"The luxurious establishment of a Russian General of Division," he told me laughingly as he showed me over his place of residence. In the trellised vestibule of the cottage were the telephones and telegraphs, while from all directions came the field wires from the positions six versts beyond.
Sitting round the rough table, we listened to the General's account of his divisions fighting against the advance, an achievement that I have already alluded to in a previous chapter, and then, at his advice, we paid a visit to the front, as I have also mentioned elsewhere. The generals higher up are so far away that it is only by chance that they see their men or come in actual contact with their wounded. These divisional commanders are the ones that stand between the intellectual end of the game and the men in the trenches. The moment a shot is fired unexpectedly, their telephone from the trenches tells them what is the cause. An hour after a fight starts, the wounded (if the positions be near) begin to drift back here. In this headquarters the General could look out of the window and see the price in human suffering that the plans he made on the map before him were costing Russia....
After dinner I accompanied General Monkevitch on a walk about the town. With a long, swinging gait he paced down the primitive little street, with a nod and a word for every soldier that he passed. With scrupulous courtesy he returned the bows of the peasants who smilingly greeted him, for it was easy to see that he was a favourite in the village. Even the little children came in for a pleasant word and a bit of chaff, and several times he stopped with his officers about him to joke with the kiddies, and the littler they were the more happily they responded to his pleasant words.
A bit down the street we turned into the great shed where first come the wounded from the smaller units of the divisions. Yesterday, the General told us, his face suddenly going very sad, had resulted in heavy losses. For a moment he stood in a reverie, and then, throwing off his mood of melancholy, shrugged his shoulders and said: "Well, let us look at those within."
II—TALES OF THE WOUNDED RUSSIAN SOLDIERS
The great wooden shed was divided into a series of rooms where clean, sweet-smelling hay and new-cut clover was piled deeply on the floor, and here lay those too heavily wounded to be moved immediately to the rear. All told, there remained but a few hundred, the great bulk, as the General told me, having been cleared within eight hours after their arrival, to be sent to the greater bases where more comforts awaited them. Between the double rows of haggard creatures slowly strode the General, stopping every few paces to speak to the wounded. The relation of the Russian peasant to his superiors is extraordinary. Never is there the slightest degree of self-consciousness or embarrassment on the part of the soldiers, no matter how high or exalted be the rank of the officer who addresses him.
Again and again soldiers whose haggard features and glazing eyes denoted the serious nature of their wounds called to him in faltering voices: "How goes the fight, Excellency?" or "Did we take the trench, my General?" And always he would stop and reply, "All goes well, my children. You have done superbly. I am proud of you. Go back now to the rear and get well. You have behaved like heroes."
Another groaned audibly as he raised himself to ask: "Have more of my brothers fallen than of the Austrians?" The General replied quickly, raising his voice that all might hear: "For each one of you here, my children, there are five Austrians to pay for it, so rest contented that you have done your duty well."
One mere stripling, shot through the stomach, called to his Chief: "I did my best, Excellency. I killed all I could," and then sank back, groaning, on his bed of straw. And thus it went as we entered building after building where lay the price of victory. One heavily wounded lad called to the General, who immediately went to his side and listened to the high, feverish voice tell of the assault, of capture, escape, and a bullet through the abdomen. With the quick compassion characteristic of the Russians, the General reached for his cigarette case and turned its contents out into the hands of the soldier.