we stumbled on in the night,
trying to find our lines again. Twice we encountered a small troop of
Cossacks, but upon hearing the tramping we quietly lay down on the
wayside without a motion until they had passed. Happily we were
not noticed by them, and from then we stumbled on without any
further incident until we were hailed by an Austrian outpost and in
safety.
By this time I was utterly exhausted and again lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a little hut where our ambulance
gave first aid. Therefrom I was transported to the nearest field
hospital. This, however, had to be broken up and the wounded
removed because of the Russian advance. We were hastily put on
big ambulance wagons without springs, the jolting of which over the
bad road caused us such suffering that we should have almost
preferred to walk or crawl. We tried to reach the railway station at
Komarno but found a Russian detachment had intercepted us. In
the streets of the village a shell burst almost in front of our wagons,
making the horses shy and causing a great deal of confusion. We
had to turn back and after a long and wearisome detour reached
our destination, the troop hospital in Sambor, in a state of great
exhaustion. There I remained but a day. The less seriously
wounded had to make place for the graver cases, and being among
the former, I was transferred by hospital train to Miscolcy in
Hungary. The same crowded conditions prevailed here as in
Sambor, and after a night's rest I again was put on board a Red
Cross train en route to Vienna. We were met at the station by a
number of Red Cross nurses and assistant doctors.
To my great joy my wife was among the former, having been
assigned to that particular duty. A short official telegram to the
effect that I was being sent home wounded on hospital train Number
16 was the first news she had received about me for fully four
weeks. None of my field postcards had arrived and she was
suffering extreme nervous strain from the long anxiety and
suspense, which she had tried in vain to numb by feverish work in
her hospital. I remained two weeks in Vienna and then was
transferred to the sulphur bath of Baden near-by, where large
hospitals had been established to relieve the overcrowding of
Vienna. There I remained until the first of November when I was
ordered to appear before a mixed commission of army surgeons
and senior officers, for a medical examination. Two weeks later I
received formal intimation that I had been pronounced invalid and
physically unfit for army duty at the front or at home, and
consequently was exempted from further service. My military
experience ended there, and with deep regret I bade good-bye to
my loyal brother officers, comrades, and faithful orderly, and
discarded my well-beloved uniform for the nondescript garb of the
civilian, grateful that I had been permitted to be of any, if ever so
little, service to my Fatherland.
The End
End of Project Gutenberg's Four Weeks in the Trenches, by Fritz Kreisler