“It was a hot August afternoon,” said the officer, our interpreter, “and the general of this division, a very determined man, resolved that the time had come to pierce the Russian center. So he chose the Seventh Regiment for the honor. It is the regiment to which the young Captain, wounded, and rescued by the Russian prisoner, of whom you were talking this morning, belonged. The Colonel made his plan of attack to have his command advance in three battalions, one on each flank and one in the front, the flanks to be the real attack, the front to be a feint. He, himself, commanded the feint, and, as usual, stayed in the rear. He sent his pioneer corps ahead to cut the barbed wire entanglements. They came back with the report of electric charge. They went forward again with insulated pincers and the regiment followed. All the way to the base of the hill, where we now are, they were almost unmolested, when they had expected to meet a fierce shell fire. This made them confident. But the Russian general, as we afterward learned, had ordered his men to reserve their fire till we got within close range, and then to give it to us with machine guns. So the two side battalions got safely well up to the slope, only to meet a terrible rain of steel from the top. The aim was so sure and the firing so heavy that nearly two-thirds of the command was mowed down at once. And the surprise we found was in their construction of the fort. Where we supposed our shells had opened gaps in it, we found it intact and our assaulting party unable to gain foothold, for the Russians had placed boiler plates under two feet of earth and the shells had had little or no effect on it. “When the Colonel learned all this he got mad, and instantly ordered the third Battalion to assault the front in force. He led the charge. A few of the men got in and fought hand to hand with the Russians. By that time another regiment had arrived with reinforcements, charged through the breach and overwhelmed the Russians, driving them out of the place. Though we are dominated by six of their batteries and have been assaulted by them eighteen times in attempts to recapture, we have ever since held it. The Colonel’s body was found under a heap of slain. In it were twenty-four bullet holes. His sword was broken at the hilt. His cap was missing and we searched for it a long time without success, until one day our lookout spied it between the lines. Certain death seemed the price for a man to try to get it, but as soon as the Colonel’s servant, a soldier, learned where it was, he volunteered and succeeded one dark night in regaining it, so the cremation could take place properly. If you wish now, follow the Captain into the fort and you will see the foremost trenches. Keep your heads low.”