Up to now we had heard no sounds of battle; but on the 16th, at dawn, the noise of heavy firing was audible a long way ahead. By order of a Staff Officer, we hurried along in the direction of this sound; but by nightfall it was not perceptibly nearer, though we met many small detachments of cavalry and infantry, who had evidently passed through a rough experience. Many were wounded and bandaged; many more had undressed hurts which were still bleeding. Several were being led, or carried, on the backs of comrades; and soon we began to pass long strings of waggons full of injured, which left long trails of blood on the road. Then we came to a village where artillery were halted, and were ordered to assist in putting the houses into a state of defence. The poor people of the place had already fled, probably long previously. I never heard the name of this village; none of our people knew it: and there was a sad lack of maps. Few, except officers of rank and those on the Staff, possessed them; and the few I saw in the possession of subaltern officers were very defective, and did not give the names of more than a third of the places we found on the ground. A good map which I obtained with much trouble at Skyermevice was taken from me; and, acting on the advice of a friend, I did not attempt to obtain another. The possession of such papers was liable to be misinterpreted; and the spy-fever was a complaint not altogether unknown in the Russian Army. During the night we learned that it was the Russian Tenth Army which had been very roughly handled by the foe. There was said to have been more than a week's incessant fighting; and the exhausted appearance of the retreating troops bore out the truth of the statement. They had with them a great many wounded; and their general aspect showed that their losses must have been terrible. Their depleted ranks proved that. Probably a third of the entire army had perished, or been captured. The defeat was the more galling, as it was asserted that the Germans who had inflicted it were boys, and a scratch lot of invalids who were supposed to have been finally discharged from service in the Prussian Army: and this rabble lot was commanded by the Kaiser himself. I could hardly believe this last assertion, as I did not believe William had got a victory in him. Some of the retreating troops, who had been in reserve, and were not much shaken, stopped to share in the defence of the position we had taken up. We got well under cover in spite of the hard frost; but there was not much barbed wire available for the outer defences.