Five o'clock in the morning. English airmen are humming across our roof. The buzz of their motors has a peculiar tone. It sounds as if they were in earnest. I jump up from my field bed, and a second later am in the adjoining reading-room. There is a terrific din all around me, a crashing and rattling from above and below, while all around the earth quivers and trembles. Our Club is being attacked with bombs. Shall we run for it? But where?

My first thought is the cellar, but the only way to reach it is down a flight of stairs outside the building, and bullets are whistling by the entrance. The Turkish sentries have got the range too short. The entrance is swept by machine-gun fire. Not a step toward the cellar is possible except at the risk of being shot. I spring back into the room. On the very spot where I was standing a few seconds before, a bomb explodes. For a moment, I am stunned. The only sign of life is in my hand. It hurts. A splinter must have struck it. All around me destruction reigns. Part of the wall is blown in. Bits of window glass come clattering

1 From Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Swiss LiberalRepublican daily), December 11-14.

VOL. 325-NO. 4218

down. Rubbish and wreckage cover the stone floors.

Suddenly there comes a great stillness, in which I can hear my own breathing. Has it all been a dream? Was all this a mere fancy due to the hot summer night of the Orient? Only the blood pouring out of my hand reminds me that I really have lived through it.

Now the uproar begins anew, though no longer in the immediate vicinity. From the flat roof of the building I can see the rest of the attack on the hill of Ebal where the German Headquarters lie under the eucalyptus trees. One bomb after another is bursting. At the same time the English airmen assail the German wagon-trains parked at the end of a long valley. The display is terrible, fearful. Now now the fliers are circling over the field hospital. I leave my observation post with a sense of unspeakable regret.

Eight o'clock. I telephone the city commandant to ask instructions for the sisters at the Soldatenheim and for myself. "The sisters will remain at their posts,' comes the answer; and at our posts we have stayed. There is a great bustle of activity everywhere, both in the Soldiers' Club and at the Officers' Club. Automobiles tear along, troops move off to the front. A rumor is in the air that the English have begun their offensive. We carry on with our duty. I feel calm, and move about. The Club looks the same as usual, except that my hand is bandaged. I bake cookies and Silesian seedcakes for the comrades as they hurry past. I sit

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about with them and chat, little suspecting that we shall never see one another again.

During the morning there is a telephone message from Haifa. I hear the voice of Colonel T, who wants to know how Sister Grete is. Just then there is a short hum and buzz in the telephone, and after that nothing more. The enemy must have cut the line. I suspect that Colonel T, knowing our exposed situation, wanted to move us back into safety. Too late! At luncheon time Colonel B, the chief of staff, comes into the Club, looking more serious than usual. As he says good-bye he urges me not to go to bed. that night advice to which I at first listen carelessly, but which, after the events of the night before, seems quite obviously necessary in case the English should renew their early-morning attack. In the afternoon the funeral of the one German soldier killed in the air raid takes place. The injured are still alive, though some of them are badly wounded. The dead comrade is a colonist from Jerusalem. Little did I suspect that I myself should eight days later bring the sad news to his unsuspecting wife and children in their Egyptian captivity!

At nine o'clock in the evening march orders came for us. We were to withdraw at midnight with a hospital train. Packing our trunks, we say farewell to our Club, which we have been running for the last five weeks. Under the entrance marked 'For German Officers' I pause for a moment. To-morrow, probably, men in khaki will be strolling through it and saying 'How do you do?' as they shake hands. I take down the little German flag at the door of my room, and burn it in the garden. At midnight Chaplain R takes us to the hospital train a hospital train of the Palestine variety: in other words, a couple of freight cars in which the field

beds of the badly wounded have been placed. On the floor of the open car squat or lie some sixty slightly wounded Turks. The last car contains the baggage of the whole staff. With us, as medical personnel, goes a colonel of the medical corps, in command of the train, two men of the sanitary corps, and Sister Heta from the Nablus field hospital. Our Arab cook Regina goes with us sisters as a servant. There is no dissuading her.

Our destination is Djanin on the plain of Philistia. The night is oppressively hot, the air in our cramped quarters sultry, and through the stillness sound the groans of the sufferers.

September 17

Toward morning our train halts in the stony waste of Sila, near an abandoned German camp. The railway line has been destroyed by British aircraft. It is impossible to go farther. We get out and take counsel what to do. Then suddenly over our heads comes that well-known hum, and bombs are falling right and left around us. We try to find some way of letting the English airmen know that we are a defenseless hospitaltrain. Suddenly we hit on the idea of getting white sheets out of the train and waving them back and forth. With bombs bursting everywhere, we stand waving the linen in front of the wounded soldiers, in order to turn the enemy from his prey. The English understand, and while they circle over the German barracks, they keep away from us.

