Then he screamed at us: "We're retreating....

We're retreating!" he shrieked in the high trembling voice peculiar to agitated Russians.

"We have only half an hour and the Austrians are almost here now!" We were flung after that into a hurry of movement that left us no time for reasoning or argument.

Semyonov appeared and in Molozov's absence took the lead.

He was, of course, entirely unmoved, and as I now remember, combed his fair beard with a little tortoiseshell pocket comb as he talked to us.