In the evening there was a Christmas Eve service in a room of the lazaret, which Father Tikhon and the soldiers had spent no end of trouble in turning into a chapel. The room was crowded with soldiers, and there was an improvised choir. The simple directions of the priest and the strangeness of the surroundings only added to the deep atmosphere of reverence.
I completed the night service in our hospital in the town. Here the first-floor landing had been turned into a chapel. A matronly sister from Moscow, one of the simplest souls in this work-a-day gathering, served as clerk. The leader of the choir was a young Social Democrat doctor, who had suffered for his convictions at the time of the second Duma; and among the choir were all who had had a training in church singing, which reaches such a high standard in Russia. The singers included sisters, sanitars, soldiers and several of the convalescent wounded, who were wrapped in their long grey dressing-gowns; and one wounded man had been laid on his stretcher among the choir in order that he might take part in the singing. Afterwards we all had cakes and tea; and a conversation as to what England could do, and what would follow in Europe, lasted well into Christmas Day.
We have here with us Bishop Tryphon, of Moscow, who, like the Bishop of London, asked leave to accompany the army, and is now the Superior, or Rural Dean, of one of our Divisions. The Russian army has a staff of army chaplains with an Arch-Presbyter or Chaplain General, as in England; but many priests have enrolled specially for the war. Some have been killed, others wounded, others taken prisoner; some have been specially honoured for serving the Liturgy to regiments under fire. I am told that Father Tikhon's first sermon under fire was wonderfully simple and impressive. One regimental priest told me how a shell burst in his quarters, blowing a medical attendant to bits and leaving himself with a bad contusion.
Bishop Tryphon took a prominent part in the entertainment of our Bishops in Moscow, and sends them by me a message of greeting and good wishes. He arranged a solemn Christmas Day service, with trained singers who were serving in the army. He later visited the hospitals, giving short and plain addresses, and his blessing to each branch of the Red Cross work in turn. There was a great Christmas tree in the station, where presents were distributed to four hundred wounded. Gifts were also distributed under fire by the hospital workers to the soldiers in the trenches some miles from the town.
In the evening I took part in a Christmas gathering in one of the big hospitals. Everyone's health was drunk in turn by Christian name, the whole being woven into a long song. Afterwards we sang songs of the Volga, and some stayed on talking till five in the morning, resuming their work a few hours later.
January 10.
Returning to our halupa in the little village, I rode over in the night to the General to convey the results of my journey. It was almost pitch dark and the road was in most places a simple swamp of mud, sometimes with gaping holes in the causeway or with beams or trunks of trees lying about; and though I had a soldier and a lantern, the ten miles took over four hours. Next morning we left the halupa: the dismantling process made the hut look more desolate, and while our things were being packed, the peasant family sat on their bed, looking on like moony spectators at some rustic entertainment. They showed more than satisfaction with their payment, which they expressed after the local fashion by kissing every one's hands; but they had now to expect the arrival of a fresh batch of strangers.
Our forward move of a few miles was carried out with great expedition; but our carts made quite a long train, and the movement of even a small ambulance section is in itself, under such conditions, almost an exploit. Just in front of me went our Austrian field kitchen with three separate cauldrons, which is found very useful. In a few hours we were installed in our new quarters, a great improvement on the halupa, within a stone's throw of the divisional lazaret and the now reopened railway station. From beyond a near wooded hill came the sound of almost continuous firing.
We were now close behind the line of the front ambulance points. At the station, which we put in order for their reception, there was a constant dribbling stream of soldiers who had come almost straight from the front. Most of them had walked in with their kits, and many seemed almost unconscious of their wounds. Their conversation was of comrades who stood at other points in the line, of the relative distance of the enemy and of the conditions of work in the rifle pits.
Through the thick mud the Russians are driving the Austrians upward over the deeply indented country of the Carpathian region. The enemy entrenches himself strongly, making much use of complicated wire entanglements which can only be carried with a rush. Thus, the heavily clad Russians, whose efforts have pushed the enemy all this way, have sometimes to dig themselves in as best they can at a few paces from the enemy—1000, 500, 100 or even 50. The rifle pits are full of water, straw makes hardly any difference, and as soon as a head is shown it is shot at; many of the wounded have fallen at the moment of rising from the trenches. The Austrians continue a rumbling fire nearly all night. On the other hand, some of our men have seen the shells from the heavy Russian artillery falling plump in the middle of the enemy and have seen how they scatter under the fire of the Russian machine guns. The Russians use less ammunition with much more effect. I have met several Russians who have had at different points fifteen or seventeen days on end of this soaking trench work. One officer, who had had two long doses of it, had contracted rheumatism in one place and bronchitis in another and was resting in a hospital with the hope of getting back as soon as possible. A wounded soldier asked Father Tikhon to write a request that he should be sent back to his regiment as soon as possible. One man at the station, twice wounded in hand and in chest, asked that this time he should be sent to recover in his native town.