He went on, therefore, sitting in the snow all stained with his blood, and even asked for more cartridges when he had fired his own. The Adjutant-Major, seeing that his orders were disregarded, came himself with a message from the Colonel. But our men, now perfectly desperate, took no notice, and still continued to fire. The Russians, seeing that there was no hope for them, and probably having no more ammunition, tried to rush out all together from the building, where they were fast getting roasted; but our men forced them back. They made a second attempt, not being able to endure their position, but scarcely had a few of their number reached the yard, when the building collapsed on the rest, more than forty of them perishing in the flames, and those in the yard being crushed as well.
When this was over, we collected our wounded together, and gathered round the Colonel with loaded weapons, waiting for daybreak. All this time the rattle of musket-shots was going on continually round us, mingled with the groans of the wounded and the dying. There is nothing more terrible than a battle at night, when often fatal mistakes take place.
In this way we waited for the light. As soon as it appeared, we looked about us, and could see the result of the night's fighting. The whole ground we had been over was strewn with the wounded and dying. I saw the man who had tried to kill me, and who was not yet dead, so I placed him more comfortably away from the white horse near which he had fallen. All the houses in the village (either Kircova or Malierva) and the whole of the Russian camp were covered with half-burnt corpses. M. Gilet had his leg broken by a ball, and died a few days afterwards. The sharp-shooters (skirmishers) and the light companies lost more men than we.
During the morning I met Captain Débonnez, who came from my country and commanded a company in the Guards. He was looking for me to see if I were all safe. He said he had lost the third of his company, besides a Sub-Lieutenant and his Sergeant-Major.
After this bloody contest the Russians abandoned their positions without going very far off, and we remained on the battlefield during the day and night of the 16th and 17th, keeping on the qui-vive, however, all the time, neither being able to rest a moment nor even to warm ourselves.
During the day, while we were all talking together of our miserable discomfort and of the night's battle, the Adjutant-Major, Delaître, came up. He was the worst man I have ever known and the cruellest, doing wrong for the mere pleasure of doing it. He began to talk, and, greatly to our surprise, seemed much troubled by Béloque's tragic death.
'Poor Béloque!' he said; 'I am very sorry I ever behaved badly to him.'
Just then a voice in my ear (what voice I never knew) said:
'He will die very soon.'
Others heard it also. He seemed sincerely sorry for all his bad behaviour to those under him, especially to us non-commissioned officers. I do not think there was a man in the regiment who would not have rejoiced to see him carried off by a bullet. We called him Peter the Cruel.