The
luggage was a dreadful problem, and the Prince always groaned at the
amount we would take with us, but we could not reduce it, as we had to
carry big cases of cotton-wool, bandages and dressings, anaesthetics,
field sterilizer, operating-theatre equipment, and a certain amount of
stores--such as soap, candles, benzine and tinned food--as the column
would have been quite useless if it had not been to a large extent
self-supporting. Our Column was attached to the Second Army, which
operated on the eastern front of Warsaw. The Russian front changes so
much more rapidly than the Anglo-French front, where progress is
reckoned in metres, that these mobile columns are a great feature of
ambulance work here. Our front changed many miles in a week sometimes,
so that units that can move anywhere at an hour's notice are very
useful. The big base hospitals cannot quite fulfil the same need on such
a rapidly changing front.
VIII
THE BOMBARDMENT OF LODZ
It took us a long time to get to Lodz, though it is not much more than
200 kilometres away. Russian roads are villainously bad anyhow, and the
Germans, though their retreat had been hasty, had had time to destroy
the roads and bridges as they went.
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