During the day, the Colonel leaves us in an effort to reach L, and thence to send back an ambulance. I feel somewhat skeptical as to the plan.

As the first stars appear over the heights of Sila we set out our field beds in front of the train. We are dead tired after the excitement of the last few hours. It is agreed that we sisters

shall sleep the first half of the night, while the medical attendants watch over the wounded. The night is very dewy, as usual in Palestine, and we have a wonderful sleep in the cool freshness until they wake us up.

September 18

Morning light comes at last. The stony desert wakens and becomes alive. Supple brown figures emerge through the half-light, dashing hither and thither; pipes shrill through the stillness of the morning; guns pop on the heights, and others crack back from the opposite hills. Then suddenly, as if they had sprung from the soil, some twenty Bedouins surround our train - wild creatures with torn garments, some of them completely naked, women with tangled hair, appallingly dirty, with greedy eyes. They seize us and search our clothing. We give them everything we can possibly spare in order to be rid of them. They rifle everything and then, as if the ground had swallowed them, vanish with the same uncanny speed with which they came. The Bedouins of Sila have a bad reputation, and we make ready for the worst.

Our next concern is to feed our sick. Such few provisions as we have are used up. Regina, our Arab servantwoman, goes off to a village near by to purchase provisions. In spite of the famine that reigns here as everywhere in Palestine, she manages to get bread and milk, and the Turkish soldiers meanwhile have killed a wild cock, from which we make some soup, so that we are sure of food for the sick at least.

Regina informs us that a visit from the Sheik of Sila, as well as the local hadji or teacher, is in prospect. It is not long before we hear the hoofs of horses and both men come riding down the hillside. They halt before our train,

and the Sheik, still young and handsome, elegant in appearance, and wrapped in a flowing robe of green silk, greets us with elaborate Oriental courtesy. The hadji speaks German. He is a former pupil at the Schneller Asylum for Syrian Orphans in Jerusalem. Both have had friendly treatment from the German local physician at Sila during the war, and are obviously desirous of repaying this by friendliness toward us. The Sheik, however, warns us that his authority is very limited. The Bedouins who raided us in the morning do not belong to his tribe. He thinks it advisable that we should trust to the protection of his house, where, according to Oriental customs, hospitality will save us, and we may avoid further trouble. We accept his invitation on condition that we may bring our sick and the baggage with us. The Sheik consents. In the afternoon he will send us the necessary riding-animals and beasts of burden. We part. I hurry to the wounded men to tell them the good news, which obviously cheers them up.

At three o'clock in the afternoon the caravan came to take us away, but scarcely had it arrived when through the desert air came shrilling those selfsame pipes that we had heard in the morning, with others answering them in the distance. This did not long continue before a horde of Bedouins, this time in far greater numbers, were upon us. They surrounded the caravan, parleyed awhile with the Green Sheik, and then began to tear the trunks off the camels, where they had already been loaded. We watched them in indecision and amazement, until the hadji came out to us and explained the situation. The Green Sheik's efforts to save us were all in vain. The other Bedouins opposed him, and threatened his life in case he received us. We saw what a disap

pointment it was to our hospitable friend that his plan should thus fall through. He kept trying to reason with the excited crowd. No use! When he saw that his efforts were unsuccessful he sprang on his horse, his followers did likewise, and with heavy hearts we saw them withdraw to their village. The other Bedouins also disappeared, shrieking and shouting, and bearing the trunks with them as booty.

Again we are alone. The sisters and sanitary-corps men hope the German ambulance will soon turn up to take us out of our dangerous position. I am not counting on German aid any longer. My only hope is that the advancing English will reach us before it is too late.

The second evening in Sila. We are suffering from hunger and thirst. This time we sisters have decided to watch with the sanitary-corps men all night. Through the evening stillness comes the sound of hoofs. Six riders, among them four Bedouin sheiks who include our green friend, halt at some distance from our train. Their people build a fire, and the sheiks, gathering round, hold a council quite undisturbed by our presence. In spite of our serious predicament, I enjoy the charm of the drama: the magic of the Oriental night, the twinkling stars, the glowing firelight over the dark earth, and these bearded sons of the desert with their colorful and picturesque silken garments - it is all like an illustration from the Thousand and One Nights. Our brave Arab woman, Regina, prowls around like a cat whom danger threatens. She wants to know what is happening, and is trying to spy out the plans of her countrymen. She listens awhile and then, hastening back to us, whispers: 'Sisters, you must flee this very night. These men are planning trouble. To-morrow they intend to raid the hospital train and take every

thing. They'll kill the wounded and take you into captivity. You can imagine what that means.' She spoke with excitement. Her alarming news made us silent and thoughtful. We pondered for a while, then decided that our way lay clear before us. We must stick to our posts.

