towel on the operating-table, illuminated by two candles stuck in bottles.  Princess sat in the only chair, and the rest of us eased our weary feet by sitting on the edge of the dressing-boxes.  Two dead soldiers lay at our feet—­it was not safe just at that moment to take them out and bury them.  People would probably ask how we could eat under those conditions.  I don’t know how we could either, but we did and were thankful for it—­for immediately after another rush began.

At eleven o’clock in the morning another ambulance train arrived and was quickly filled.  By that time we had had more than 750 patients through our hands, and they were still being brought in large numbers.  The fighting must have been terrific, for the men were absolutely worn out when they arrived, and fell asleep at once from exhaustion, in spite of their wounds.  Some of them must have been a long time in the trenches, for many were in a terribly verminous condition.  On one poor boy with a smashed leg the insects could have only been counted by the million.  About ten minutes after his dressing was done, his white bandage was quite grey with the army of invaders that had collected on it from his other garments.

Early that afternoon we got a message that another Column was coming to relieve us, and that we were to return to Zyradow for a rest.  We were very sorry to leave our little dressing-station, but rejoiced to hear that we were to go up again in two days’ time to relieve this second Column, and that we were to work alternately with them, forty-eight hours on, and then forty-eight hours off duty.

We had left Zyradow rather quiet, but when we came back we found the cannon going hard, both from the Radzivilow and the Goosof direction.  It would have taken much more than cannon to keep us awake, however, and we lay down most gratefully on our stretchers in the empty room at the Red Cross Bureau and slept.  A forty-eight hours’ spell is rather long for the staff, though probably there would have been great difficulty in changing the Columns more often.

I woke up in the evening to hear the church bells ringing, and remembered that it was Christmas Eve and that they were ringing for the Midnight Mass, so I got up quickly.  The large church was packed with people, every one of the little side chapels was full and people were even sitting on the altar steps.  There must have been three or four thousand people there, most of them of course the people of the place, but also soldiers, Red Cross workers and many refugees mostly from Lowice.  Poor people, it was a sad Christmas for them—­having lost so much already and not knowing from day to day if they would lose all, as at that time it was a question whether or not the Russian authorities would decide for strategic reasons to fall back once more.

And then twelve o’clock struck and the Mass began.