Above the bluish walls of Augustowo the tops of the green pines laid against a leaden sky. Over there was the battle, the dense forest an impenetrable curtain, through which reverberated the pang of shrapnel and the roar of grenaten.
"I must tell you," hesitated Tzschirner, as our motor, lurching through the mud of Augustowo, turned toward the woods. "It is very dangerous. The forest is filled with Russians and they will shoot. It may not be agreeable."
"Let's have a try at it," I suggested.
The Rittmeister smiled.
"Seyring!" he called to the red haired mechanician. "Fertig zu feuer! Be ready to fire. Gelbricke!" and he tapped the chauffeur. "If I say turn back, turn instantly and drive fast!" With a smile he turned to me. "Mr. Fox," he said, "you know how to use German rifle, do you not?"
Then making a turn to the left, we entered a better road that tunneled away through the trees.
"This is the road to Grodno," said Tzschirner, "the Russian fortress. Our soldiers make their advance here."
We rattled across a wooden bridge that the German pioneers had thrown on top of a dynamited ruin across the Augustowo Canal. The road dipped to a lower level, that pointed toward Grodno, a straight brown band finally seeming to terminate where rows of distant pines, meeting like converging railway tracks, closed across the last thin slit of sky. At a slower pace, as though sensing danger, the car passed into the woods.
There came a German soldier. He was on foot. He had no rifle and his right hand squeezed the left as though it were asleep and he would waken it. But as we drew near, he dropped the left hand as though it were of no importance—and I saw the blood spread all over it—and the right hand flashed to his cap.
"Where," asked the Rittmeister, returning the salute, "are the Russians?"