number of Red Cross nurses and assistant doctors.

To my great joy my wife was among the former, having been
assigned to that particular duty. A short official telegram to the
effect that I was being sent home wounded on hospital train Number
16 was the first news she had received about me for fully four
weeks. None of my field postcards had arrived and she was
suffering extreme nervous strain from the long anxiety and
suspense, which she had tried in vain to numb by feverish work in
her hospital. I remained two weeks in Vienna and then was
transferred to the sulphur bath of Baden near-by, where large
hospitals had been established to relieve the overcrowding of
Vienna. There I remained until the first of November when I was
ordered to appear before a mixed commission of army surgeons
and senior officers, for a medical examination. Two weeks later I
received formal intimation that I had been pronounced invalid and
physically unfit for army duty at the front or at home, and
consequently was exempted from further service. My military
experience ended there, and with deep regret I bade good-bye to
my loyal brother officers, comrades, and faithful orderly, and
discarded my well-beloved uniform for the nondescript garb of the
civilian, grateful that I had been permitted to be of any, if ever so
little, service to my Fatherland.


The End