And when light did come the Germans were not long in discovering us; nor were we in perceiving that there was a strong line of entrenchments in front of us occupied by our forces. No doubt the men whose places we had taken had gone forward to strengthen this line. The enemy was shelling it vigorously, and devoting no small part of their attention to us; and some of the projectiles which fell amongst us were enormous in size, and terrific in sound when they exploded; but they did not cause very appalling casualties. Sometimes a huge cloud of dust and black smoke rose to a great height, and obscured the view; but when it cleared away, though there might be a large hole in the ground, or 20 yards of trench blown clean away, there were never more than two or three dead and wounded. Once or twice an unfortunate man disappeared entirely, blown to atoms. I should scarcely have realized what the fate of these men was had not one of them stood close to me; and I noticed, directly after the explosion, that I was covered with minute spots of blood, none of them bigger than a pin's head. This man's body acted as a shield to me and saved my life. The hot blast of the shell momentarily stopped my breathing, and gave me a tremendous shock; but I was not much hurt. Two men on the other side were instantly killed, one of them being shockingly mutilated. Strange how these things are ordained! If I had not been bending at the moment to insert a cartridge in my rifle, I should probably have made a fourth victim.
These big shells were certainly more than a foot in diameter. One which fell outside the trench, and did not explode, appeared to be about 15 inches in diameter, and a yard long. A good many of these big shells were fired at us; but most of the projectiles were from field artillery, each weighing 16 or 18 pounds only.
On the side of the Russians I did not see any gun bigger than a 6-inch; but our artillery was well served, did great execution, and put many of the German guns out of action. Motor-driven batteries were used on both sides; and from what I saw of the action of guns so mounted, I think they must soon largely supplant horse-drawn batteries, in open, flat countries at least. People who love horses will be glad of this: for artillery horses suffer frightfully in action; and it is not always possible to put them out of their misery quickly.
When men are in trenches they see little of one another except their immediate neighbours; but one gets to know the signs which indicate anything unusual, even in these rat-burrows; and about ten o'clock we became aware that the men in the advanced trenches were on the alert. We could see nothing; but the terrific rifle-fire told its own story; and above the almost deafening rattle of the musketry we could hear the shouts of the Germans, and the counter-cheers of our own men as the enemy retired. The firing did not last longer than ten minutes. In the excitement of the moment many of the men in the second line crowded out of their trenches to endeavour to see what was going on; and the officers (much reduced in number, as I have already hinted) had great difficulty in getting them to return to cover. The Russian soldier is usually a most docile and obedient creature; but I never saw him in a state of so great excitement as on this day. Rumour travelled from rank to rank, that on the issue of the fight depended the fate of Warsaw: and Warsaw is to the Poles, of whom there were thousands in this part of the field, almost a sacred place. But Pole, or Russ, all were alike in their eagerness to save the capital of Poland from the humiliation of the hated German's tread. I do not know if the fact is quite realized in England; but the Russian (including the Pole, and, especially, the Cossack) is Asiatic in everything except his birth; and, like all Asiatics, is extremely devout and extremely bigoted: therefore he is a fanatic: and this present war, affecting, as it does, the liberty of his country, is to him a sacred war—a contest for the safety of his religion, and sanctified by the blessings of his priests. I emphasize this point: so far as the Russian is concerned the war now devastating Europe is a religious war. He will fight till he wins: and I am confident that the victory will greatly strengthen and consolidate the Muscovite Empire. Never before have the Pole and the Russ stood side by side as they are standing now: never before have they fought for a common cause and bled together for it; never before stood up to face a danger as brethren. This war will make Russian and Pole one people. I am quite convinced of it. Fifty years ago Polish women stood up with the men to fight the Russian oppressor: in this present desperate struggle they have fought side by side with the former oppressor. Not twenty yards from me, in the trenches before Skyermevice, two sturdy Amazons handled rifle and bayonet (weapons dropped by dead soldiers) with the strength and skill of old soldiers; and others in the rear attended Russian wounded with the same care and attention they lavished upon their fathers and brothers.
About an hour after the first attack, a second was made on our position by the Germans: and this was even more fierce and determined than the previous affair. Forced on by pressure from the rear, the first ranks of the enemy were actually precipitated into the trenches, and promptly bayoneted by our men. So great was the number thus destroyed that the trench was actually filled up in several places, a thing that occurred more than once on previous occasions.
This was one of the most determined efforts the Germans made to break the Russian line by sheer weight of numbers. The rear columns of the enemy determinedly forced the leading companies on. I saw several entire companies absolutely forced on to the Russian bayonets where they perished to the last man. As on other similar occasions, it was not a fight, but a massacre. The imprisoned Germans, sandwiched between their own men and ours, and unable to escape, threw down their arms in sections and begged for mercy. They put their hands above their heads; went down on their knees, in some cases flung themselves prostrate, and in others clung convulsively to the legs of their destroyers; but in every case met the same fate: they were stabbed through and through. Some few of them, including most of the officers, fought madly for their lives: it only delayed their fate a few moments.
The first company down, that which had forced it forward was compelled to take its place, and meet a similar tragical end. At least three companies of one battalion were destroyed one after another in this way: and I think the fourth company was very nearly annihilated; but I had my own affairs to look after just at that moment, and did not see the finish of that particular fight. The Germans were successful for a few minutes; and hurried men so fast into the gap they had made that we of the second line had to rush forward in parties without waiting for orders; and we saved the day by a hair's-breadth only.
I had kept close to Lieutenant Sawmine from the moment of our leaving Lovicz. As we closed with the enemy one of them forced the officer down, and was only prevented from bayoneting him by his clinging to the man's rifle. I sprang forward to save him, and was at once knocked down by a big German. I saw the point of the bayonet poised over me as he kept me down with his foot: my teeth closed tightly to meet the impending death: then suddenly I was free of that iron foot, and for the fifth time during this war covered with blood and brains which were not my own. One of the Russian soldiers who had followed us very closely had blown out the fellow's brains in the very nick of time. There really must be a little cherub who sits up aloft!
Sawmine was badly bruised, but not dangerously hurt; and together we pressed forward with seven or eight of our most devoted soldiers. There are always some men in a company who have more heart in their work than the others; and these are generally found close to their officers at critical moments: indeed, these are the men who do most of the hand-to-hand fighting, and to whom the victory is really due. One of the heroic fellows who formed our little band slew at least twenty of the enemy, I know; and very possibly double that number. I am sorry that I cannot record the name of this brave man, an honour to his country; nor that of others not his inferiors in bravery and self-sacrifice. Alas! none of them answered the roll-call when the three days desperate fighting was over. The bravest and the best—this is the treasure that war costs a country.
An English officer I am not going to name—I have the greatest respect for his name and his memory—wrote that two armed bodies of hostile men cannot remain on the same ground longer than sixty seconds at most. He made a mistake. Russians and Germans, on the occasion I am recording, fought like bulldogs for two solid hours without a break: and it was all bayonet work, scarcely a shot being fired. Then the Germans broke and fled, as I had seen them fly on previous defeats. There was no equivocation about it: they broke and ran, "bellowing like bull-calves."