WORK IN THE ARMY
193
time. At first, the period of their stay in Moscow was not clearly de-
fined, and the necessary repairs would be done hastily and super-
ficially. With great difficulty the zemstvos succeeded at last in ob-
taining authorization to keep such trains at Moscow for at least
twenty-four hours after unloading.
While improving and repairing the existing trains, the Union was
constantly at work providing new ones, so that in May, 1915, a
total of forty-eight trains had already been equipped in the work-
shops (three trains for use on the narrow-gauge Austrian railways
were produced in the workshops of Kiev). Side by side with this
activity there was a constant reinforcement of the staffs, partly for
newly formed trains and partly to replace the sick and discharged
members. By December 1, 1914, the hospital trains department of
the Unions employed 2,918 men and women, including 99 doctors,
194 junior medical officers, 323 nurses, 60 superintendents, 144
kitchen staff, 2,098 orderlies.
For a considerable portion of this staff, kept in reserve, it was
necessary to organize homes at Moscow, one for the medical staff
and another for the orderlies. A hospital was also attached to these
homes and it was often crowded with patients. In its reports the de-
partment speaks not only of a high percentage of sickness among
the staffs, but also gives a number of obituaries of orderlies, nurses.
and doctors who met their death in the trains, as well as in the hos:
pitals at the front.
In addition to depots for the supply of underwear, clothing,
medicines, dressing material, and other articles to the hospital
trains, and in addition to the repair shops, the hospital train de-
partment found it necessary to organize at Moscow on a gigantic
scale the disinfection, cleansing, washing, and mending of under-
wear brought from the front by the trains and taken from passing
soldiers. From the beginning of July, 1915, a special provision de-
pot came Into operation at Moscow for the provisioning of depart-
ing trains.
Nature of Work.
At the front the hospital trains had very varied experiences.
Sometimes a train would be left at a station for weeks and weeks,
waiting for orders or progressing slowly over the badly congested
lines. At other times there might be feverish and incessant work, and
