When she spoke it was without looking up. "Our soldiers," she said, losing her fear, "told me you were devils, so I thought if I made the cross you could not pass it. They told me you would burn my house and kill me."
"Has your house been burned?"
"No-o."
"And you will not be killed, Madame," said Tzschirner, touching his hat. "I promise you."
We left her looking after us in a bewildered way and when we climbed into the motor she fled up the road.
"They have bad minds, the Russians," remarked Tzschirner. "They know what they have made in East Prussia."
And then near Szczobra we overtook the "clean up squad." We saw them advancing, as in extended order, the teeth of a great comb, cleaning woods, fields and ponds, of the dead. We saw segments of the line abruptly stop, and come together and begin digging in the snow.
"How," I asked Tzschirner, "did they miss the dead we saw along the road?"
"They have not been there," he explained. "They first work where considerable actions have occurred; then they take up the more isolated points of the line."
All this time the grumble of the guns had grown more distinct. We were nearing Augustowo. A horde of prisoners stolidly shuffled and I saw that their hands and faces were black with the battle. The German light wounded commenced to straggle along, holding a white bound hand, or unconcernedly handling a cheap cigar while the other arm hung cradled in a sling. I thought they all looked tired but their step was alert. And always the roll of the guns grew louder, monstrous drums insanely beating their Miserere from somewhere beyond the tops of the pines.