But the Princess interrupted. "Don't ask these awkward questions, Jerry. We're much too glad to have him back again to go very deeply into the details of his terrible illness. And now, Herr Gärtner, give us all your news of the war."
He did, and how they wished he didn't!
"The Herrschaft all thought Russia would take six weeks to mobilise—well, the Russians are in Galicia now. Our armies there were far too small and badly prepared, and they have been cut to pieces. The great body of troops is being withdrawn from Serbia up to Galicia, and we have had very serious reverses in Serbia too. It's our officers that are no good. I travelled with a Bulgarian who had come from Moscow to Agram through Roumania, and he says the Russian mobilisation is complete, and that he didn't think there were so many men on earth as he saw pouring through Moscow as the Siberian troops came up. The Herrschaft cannot hear those things, as they sit in the gardens here away from it all, but I know for a fact that the Russians are in Galicia and Lemberg is about to fall."
"And yet the newspapers speak only of the success of our offensive against Serbia," said Claire, in tears.
"Our newspapers are the most lying on earth, Highness, and I tell you that Austria will lose, and lose badly in this war."
Consternation of all! An Englishwoman to hear all this!
"That will do," said the Prince, shortly, "and I should advise you not to repeat in the village what you've just said, else you'll get yourself into trouble." The Princess then hurried the offender off to the gardens before more could be said.
In a few days the gamekeeper arrived back, to the annoyance of his wife, who had hoped that the war would end her beatings for some time. His uncle was an army doctor, and no reasonable being could expect the gamekeeper to be strong and well in such circumstances—heart disease again, of the most incurable kind. The butler and the first footman returned from Bohemia—the one with varicose veins, and the other with heart disease.
The newspapers were silent about the Russian front, but became more and more triumphant about events in Serbia, where Conrad von Hötzendorf expected the whole Serbian army to be surrounded in a few days by the Austrians under General Potiorek, who, in his capacity of Military Governor of Bosnia, when the Archduke and his wife were shot, had been sent to punish the Serbs.
I soon began to receive and to send English letters through Rome, and during the rest of the time I was in Hungary I had no trouble with my mails, despite the fact that foreign correspondence was forbidden to enemy aliens. It was very difficult for me to realise that I was an enemy alien, for my liberties were hindered in no way....