Thus bravely in the light of day, but when evening came and we sat together, then we knew just what the life of the boy had cost him. They tell us—these defrauded broken-hearted ones—just how tall the lad was, and how good to look at! That seems to me so sad—as if one reckoned one's love by inches! And yet it is the beauty of youth that I mourn also, and its horribly lonely death.
"They never got him further than the dressing-station," Mr. —— said; "but—he would always put up a fight, you know—he lived for four days. No, there was never any hope. Half the back of his head was shattered. But he put up a fight. My brother would always do that."
PART III
RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN FRONT
CHAPTER I [ToC]
PETROGRAD
Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I left London for Russia on October 16, 1915. We are attached provisionally to the Anglo-Russian hospital, with a stipulation that we are at liberty to proceed to the front with our ambulances as soon as we can get permission to do so. We understand that the Russian wounded are suffering terribly, and getting no doctors, nurses, or field ambulances. We crossed from Newcastle to Christiania in a Norwegian boat, the Bessheim. It was supposed that in this ship there was less chance of being stopped, torpedoed, or otherwise inconvenienced.