This night fight was short and sharp. It cost the Germans another 2,000 men, and a good licking; and our men about half that number of casualties, and the increased confidence engendered of another victory. The Germans had no sooner run back to their own lines than their artillery sought to inflict on us the punishment which their infantry could not do. They opened a tremendous cannonade; it being calculated that 500 guns were playing on our trenches for nearly six hours. Shells were exploding twenty or thirty at a time, and sometimes quite in showers. The effect was terrific. The air was full of smoke, and clouds of dirt and mud from the trenches blown to pieces; but the loss of life was not great. The section of trench which the enemy had made their objective did not, as I have said, exceed a breadth of two versts; and on this narrow front they concentrated all their efforts and all their fire, though some of the last-named came from flanking batteries situated a long way off. Each gun fired, on an average, a shot a minute: consequently a shell fell on every seven linear yards of our position sixty times an hour. Of course some fell short, others went over the trenches, and some burst high in the air; but still the fact remains that every minute a shell came in a section of our lines which was less than seven yards wide. During the six hours that the bombardment lasted the scene was like that of an inferno: and the noise so great that the men were glad to stop up their ears with any substance they could find. Many pulled grass from beneath the snow and used it for this purpose. The wire entanglement was pretty well blown to pieces, curled up and rolled into heaps which were knocked right over the trenches, and sometimes into them, where it entangled our own men, and gave them much trouble. The number of men killed by this apparently terrible bombardment was fifty, and twice that number wounded. An hour before dawn the Germans attempted an assault, rushing towards us in great strength, and in their usual close formation; but they were stopped by our artillery fire, and turned before they reached the edge of the first trench, and fled in a panic. I saw our guns cutting great lanes in the wavering masses; but they were soon out of sight, and the dimness of the light probably saved them from more considerable losses. We had reasons for thinking that the commanders of this host were unable to get their men to make a second assault, and were obliged to send to another part of their line for fresh troops. There was some commotion in their ranks; and afterwards we could hear their bands playing merry tunes, probably to keep up the spirits of the men.