The number of corpses on the road rapidly increased, and in consequence it was difficult to breathe, from the offensive smell.
The time had certainly come to ask for men to collect the dead.
RUSSIAN DEAD ON 203 METRE HILL AWAITING INTERMENT.
p. 247]
I sent a report of all that had taken place, and then went with the commandant and some other officers to our observation position near the dressing station, where there was an enormous number of wounded, keeping the surgeons hard at work.
I remember as if it were to-day that I had turned with my face to the rear and was looking at the crowd of men who were standing near the lower dressing station, and wondering where they all came from. Suddenly there was a fearful explosion, and I was thrown with terrific force to the ground. The shock was so great, that for a time I was stunned. When I at last got up, scattering the earth which covered me, there in front was a great pile of bodies, and beneath them all lay the commandant, Major Stempnevski. All were motionless, but ghastly gasping sounds and heartrending groans filled the air. I turned round. At my feet were several dead, and on them, face downwards, lay Acting Ensign Reishetov and the sergeant-major of the 2nd Company, while a young naval mechanic was sitting on the ground, crying aloud with pain and clutching with both hands his left side. Others, like myself, were now coming to themselves, and we began to separate the dead from the wounded. An assistant-surgeon ran up to the young mechanic and carried him down, and we put Major Stempnevski into the splinter-proof. He was conscious. Blood was pouring from his head and face.
“Where are you hurt, Stanislav Youlianovitch?” I said to him; and he replied: “My back is injured, and I can’t breathe.”
“They will take you down below,” I said.
“No, no; wait till the firing has slackened.”