The Polish Legion.
One forms the opinion that the place for the pessimist is at the Front. In the crises one leaves the big cities in a cloud of gloom, and the enthusiasm and spirit increase steadily, until in the front trenches one finds the officers exercising every effort to keep their men from climbing out of their shelters and going across the way and bayoneting the enemy. The morale of the Russian Army as I have seen it in these last weeks is extraordinary.
We left head-quarters and motored over wretched roads to the little town of Ilza where the quaintest village I have seen lies in a little hollow beneath a hill on which is perched the old ruin of a castle, its crumbling ramparts and decaying battlements standing silhouetted against the sky. We halted in the village to inquire the condition of the road to Radom, for the day we came this way the enemy had been shelling it and the remains of a horse scattered for 50 feet along the highway told us that their practice was not bad at all. We were informed that the artillery of the Germans commanded the first 4 versts, but after that it was safe enough. Somehow no one feels much apprehension about artillery fire, and in our speedy car we felt confident enough of doing the 4 versts in sufficient haste to make the chance of a shot hitting us at 6,500 yards a very slight one. As soon as we came out of the hollow, and along the great white road which stretched across the green fields, I saw one of the great sausage-shaped German Zeppelins hanging menacingly in the sky to the west of us. It was a perfectly still day and the vessel seemed quite motionless.
At the end of the 4 versts mentioned there was a long hill, and then the road dipped out of sight into another valley where the omniscient eye of the German sausage could not follow us. It was in my own mind that it would not be unpleasant when we crossed the ridge. We were just beginning the climb of the hill when our own motor-car (which had been coughing and protesting all day) gave three huge snorts, exploded three times in the engine, and came to a dead stop on the road, with that indescribable expression on its snubby inanimate nose of a car that had finished for the day. The part of the road that we were on was as white as chalk against the green of the hill, with only a few skinny trees (at least they certainly looked skinny to me) to hide us. Frantic efforts to crank the car and get it started only resulted in a few explosions, and minor protests from its interior.
So there we sat in the blazing sun while our extremely competent chauffeur took off his coat and crawled under the car and did a lot of tinkering and hammering. He was such a good and cool-headed individual and went about his work so conscientiously that one did not feel inclined to go off in the one good car and leave him alone in his predicament. So we all sat under the skinny tree and smoked while we watched three shells burst on the road over which we had just passed. I must confess to a feeling of extreme annoyance at this particular moment. One can feel a certain exaltation in hustling down a road at seventy miles an hour and being shot at, but somehow there is very little interest in sitting out in the blazing sun on a white road hoping that you can get your car started before the enemy gets your range. About the time the third shell landed on the road, our car changed its mind and its engines suddenly went into action with a tumult like a machine gun battery. We climbed in our cars and the driver threw in the clutches and our motor made at least fifty feet in one jump and went over the crest of the hill in a cloud of dust. The man who sold it to me assured me that it once did 140 versts on a race track in one hour. My own impression is that it was doing about 150 an hour when it cleared the ridge and the Zeppelin was lost to sight.
An hour later we were in Radom, and by midnight back once more in Warsaw.
HOW THE RUSSIANS MET THE FIRST GAS ATTACK
CHAPTER XI
HOW THE RUSSIANS MET THE FIRST GAS ATTACK
Dated:
Zyrardow, Poland,
June 5, 1915.