WORK IN THE ARMY 203
direct fire. In the course of three months, when the Russian armies
changed their position most frequently, nearly every flying squad
found itself compelled to cover by road any distance from two hundred
 to six hundred miles. Sometimes the roads were crowded with
retreating troops and refugees, the result being that they could
move only very slowly, sometimes not more than a few score yards
an hour.® But even under these unfavorable conditions the zemstvo
workers did not fail to do everything within their power to render
useful service. At every halt they tried to set up dressing stations
and canteens. Thus, we learn from the report of the first flying
squad of the Eighteenth Zemstvo Detachment that in the course of
six weeks of uninterrupted movement during June and July, 1915,
this one squad succeeded in organizing dressing stations and canteens
 in not less than fifteen different places in the provinces of
Lublin and Grodno.®
The detachments received their preparation and training for the
care of the wounded, which was, of course, their fundamental purpose,
 in Moscow. During actual fighting their members would naturally
 be exposed to the most strenuous trials, for there was intensive
 work to be done day and night in removing the wounded from
the battlefield, dressing their wounds, feeding, and transporting
them to the rear. In this connection it should be noted that it was
often found impossible to postpone urgent operations, as there
might be cases where the life of a soldier depended upon the prompt
use of the surgeon’s knife. Operations of one kind or another, including
 even the most complicated and dangerous, were performed
at all the zemstvo field detachments. In the reports we find referances
 not only to amputations, but also to trepanning operations
and partial openings of the abdominal cavity.
Here 1s a case reported by the Second Detachment:

Partial openings of the abdominal cavity were made in the case of
two soldiers who were carried in with their intestines protruding. One
of the men had his intestines protruding to the extent of about one yard
and they were soiled with dirt and straw and covered with filthy, wet
linen rags. . . . According to the statement of the victim himself, he
had had to crawl in this condition to our trenches immediately after
® Isvestia (Bulletin), No. 24, pp. 136-140.
> Ibid., Nos. 22-23, pp. 91-92.