Time hung heavily on my hands; though I was working hard to learn the Russian language, with some little success. I had learned a good many words and a few short and easy sentences: so that I could now make myself understood, and could understand a portion at least of what was addressed to me. I even learned to say, "I want to go"; which made the men laugh. "Why am I detained?" which made them laugh louder.
However, the commissary at last contrived to make me understand that there was nothing charged against me; but that it was necessary to make inquiries. When these were completed, then—well, he could not say exactly what would happen then: but he made it plain to me that I had need of patience, and an acquiescence in the things that be: which, like all wise advice, it is something difficult to follow.
The interference with my freedom of movement was not the only trouble I had to endure. I have referred to the circumstance that I suffered much from frostbites during the winter. Standing all day in dirty trenches, where it was impossible to observe necessary cleanliness, did not improve the condition of my hurts; and by the middle of April I saw that I could not hope to do much more marching and fighting, on foot at any rate: and I saw no chance of obtaining a mount. I was nearly without money, away from home and friends: and when I add that I am sixty-four years of age, perhaps it will not be thought inexcusable that I began to feel I could not remain to see the end of a war that may yet last a considerable time. So I got my friend the police commissary to draw up a petition to the commanding officer asking to be allowed to join a Russian cavalry regiment, or go home to England.
The commissary, Captain Blodshvoshki, was not in favour of my petitioning the Commander directly, as he appeared to have some misgivings concerning the irascibility and generally adverse disposition of that gentleman; which, considering what I had myself seen and heard, I thought were not altogether without grounds. So a Staff Officer, Colonel Vilkovski, who had shown me some kindness, was applied to. He said that he had never heard of a foreigner being permitted to join the Russian Army except by express permission of the Czar; and he was much surprised to learn of my experiences with the Muscovite forces. He promised to forward my wishes as far as it was in his power to do so.
It was on the 13th April that this conversation took place. On the 15th a surgeon came to my quarters and desired to examine me. When he saw the state of my feet he shook his head; and I understood, through Captain Blodshvoshki, that he had pronounced me "no good."
On the 18th a passport and a railway voucher were handed to me by a police orderly, and I was told to go home; that is the simplest way of putting it. Arrangements were made for me to leave the camp the same evening. I make no comment on the seemingly cool and off-hand manner in which I was dismissed; but I resolved if ever again I do any fighting it shall be in the ranks of the British Army. But the resolution is superfluous: it is pretty clear that I have ridden Nature to the last lap.
Ostrolenka was the nearest station to the camp, and I was advised by Colonel Vilkovski to proceed to Riga via Vilna, and from thence to obtain a ship to England. The good gentleman shook hands with me, and took his departure.
Captain Blodshvoshki wished to accompany me, but he was not permitted to do so. He also shook hands, with the hearty warmth of a true friend. A horse was lent me to carry me to Ostrolenka; and a police trooper accompanied me to take back the horse when I had done with it.
Ostrolenka was distant about twenty-five versts (a verst is 1,166 yards), and there was a straight road to it, though it was in a truly dreadful state—cut to pieces by heavy traffic and more than knee-deep in tenacious mud. Moreover, we soon discovered that it was obliterated in some places by the fighting that had at one period of the war been very frequent over it. Whole versts of it had been torn up by shell fire and the passage of heavy guns, so that we had to make wide détours to avoid the large mudholes, which were the craters of shells, and some of which contained six or eight feet of water, drained from the melting snow.
The sun set a couple of hours after we started, and it happened to be a very dark night, much clouded and overcast, with an occasional shower of rain; though this is scarcely worth mentioning, except that it added to the already excessively bad condition of the road, and was probably one of the causes that led to my becoming quite bewildered.