"Had it not been for the Tatars, I would not be alive today. They were the nomads of the Crimea, in what was then no-man's land between the Russian and German fronts....Their nomadic ways attracted me of course, although by that time their movements had been restricted. Yet it was they who had discovered me in the snow after the crash, when the German search parties had given up. I was still unconscious then, and came around completely after twelve days or so and, by then, I was back in a German field hospital....[When I hit the ground,] I must have shot through the wind-screen, since it flew back at the same time as the plane hit the ground; that saved me, though I had [sustained] bad skull and jaw injuries. Then the tail [of the plane] flipped over, and I was completely buried in the snow. That's how the Tatars found me. I remember voices saying "Woda" (water), and then [I perceived] the felt of their tents, and the dense pungent smell of cheeses, fat and milk. They covered my body in fat to help it to regenerate warmth, and wrapped it in felt, as insulator to keep the warmth in."[3c]