“At daybreak positions were assigned to us, and the commander of the brigade handed us a plan of the action of our artillery. From that moment horror possessed our souls. It was not anxiety for ourselves or fear of the enemy, but a feeling of awe in the face of something unknown. At six o’clock we opened fire at a mark which we could not distinguish, but which we understood to be the enemy. “Towards midday we were informed that the German cavalry was attempting to envelop our right wing, and were ordered in that direction. Having occupied our new position we waited. Suddenly we see the enemy coming, and at the same time he opens fire on us. We turn our guns upon him, and I give the order to fire. I myself feel that I am in a kind of nightmare. Our battery officers begin to melt away. I see that the Germans are developing their attack. First one regiment appears, and then another. I direct the guns and pour a volley of projectiles right into the thick of the first regiment. Then a second volley, and a third. I see how they fall among the men, and can even discern the severed limbs of the dead flying into the air after the explosion. “One of the enemy’s regiments is annihilated. Then a second one. All this time I am pouring missiles in among them. But now the nervous feeling has left me. My soul is filled with hate, and I continue to shoot at the enemy without the least feeling of pity. “Yet still the enemy is advancing, rushing forward and lying down in turns. I do not understand his tactics, but what are they to me? It is enough for me that I am occupying a favourable position and mowing him down like a strong man with a scythe in a clover field. “During the first night after the battle I could not sleep a wink. All the time my mind was filled with pictures of the battlefield. I saw German regiments approaching, and myself firing right into the thick of them. Heads, arms, legs, and whole bodies of men were being flung high into the air. It was a dreadful vision. “I was in four battles. When the second began I went into it like an automaton. Only your muscles are taxed. All the rest of your being seems paralyzed. So complete is the suspension of the sensory processes that I never felt my wound. All I remember is that a feeling of giddiness came over me, and my head began to swim. Then I swooned to the ground, and was picked up by the Medical Corps and carried to the rear.” II THE FOUR DAYS’ BATTLE NEAR MONS “_And turning to his men, Quoth our brave Henry then, ‘Though they be one to ten, Be not amazed.’_” MICHAEL DRAYTON.