The first dull gray tinge of a misty morning was in our cottage room
when we rolled out of our straw beds next day. A plodding soldier
sleepily rubbing his eyes gave us a bit of bread and some hot soup, and
we were ready for the day's work. Around at the staff of the corps we
met the Chief of Staff in slippers and without collar, standing in the
door looking dreamily across the hazy landscape. He smiled genially
when he saw us as he announced that our infantry had already attacked
and carried the first line of the Austrian trenches on the front of his
corps. Away to the west came the heavy booming of guns, muffled as in
cotton by the moisture that still hung in the air.
As we talked the General in command stepped out of his room as brisk
and dapper as though he had had a night's sleep (which he hadn't). His
face was wreathed in smiles as he pulled on his gloves and, lighting
a cigarette, stepped out onto the verandah before which stood his
motor. A moment later we started, and winding our way out of the little
muddy village, we were soon in among the rolling billows of hills that
stretch in great sweeps in this section of the country.... Though the
hour was early the whole countryside, now saturated with the life of
the army, was beginning to move. In every grove artillery ammunition
parks were packing up, and already caissons were pulling out on to the
roads to overtake their parent batteries which already had left their
positions of the night before and were pushing closer to the retiring
Austrians, who had succeeded in escaping from their first line of
trenches.
Every village through which we passed was crowded with reserves getting
on the march to be within easy call of the front, in case the enemy
made a counter-attack against the troops that had been fighting and
winning during the night. With each mile of our advance the signs of
life and activity became more numerous. But as we pushed with our
motors through the mud we soon began to encounter the back-wash from
the battlefield.
First one met a weary, mud-stained soldier with a red, dripping bandage
around one hand which he nursed tenderly with his other. He was the
vanguard of the column that from now on we passed for an hour. Next
came groups of those wounded so slightly that they could still walk to
the rear. That is, those with minor head and arm hits, which represent
but a few weeks or even days out of the firing line. Behind these came
the creaking peasant carts, each with its pair of tiny horses tugging
along through the mud and ruts of the roads, and each loaded with
wounded. Some held six or eight men that were able to sit up. All had
only the first-aid bandages and most of them were deep-stained with
the blood that oozed through the hastily bound dressing. The attack
had been made in the pouring rain, through a marsh, and every soldier
was saturated with mud, and their faces, what with dirt and the pain
of their wounds, looked in the early morning light to be the shade of
putty.
Next, one began to encounter the carts of heavily wounded, two in a
cart lying on the straw, their eyes staring up into the misty morning
sky, their expressions indifferent, stolid, and unemotional. Some clung
to the sides of the carts to ease the jolting caused by the inequality
of the way. Others lay as though dead, with blankets thrown over their
faces. These sights, however, have become as common now as the mud of
the road itself and hardly warrant description.
Now, intermingled among the carts, began to appear a sprinkling of
the blue-coated Austrians, wandering aimlessly along in the general
direction of the flow of traffic. Sometimes a Russian guard plodded
along behind them, but more often they came quite alone. Some that were
slightly wounded sat beside the road, looking at us with stupid, heavy
eyes as we passed in the motor. All, even as the Russian soldiers, were
plastered with mud and many saturated with gore, either their own or
that of comrades they had tried to help.