I know they were talking about getting some currants and raisins from on board ship, and there will be plum-duff and all sorts of things.

I wonder how they're all getting on at home?
They're sure to be thinking often enough of us, but it will never enter their minds that here we are cooped up in this beastly hole." The day, however, did not pass unnoticed, for a Russian officer who spoke English called upon them, and said that he came at the request of the governor himself to express to them his regret that their quarters were so uncomfortable and their fare so bad.

"But," he said, "we cannot help ourselves.

Every barrack in the town is crowded; every hospital, every private house even, filled with wounded.

We have fifty or sixty thousand troops, and near twenty thousand sick and wounded.
Your people are very good not to fire at the town, for if they did, I do not know what the poor fellows would do.