The sheiks sat about the fire for some time, but I felt no more pleasure in the picture. Toward midnight they disappeared in the darkness. The Green Sheik bade us farewell. There was a doleful handshake. 'May Allah shield you; I can do nothing more.' Then he too was gone.

September 19

The night passed without incident. Sister Käthe was suffering with a bad foot. We put her to bed among the wounded, in one corner of the hospital car. Then we gave the soldiers treatment. We could give them nothing to eat, for we had nothing.

Toward noon we saw an airplane land at a great distance. Sister Heta and I decided to hurry over and ask aid from the Englishman - for such the aviator must necessarily be. We set out. The way through the thorny bushes was difficult, and it took almost half an hour to reach the place where the aviator was working over his disabled machine. The English officer's eyes were round as saucers when suddenly he saw two German sisters coming toward him out of the bush. He snatched out his revolver as if he expected an attack, but when he heard the English words 'How do you do?' he grew somewhat calmer and put the revolver back in his holster. We told him who we were and asked for an English ambulance for our abandoned hospital-train. We told him, too, that there was need for the greatest haste, as we expected a Bedouin raid and feared the worst. He took us at our word, noted down our

names, and promised to fly back to the English Headquarters as soon as his plane was ready and send us help. We learned from him that the English offensive had pushed in the German front and broken through. We heard the news and we did not hear it. The most important question for us now was the saving of our poor comrades from the savages. Before we started back the English officer offered us his last bit of chocolate. Hungry as we were, it tasted delicious, although it did not come from the country of Suchard-Cailler.

So now we might as well regard ourselves as prisoners of the English. On the way back we saw the English plane take the air again. English aid was beckoning to us. We waited in expectation.

Now for the third time the sound of those pipes which we knew only too well rang through the air, and from every hill hordes of Bedouins in countless numbers came streaming down the valley toward our train. This time they brought their camels, with the obvious intention of conducting their operations as expeditiously as possible. With shrieks and wild cries they swarmed into our baggage-car, tore out the chests and trunks, loaded them on their animals, and were off up the mountains. Two of the rascals pulled a heavy cask up a narrow mountainpath, others hoisted chests up behind them at full speed. Some pieces of baggage were opened on the spot, and wild dispute over their contents broke out. Clothing, uniforms, and linen were torn to bits. The tatters flew all around us. An old Bedouin woman tasted a tube of tooth paste with huge satisfaction. 'Good may it do you,' thought I. Another half-naked creature hung one of our white nurse's scarfs over her dirty body. When the baggage-car had been completely

plundered and the treasure seized, the robber band started back to their nests. When they were gone, the railway embankment was absolutely clean; they had left not a rag behind. Only a couple leaves from a book fluttered on the ground, and when I picked them up I saw that they were the first pages of a Niebelungen novel, Treue, which a friend had once sent me in the field.

We had no illusions about our position. We knew that if the English did not come before long it was all up with us. The Bedouins would come back, and this time it would be a matter of our lives. Each of us turned to silent meditation. I sat down on a little mound of earth not far from the train. A lizard was sunning himself on the stone next to me. In a tuft of grass a cricket chirped. Otherwise there was nothing. It was still—almost like a holiday. I took farewell of things. I thought of the words once spoken by an Oriental who, some two thousand years ago, went up and down across this plain-the carpet-weaver Paul of Tarsus, who wrote in the hour of his greatest need: 'Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.'

Night set in, a night with an unusual number of stars even for the East, and still no sign of the English. Sister Heta and the two sanitary men were sitting on the steps of the car to keep watch over our comrades. Toward ten o'clock there were several shots. I was feeling cold and just about to put on my cloak when a bullet pierced it. One after another, more bullets whistled between our heads. No one was hurt. Silence for a few seconds, and then, with a wild shout, a crowd of men came rushing through the night. We could feel them coming closer and closer with their animal outcry. The first Bedouins reached our train. Two men, as tall as trees, armed with staves, planted themselves in front of us and tried to pull us