to only stay
one night, as in the morning ambulance trains were coming to take them
all away, and we had orders to follow as soon as the last patient had
gone. Another operating- and dressing-room was quickly improvised, but
even with the two going hard all night it was difficult to keep pace
with the number brought in.

The scenery had never been taken down after the last dramatic
performance played in the theatre, and wounded men lay everywhere
between the wings and drop scenes. The auditorium was packed so closely
that you could hardly get between the men without treading on some one's
hands and feet as they lay on the floor. The light had given out--in the
two dressing-rooms there were oil-lamps, but in the rest of the place we
had to make do with candle-ends stuck into bottles. The foyer had been
made into a splendid kitchen, where hot tea and boiling soup could be
got all night through. This department was worked by the local Red
Cross Society, and was a great credit to them.

About eight o'clock in the morning the first ambulance train came in,
and was quickly filled with patients. We heard that the Germans were now
very near, and hoped we should manage to get away all the wounded before
they arrived.

The second train came up about eleven, and by that time a fierce rifle
encounter was going on. From the hospital window we could see the
Russian troops firing from the trenches near the railway. Soon there was
a violent explosion that shook the place; this was the Russians blowing
up the railway bridge on the western side of the station.

The second train went off, and there were very few patients left now,
though some were still being brought in at intervals by the Red Cross
carts. Our automobiles had started off to Warsaw with some wounded
officers, but the rest of the column had orders to go to Zyradow by the
last train to leave Skiernevice.

The sanitars now began to pack up the hospital; we did not mean to leave
anything behind for the enemy if we could help it. The few bedsteads
were taken to pieces and tied up, the stretchers put together and the
blankets tied up in bundles. When the last ambulance train came up about
2 P. M. the patients were first put in, and then every portable
object that could be removed was packed into the train too. At the last
moment, when the train was just about to start, one of the sanitars ran
back and triumphantly brought out a pile of dirty soup plates to add to
the coll