The roads were choked with dense masses of advancing Russians. Troops,
horse and foot, hospital trains, ammunition and provision trains,
guns--all were moving up; evidently in preparation for the striking of a
heavy blow at the German power in East Prussia on a new line of attack.
For the first time Fred saw a country that was really in the grip of a
modern army. The swift movements of the German army around the Suvaroff
house had not given this impression. There were not so many Germans,
relatively speaking at least, and their movements were made with less
confusion and greater speed, owing to their possession of railways that
had been built with an especial view to their being used in time of
war.
Here the railways had all been destroyed by the Germans who had
retreated before the advancing Russians. In many places, too, fields had
been burned over, that the standing crops might not fall into the hands
of the invaders.
Fred almost laughed at the irony of the whole sight. It was because of
him that this movement was being made. At great risk to himself he had
obtained the information that had led to the sudden change in the
Russian plans, of which the great movement he saw was a part.
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