It was maddening to have stumbled on vital news and to be wholly unable to use it.

How could three fugitives in a cellar, with the whole hornet's nest of Turkey and Germany stirred up against them, hope to send this message of life and death?
I went back to the map and examined the nearest Russian positions.

They were carefully marked.

Prjevalsky in the north, the main force beyond Deve Boyun, and the southern columns up to the passes of the Palantuken but not yet across them.

I could not know which was nearest to us till I discovered where we were.