Between us and the Russian infantry there intervened a depression in the ground, a little deeper than that which separates Mont St. Jean from Belle Alliance; but what enhanced the value of this ground to our foes was the fact that their batteries in the rear, planted as they were on the electric light elevations overlooking the terrain, could fire over the heads of their infantry till the latter was pretty well within storming distance of our position, much in the same way as the guns of the 6th Division had been able to do the other day on the occasion of our first engagement, which resulted in the capture of Alexandrovo.
The Russians advanced against us with a steady, stolid courage worthy of the men who had essayed to capture the Sand Bag Battery and storm the redoubts of Plevna; and as the fitful flashes of the electric light revealed to us, for a few moments at a time, their dense battalions advancing and deploying into the fighting-lines demanded by modern tactics and the rules of fire-discipline, I could not help thinking of that cold and dark November morning when, without the aid of the electric light, they crowded to their doom, with the same dreadnought and devoted bravery, up the slippery slopes of Inkerman.
It was not long before the roar of the cannon on both sides became outvoiced almost by the reverberating rattle of musketry, which was all the more bewildering, as only the very faintest flashes of flame from the smokeless powder of both sides served to indicate the exact position of the opposing lines of infantry fire; and it was only when a new turn of the electric light (which, by-the-bye, might have changed the course of Egyptian history, had Arabi enjoyed the advantage of it at Tel-el-Kebir) registered the progress of the Russian advance, that we could make out the development of a battle in which unity of command was simply impossible, and each captain had to be his own general officer. The development of a modern battle is a very slow process, and this one was doubly so from the fact, due to the utter darkness in which each side was occasionally enveloped, that there was much random and ineffective firing on both parts. But there came a point of time in the Russian advance when the manipulators of their electric lights found it impossible to illumine our lines without also including the Russians within the Asmodean sweep of their rays, and then it was that our men, seizing their opportunity, plied their magazine rifles with infernal industry and effect.
But this opportunity did not last long, for suddenly the four midnight suns of Science, of far more dazzling splendour than the tourist orbs of the North Cape, which had been rendering possible the work of slaughter, disappeared from our firmament as completely as if they had been blazing torches plunged into a pool of ink; and their disappearance was followed by a brief period of almost painful silence which overspread the broad and lengthy field of battle.
We never doubted that this pall of pitchy darkness had thus been suddenly thrown around the battlefield to enable our foes to make another rush towards us, unimpeded by the accurate aim of shell and bullet; and a curious thrill, half of pleasure, half of undefined dread, went shooting through our veins when, as we were listening intently, peering into the impenetrable darkness beyond, our ears were struck by a faint peculiar tinkling as if of jangled metal rods, and the meaning thereof at once became clear to us. The Russians were fixing bayonets, preparatory to a charge on our position; and the sound was quickly answered by the loud and stern command: ‘Aufpflanzen!’ which ran all along our lines, and was likewise followed by a repetition, on our side, of the clinking and sharp clicking above alluded to.
Scarcely had silence in the ranks been again restored when another order: ‘Load for magazine-fire!’ rang out in stentorian tones, and at the same time, almost, the electric lights were again flashed full upon us, converting darkness into open day, and showing us the Russians striding swiftly towards us in successive irregular waves of ever-increasing volume, the nearest to us being hardly more than a hundred and fifty yards off. On they came firing all the way, equally regardless of the awful volcanoes of shrapnel which our batteries belched forth against them and of the terrific torrent of our small-bore bullets, aimed from behind the comparative shelter of field-trench parapets, which incessantly tore through their stolid ranks, mowing them down and massacring them by thousands. It was impossible for them to preserve anything like their proper formation under these trying circumstances, and disorder was spreading rapidly among their irregular ranks; but the swaying, struggling masses of the grey and green-coated soldiery of the Czar still came surging stubbornly up the slope, ever lessening the distance between them and our entrenchments, till the moment at last seemed come when they should hurl themselves upon us and try conclusions with the cold steel. And then, as if by instinct more than pre-concert, the whole surging masses raised a tremendous shout, and rushed full upon us with the bayonet.
But when only about twenty paces in front of us, their onward career was suddenly stopped short by some invisible barrier, which made them crowd upon each other like penned cattle, passive targets for the bullets of our repeating rifles that rained upon them thick and fast as hail, knocking them over like so many rabbits in a ride. This barrier, which thus strangely stemmed the rush of their storming tide, was composed of fencing wire of several coils, strongly stretched and impaled, which had been run along all the front of our entrenched lines as an additional measure of defence against the contingency of such an attack, and formed one of the most recent innovations in the field warfare of the Germans—an innovation which had commended itself to the Emperor, who himself put it to a practical and approved test at the autumn manœuvres of last year.
A yell of savage fury rose from the storming columns of the Russians, who had thus been stopped in their career and baulked of their objective in this most bloody and calamitous manner; and though the impact of succeeding waves of assailants soon levelled all the wire fencing with the ground, still the mass momentum of their charge had been diminished, their dogged courage had also been shaken by the busy doings of Death among their huddled ranks during their temporary check; but worst of all, before the Russians could recover the force of their forward rush, the Germans were out of their entrenchments and upon them with the bayonet.
A few moments of grim and ghastly hand-to-hand fighting then ensued—and let it never after this be said that the bayonet has been entirely supplanted by the bullet; but I had only time to observe that Gourko’s brave,—I was almost going to say indomitable,—troops were beginning to waver, to go down, to yield before the forceful push of the Teutonic pike, when suddenly again the electric lights of the Russians were turned off, and the dark curtain of night, in mercy to the vanquished, fell upon the bloody drama.
Pursuit by the Germans in such circumstances was quite impossible, but, recovering their ranks with singular precision, they sent salvo after salvo of artillery and musketry in the direction of the retreating foe, until the ‘Cease firing’ was sounded all along our victorious line as the faint and startled dawn began to blush—as if for very shame at such infernal work; and the bugle-sounds were supplemented by the shrill whistles of the company commanders, reminding me of the days when I loved to listen to the clear piping of the darting water-ousel among the rocky streams of the Grampians, amid scenes unsullied by the bloody hand of war.