Five days' walking took them to Odessa.

This town was not upon the direct road, but they still clung to the hope of getting away by sea.
On the journey they had met several bodies of troops and many convoys of provisions and stores.

Whenever they observed the former to be approaching, they left the road, and sheltered themselves behind bushes or inequalities of the ground at a distance from the road, as they knew they would be liable to be questioned as to the state of things at the front.

They did not, however, go out of their way for convoys, as they passed these with short salutations in reply to the greetings or pitying remarks from the drivers.

Their Russian was good enough to pass muster when confined to short sentences of a formal kind.