"Eighty thousand prisoners by to-night--I think," added Rittmeister Tzschirner. He had just left the office of the Kommandant in Augustowo, a little gray building, the walls chipped with shrapnel. From the East rolled the steady boom of the guns; the battle was two miles away. "I have just looked at his map," continued Tzschirner, and he glanced at his watch. "One o'clock.... I think by to-night we make eighty thousand prisoners--perhaps not so many, _naturlich_. But from the position of the lines, I think yes.... And now I think I can take you to the battle. You wish?" Above the bluish walls of Augustowo the tops of the green pines laid against a leaden sky. Over there was the battle, the dense forest an impenetrable curtain, through which reverberated the pang of shrapnel and the roar of _grenaten_. "I must tell you," hesitated Tzschirner, as our motor, lurching through the mud of Augustowo, turned toward the woods. "It is very dangerous. The forest is filled with Russians and they will shoot. It may not be agreeable." "Let's have a try at it," I suggested. The Rittmeister smiled. "Seyring!" he called to the red haired mechanician. "_Fertig zu feuer!_ Be ready to fire. Gelbricke!" and he tapped the chauffeur. "If I say turn back, turn instantly and drive fast!" With a smile he turned to me. "Mr. Fox," he said, "you know how to use German rifle, do you not?" Then making a turn to the left, we entered a better road that tunneled away through the trees. "This is the road to Grodno," said Tzschirner, "the Russian fortress. Our soldiers make their advance here." We rattled across a wooden bridge that the German pioneers had thrown on top of a dynamited ruin across the Augustowo Canal. The road dipped to a lower level, that pointed toward Grodno, a straight brown band finally seeming to terminate where rows of distant pines, meeting like converging railway tracks, closed across the last thin slit of sky. At a slower pace, as though sensing danger, the car passed into the woods. There came a German soldier. He was on foot. He had no rifle and his right hand squeezed the left as though it were asleep and he would waken it. But as we drew near, he dropped the left hand as though it were of no importance--and I saw the blood spread all over it--and the right hand flashed to his cap. "Where," asked the Rittmeister, returning the salute, "are the Russians?" "In the woods," said the soldier, and walked on; he was holding his hand again. Watching the woods, we drove slowly on, past the few huts, which are Bealobrzegi, until we heard a noise like a bunch of Japanese firecrackers confusedly exploding in the woods. "The Russians!" I exclaimed. "And our soldiers," added Tzschirner. "Our men are going through the forest hunting them down."