The world slumbered....
Suddenly from the ditch at the side of the road a soldier appeared,
spoke to our driver and disappeared again.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He says, your Honour, that we must hasten. We may be hit."
"Hit here--on this road?"
"_Tak totchno._"
"Well, hurry then."
I caught a little frightened sigh behind me from Andrey Vassilievitch,
whom the events of the day had frozen into horror-stricken silence. We
hurried, bumping along; at the bottom of the hill there was a
farmhouse. From behind it an officer appeared.
"What are you doing there? You're under fire.... Red Cross? Ah yes, we
had a message about you. Dr. Semyonov?... Yes. Please come this way.
Hurry, please!"
We were led across the farmyard and almost tumbled into a trench at
the farther end of it.
It wasn't until I felt some one touch my shoulder that I realised my
position. We were sitting, the three of us, in a slanting fashion with
our backs to the earthworks of the trench. To our right, under an
improvised round roof, a little dried-up man like a bee, with his
tunic open at the neck and a beard of some days on his chin, was
calling down a telephone.
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