"While we watched the Russians seemed to tire of shooting holes in an inoffensive hill. They began to try chance shots to the right and to the left. It wasn't many minutes before I realized that, standing near a battery, the execution of which must have been noted on the Russian side, I had a fine chance of experiencing shrapnel bursting overhead. It was a queer sensation to peer through field glasses and see the Russian shells veer a few hundred feet to the right. I saw one strike a windmill, shattering the long arms and crumpling it over in a slow burning heap. Then we beat a retreat, further toward the center.
"We had been standing behind a slight declivity. I hadn't caught a glimpse of the enemy. Shells were the only things that apprised us of the Russian nearness. But as we passed out on an open field, considerably out of range of the field guns, I could see occasional flashes that bespoke field pieces, a mile or so away.
RUSSIAN INFANTRY CHARGES
"Back behind us, on the extreme left, I was told the Russians were attacking the German trenches by an infantry charge, the German field telephone service having apprised the commanders along the front. With glasses we could see a faint line of what must have been the Russian infantry rushing across the open fields.
"We passed on to the center, going slightly to the rear for horses. As we arrived at the right wing we witnessed the last of a Russian infantry advance at that end. The wave of Russians had swept nearly to the German trenches, situated between two sections of field artillery, and there had been repulsed. Russians were smeared across in front of these pits, dead, dying, or wounded—cut down by the terrible spray of German machine guns.
"I got up to the trenches as the German fire slackened because of the lack of targets. The Russians had gone back. Strewn in the trenches were countless empty shells, the bullets of which had, as it looked to inexpert eyes, slain thousands. As a matter of fact, there were hundreds of dead in the field ahead.
GUN BARRELS SIZZLING HOT
"German infantrymen spat on their rapid firers as we reached the trench and delightedly called our attention to the sizzle that told how hot the barrels were from the firing.
"The men stretched their cramped limbs, helped a few wounded to the rear, and waited for breakfast. It was not long forthcoming. Small lines of men struggling along tinder steaming buckets came hurrying up to the accompaniment of cheers and shouts. They bore soup that the men in the trenches gulped down ravenously. Meanwhile men with the white brassard and the red Geneva cross were busy out in the open, lending succor to the Russian wounded. The battle seemed to have come to a sudden halt.
"But even as I was getting soup, the artillery fusillade broke forth again. From 9 o'clock to noon the Russians hurled their heavy shells at the German trenches and the German guns. The German batteries replied slowly.