'I expected all sorts of things, but nothing quite like this. It is almost incredible. I doubt if any of them will get out alive. They are still shooting hard, but their fire is all over the place, for they can no more see the enemy's batteries than I can; we are firing into the valleys more or less by guess-work. By Jove! how well the enemy mask their guns! And we----' At that moment a shell burst by a gun on the right. 'Take the wounded to the rear. Steady there, steady! This is nothing.' 'They are ranging on us, sir, and will open on us in a moment,' said the sergeant-major. 'Keep cool. They haven't touched us so far.' 'There's another.' It was now after nine, and the attack gradually developed. The enemy had indeed got the range to a nicety, and soon began to plaster us--a repetition of what had happened to the centre batteries. A field battery came into action on our right, but being instantly smothered by a murderous fire, the detachments were compelled to move down in rear of the hill under cover. Lieutenant-Colonel Laperoff, commanding the 2nd Battery of the 4th East Siberian Rifle Artillery Brigade, took his unit over to the left flank to a well-concealed bit of ground on the Tafashin Heights, whence he was able to open a useful fire on the gunboats. At this moment the gunboat _Bobr_ appeared in Khinoeze Bay, and crumpled up the enemy's left flank with enfilade fire. Its arrival and its comparatively successful fire had a wonderful effect just then upon us, for it awakened a feeble hope of a successful issue to the battle. We were at the centre of a circle, of which the enemy's guns composed the arc. While they were able, from their distributed position, to concentrate on to us, as a focus, we had to distribute our fire over a great distance in directions diverging like the sticks of a fan. The air-lines of the telephones were destroyed early in the battle, and all fire control or direction was impossible: each battery, under a storm of projectiles, replied spasmodically as it could. They fired because they felt obliged to, but the result was never visible, and so aim could not be corrected. Colonel Tretiakoff, who remained in No. 13 Battery, was helpless: he could not telephone, and most of the orderlies sent off by him never reached their destination: this battery was subjected to such an intense fire that it was impossible to work the guns until the _Bobr_ diverted the attention of the opposing artillery about 10 a.m., by which time all our batteries had suffered sorely. [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL TRETIAKOFF.]