By this time it was beginning to get dusk; and as the firing showed no signs of diminution, I made my way back to Plevna as fast as I could go, in the full conviction that it was all up with us, and that the Russians would be in the town soon after me. What actually happened was this. The Russians took our first line of trenches, when Osman Pasha, seeing that the northern attack had died out, ordered down two fresh regiments along the Nicopolis road to reinforce the position. The men were quite fresh, and they "doubled" the whole way, covering the intervening two miles in about twelve minutes, and arriving just in time to bar the farther advance of the Russians, who fell back after some desperate hand-to-hand fighting. When I reached the town, the bullets were falling pretty thickly in the streets, showing that the Russians had penetrated unpleasantly close. I saw a Bulgarian coming out of a house with a bucket to fill it with water from a small fountain in the middle of the street; but before he reached the fountain he fell dead drilled by a rifle-ball. Coming to the hospital, I was soon up to my neck in work. Gradually the firing died away, and all night long the wounded kept coming in, some walking and others in arabas. We had thirty-seven medical men on the staff at this time, and there was plenty for all to do. No one knew exactly what had happened; and I remember telling several of the wounded men, who inquired how the day had gone, that we had been beaten. Later on, however, I found that we had won a great victory, and that the Russians had been decisively beaten all along the line; Krüdener's and Schahoffskoi's columns having suffered terrible loss, while Skobeleff who had been fighting on the Green Hills, had retired his force in good order, and with lighter loss. The Russian total loss was given as one hundred and sixty-nine officers, and seven thousand one hundred and thirty-six men, or about one-fourth of the total force. Even this figure, however, is believed to be largely under-estimated. The Turkish loss was about eight hundred killed and nine hundred wounded. In spite of this splendid victory, the great chance of the campaign was missed owing to the want of cavalry. If we had had a strong body of cavalry, scarcely a Russian would have reached the Danube alive; and even as it was the panic among the Russians at Sistova was so great that a rush was made upon the bridge, and many waggons were actually pushed over into the river by the crowding fugitives. As for my little troop of cavalry with whom I made that desperate charge and still more desperate retreat, it had been absolutely decimated, though Mustapha Bey the colonel, Czetwertinski the captain, and the Turkish lieutenant, all escaped as fortunately as myself.