We moved forward unopposed; Hentzi was saving his ammunition.
Of the conflict to the right and left I am not competent to speak; I know only the doings of our own regiment, and of the battalion led by Count Beula, which chance or fate brought close to us.
Concerning the Austrians, or rather Croats, who held the fortress, it would be unjust to attempt to belittle their stubborn bravery. At the beginning of the siege General Hentzi had made a proud boast, and no man ever fulfilled a vaunt more truly.
As the men with the scaling-ladders ran to plant their burdens, the great guns of the fortress boomed out, and instantly the place became like a babel.
Cries of rage and pain rent the air, almost drowning the rattle of the musketry and the roar of the cannon.
Through the smoke-cloud that shut out our view the white flashes pierced more and more quickly, as if the artillerymen were not giving themselves one moment's breathing space.
A man at my side exclaimed "Oh!" in a surprised sort of way, and dropped, while I barely understood he was dead.
A few paces farther a bursting shell knocked over half a dozen.
We were rapidly approaching the thick of the firing.
"Forward! forward!" cried our colonel cheerfully. "The safest place is at close quarters."