"I was twenty-five, and had still a stage to do
before getting my squadron in the Guard Hussars.
The front was quiet, and so to fill in time
I went as A.D.C. to Corps Headquarters
at some unpronounceable castle in Volhynia.
And there one afternoon we were lunching late
to celebrate the birthday of a comrade-
when suddenly appeared before me a Sergeant
of the security corps, saluted briskly
and announced that at the telegraph bureau
a message was arriving: Personal
for Corps Commander. I went there and found
coils of tape, like ticking vermicelli,
which said what we already knew-because
although cut off from Russia, insulated
in our cocoon of discipline and tradition,
...