By noon, the fury of the storm had nearly subsided, the Commander of the Saratov Regiment, thinking his troops had won their ground, rode on his white horse nearly into the defenses and was shot down as he came, and from this time, the firing became desultory, except when some violent commissar drove small groups forward to be killed, or others, made desperate by despair, sneaked creeping out, and so were killed, and the rest lay flattened on the snow, not daring to go forward or back. At nine, the sun went down upon the tumult of a bloody, grewsome day; it became cold again, and there followed dusky, unnatural silence, shattered occasionally by the rasping crack of snipers' shots, where in that night of horrors, the unfortunate Bolsheviks passed the acme of mortal misery. For if defeated, they returned to their own camp, death was waiting for them, and ahead were the remorseless Americans ready to shoot on sight, without stint of mercy. So, fairly caught between two fires, they lay out through the endless, black hours of terrible cold and frost, and gangrene took a greater toll than all the gunshot wounds. Yet great as was the enemy distress, all knew that when the next day dawned, new forces would come up and press on to another determined assault, and it was to divert as many of these reinforcements as possible, that General Ironside ordered the Onega Detachment to move against Bolshie Ozerki from the west. That same night, one of the York companies left the Onega Detachment and followed an unreconnoitred trail through the forest to strike again the hostile village from the north at daybreak; but long before dawn, became confused in the darkness and was hopelessly lost when the attack began on the road where another British company was to move against the village. A Polish company of Archangel volunteers, who were to execute a corresponding south flank movement, came from Chekuevo too late, so that the brunt of the fight fell upon the unsupported Yorks on the road.