first line it was impossible to see any of the Greek soldiers except
those immediately beside you. If you looked back or beyond on either
hand there was nothing to be seen but high hills topped with fresh
earth, and the waving yellow grass, and the glaring blue sky.

General Smolenski directed the Greeks from the plain to the far right
of the town; and his presence there, although none of the men saw nor
heard of him directly throughout the entire day, was more potent for
good than would have been the presence of five thousand other men
held in reserve. He was a mile or two miles away from the trenches,
but the fact that he was there, and that it was Smolenski who was
giving the orders, was enough. Few had ever seen Smolenski, but his
name was sufficient; it was as effective as is Mr. Bowen's name on a
Bank of England note. It gave one a pleasant feeling to know that he
was somewhere within call; you felt there would be no "routs" nor
stampedes while he was there. And so for two days those seven
thousand men lay in the trenches, repulsing attack after attack of
the Turkish troops, suffocated with the heat and chilled with sudden
showers, and swept unceasingly by shells and bullets--partly because
they happened to be good men and brave men, but largely because they
knew that somewhere behind them a stout, bull-necked soldier was
sitting on a camp-stool, watching them through a pair of field-
glasses.

Toward mid-day you would see a man leave the trench with a comrade's
arm around him, and start on the long walk to the town where the
hospital corps were waiting for him. These men did not wear their
wounds with either pride or braggadocio, but regarded the wet sleeves
and shapeless arms in a sort of wondering surprise. There was much
more of surprise than of pain in their faces, and they seemed to be