Meanwhile let us see what had been happening at the redoubts. Attack after attack was delivered through the night without success; and at last, at half-past ten a.m., a vigorous assault, backed up with a telling shell fire, shook the defence, and the Russians began to pour out of Number 1 redoubt, their example being followed by those in the adjoining work. Some of the foremost Turks had already penetrated into the redoubts; but they were sacrificed in vain, for Skobeleff, with his extraordinary personal magnetism and great courage, rallied his men again, and staved off the inevitable moment a little longer. I got away from the hospital at three o'clock in the afternoon, and rode out towards the redoubts where the Russians were sustaining a last furious assault by our troops under Tewfik Bey. As I neared the redoubts this assault was at its height, and this time the Turkish troops would not be denied. The columns deployed under fire and formed lines of skirmishers, who received continuous support from fresh accessions of men behind, carrying the assault forward in successive waves. Soon the Turks were over the parapet once more, cutting down the Russian defenders, and driving the remainder out on the other side and down the slope again towards their own trenches on the Green Hills. Thus the third battle of Plevna ended, after five days' fighting, in the complete defeat of the Russians, who lost nearly twenty thousand men in the long bloody struggle, and gained nothing but the Grivitza redoubt, which was absolutely no use to them, and which fell mainly through the instrumentality of the Roumanian, not the Russian, troops. It is amusing to observe how the Russian official documents describe the result. "The points chosen for attack," we read, "were the following: the redoubt of Grivitza, the works in the centre opposite the heights of Radishevo, and the third crest of the Montagnes Vertes. After superhuman efforts and enormous losses, our troops carried the first and last of these points. The Grivitza redoubt and two of the redoubts south of Plevna were in our possession; as to the central works, our troops, notwithstanding that they showed a bravery beyond all praise, could not carry them. Consequently we had obtained some partial successes; but fresh troops were necessary to profit by our gains, and these were not forthcoming. It was decided, therefore, to keep the Grivitza redoubt, and to abandon the Montagnes Vertes." When I think of that last tremendous charge of the Turkish infantry, when the cry of "La ilaha illallah Mohammed Rasul Allah!" rent the air and rang from one redoubt to the other, as it went like the flame in a train of gunpowder round the whole circuit of the defences, I cannot help smiling at the polite official statement, "It was decided to abandon the Montagnes Vertes."