"The next day we returned to Radom, occupying seats in the motor of a Russian general. The great stream of troops was still flowing on. There were troops of all kinds. We called to ask the names of each regiment, which they always gave in a kind of jovial chorus. There were food transports, field kitchens, pontoons, and, not least important, the post. At one point we saw a large body of Austrian prisoners sitting by a wood drinking water with their very small escort. These men helped some of our motors over difficult places. The great current of men and wagons still flowed on. Teams of white horses which, because they can be so clearly seen, are only allowed to serve in the transport, were dashing through mud and water with an ardour as great as though they were on the field of battle. At one place a bread wagon dropped all its cargo and turned over on its side; but horse and driver, evidently not noticing, carried it on into the stream without checking the pace, one wheel flying in the air and the other broken beneath the wagon.
"Our general spoke frequently with the men, who helped us in getting our motor over difficult places. When the trouble was over he said heartily, 'Once more, thank you, brothers.' Nothing will remain with me longer than these endless, irregular lines of big, sleepy, almost stupid-looking men, moving at a walk which might last for ever, and all in one direction, and all with set eyes--the people that lies down to sleep at the roadside, that breakfasts off stale biscuit soaked in water, that carries nothing but what it can put to a hundred uses, that will crouch for days without food in flooded trenches, that can die like flies for an idea, and is sure sooner or later to attain it--the people that never complains, the people of brothers."
[Footnote 160: Mr. Stanley Washburn, special war correspondent of the _Times_. The quotation is from his "Field Notes from the Russian Front."]
[Footnote 161: Between six and seven miles.]
[Footnote 163: Or Kieff, chief town of Little Russia; on the Dnieper, 660 miles south of Petrograd.]
[Footnote 164: On the railway, about thirty miles west of Ivangorod.]
[Footnote 165: Town of Russia, on a tributary of the Niemen, 190 miles east of Königsberg in East Prussia.]