Our train is an enormous one with endless warm carriages (_teplushki_)
for the wounded. The staff of sanitars and sisters, working for the
Zemstvo Red Cross, live in a spotlessly clean carriage, and there are
special carriages for drugs, stores, kitchen, etc. They are simple and
interesting people, and, as I am now in the Red Cross and have many
interests in common with them, they kindly made me up a bed in their
carriage, where we discussed Russia in all its bearings.
We carry a group of passengers who have all made friends after the
Russian way. A colonel and his wife are going to fetch the body of
a fallen comrade. Another colonel, a delightfully simple man with
close-cropped hair, thin brown face and bright, clever eyes seems to
know all the Slavonic languages and has much to say of the Austrians.
He has seen twenty of them surrender to a priest and his clerk who
came on them in a wood, made the sign of the cross and told them to
come with them. In another place twenty-two Austrians were captured by
two Russians. The Austrian officers put quick-firing guns behind their
own rifle pits for the "encouragement" of their men, on whom he has
seen them fire. They make their gunners fire every two hours in the
night as a kind of exercise. He has seen them form their men in close
column under fire and march them about up and down along the line of
the Russian trenches. The Austrian artillery seldom takes cover; the
Russian directs its fire on the enemy rather than on his batteries. In
one place, heavy Russian artillery at a range of seven miles demolished
an Austrian field train and two battalions who were lunching in the
square of a small town. He is full of life and confidence, and all that
he says breathes of fresh air and of work.
Our train made its way through to the furthest point up. We had to stop
several times to let through the ambulance trains already charged with
wounded, which take precedence. We had to go very slowly over several
repaired bridges; and this was no simple matter, as we had twenty-seven
long and heavy coaches. Some of these repairs were complicated pieces
of work, as the bridges were high above the level of the rivers. At
point after point, and especially on the Austrian sides of the rivers,
we passed lines of carefully prepared trenches, and in one place there
was a masterpiece of artillery cover, with every arrangement for a long
stay.
The damage done by the artillery fire was sporadic--here a smashed
station building, there a town where several houses had suffered. But
there was nothing indiscriminate; and the Polish population, which
showed no sign of any hostility to the Russians, seemed to find the war
conditions livable.
As in other parts, I was specially struck by the easy relations
existing between the inhabitants, the Austrian soldiers and their
Russian captors. There were exceptions. I had some talk with a few
Austrian Germans from Vienna. They were simple folk and seemed to
have no grudge against the Russians; and the circumstance in their
position which they felt most--they were only taken the day before
yesterday--was that this was Christmas Eve, the "_stille Nacht, heilige
Nacht_" of the beautiful German hymn, and that they were far from home
among strange people. They kept apart as far as possible not only from
their captors but from their fellow prisoners from Bohemia and Moravia.
These last seemed at least quite comfortable, smoking their long pipes
and leisurely sweeping the platforms. They were quite a large company.
They understood my Russian better than my German. When I asked them
how they stood with the German troops, instead of the sturdy "Gut" of
their Viennese fellows, they answered with a slang word and a gesture.
When asked about the Russians, they replied in a quite matter-of-course
way: "We are brothers and speak the same tongue; we are one people."
For any difficulties, the Poles often prove good interpreters. It is
very different for the Austrian captive officers, who often cannot
understand their own men.
These Czechs confidently assured me that any Russian troops that
entered Bohemia would be welcomed as friends; and they claimed that
not only the neighboring Moravians and Slovaks but also the Croats
further south were to be taken as feeling as they did. The Bohemians
and Moravians seem to be surrendering in the largest numbers of all;
and though the Viennese claimed that large numbers of Russians had also
been taken, I cannot regard as anything but exceptional the enormous
batches of blue uniforms that I passed on the road here. I asked these
men about their greatcoats and was not at all surprised when they said
they felt cold in them. It is nothing like such a practical winter
outfit, whether for head, body or legs, as that of the Russian soldier.
We came very well over the last part of our journey. I was sorry to
part with the friendly sanitars, who all seemed old acquaintances
by the end of the journey and invited me to take up my quarters
permanently with them. Theirs was more than ordinary kindness, as they
had shared everything they had with me, including their little sleeping
apartment. The bearer company under their orders is all composed of
Mennonites, a German religious sect from South Russia which objects
to war on principle and, being excused military service even in this
tremendous struggle, seems to be serving wholesale as ambulance
volunteers.
As there were none but soldiers about, these men helped me out with
my luggage; and through the window of the First Aid point in Tarnow
station, I saw another acquaintance waving me a welcome. This is the
last point that the railway can serve; and my friends will go back with
a full burden, which will keep the medical staff busy day and night all
the way. One of my new companions, who has been out to a village to
get milk for the wounded, has seen the shrapnel bursting; and the guns
are sounding loud and clear near the town as I write this. It is here
that the most seriously wounded must be treated at once, as a railway
journey would simply mean death for them. This is brought home to one,
if one only looks at the faces of the workers. Yet with this huge line
of operations, and the assaults which may be made at any point of it,
at any moment the nearest field hospitals may need to send off any
wounded who can be moved without delay. Though the work is being done
with danger all round, less thought is being given to it than anywhere
that I have been yet.