CHAPTER X 



OSTROGORCHSK 



Incivility Sympathy from a Russian Soldier General Ermolin coming round 

 A Ceremony to bind Friendship The General and the Contractor. 



ON starting from Liski by train to Ostrogorchsk, I was 

 not overjoyed at finding that I was to have as my 

 travelling companion, Rotmistr Heppener, who had done 

 everything he could at Liski to belittle my work and to 

 annoy me by his ignorant and disparaging criticisms. He 

 told me that he was going to Ostrogorchsk on duty, which 

 he would combine with the pleasure of introducing me to his 

 friends at Ostrogorchsk, and obtaining for me a warm 

 welcome from them. Whatever his object was, the fact 

 remains that the 2nd Brigade was the only one at which I 

 was treated as an unwelcome interloper. I have the great 

 satisfaction that I was allowed to pay for every bite and sup I 

 had, so I was spared the indignity of having to accept 

 hospitality from the General and officers of that place. 



Warned by my experience at Liski, I opened proceedings 

 on the first day with an old horse, and as soon as the soldiers 

 who had been told off to help me, began to understand a little 

 of my work, I took a young horse that had never been 

 mounted, mouthed him for about twenty - five minutes with 

 the long reins, put a soldier on his back, and had him ridden 

 quietly about the manege. This may appear very simple, 

 but it is not as easy as it reads. First of all, the young 



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