The leading battalions were ordered to rise up and advance over the ridge to attack. The order was

hailed with glad cheers, for the infantrymen had been chafing at their inaction, and the battalions, with a swift, swinging step, streamed forward through the glen and up the steep slope behind, marching in company columns, the rifle companies leading.

The artillery had heralded this movement with increased rapidity of fire, which was maintained to cover and aid the infantrymen when the latter had crossed the crest and were descending the slope and crossing the intervening valley to the assault of the Turkish position.

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Just before reaching the crest the battalions deployed into line at the double, and crossed it in this formation, breaking to pass, through the intervals, between the guns. The Turkish shells whistled through them as they advanced in line, and the men were already down in numbers, but the long, undulating line tramps steadily over the stubbles, and crashes through the undergrowth on the descent beyond. No skirmishing line is thrown out in advance. The fighting line remains the formation for a time, till what with impatience and what with men falling, it breaks into a ragged spray of humanity, and surges on swiftly, loosely, and with no close cohesion. The supports are close up, and run up into fighting line independently and eagerly. It is a veritable chase of fighting men impelled by a burning desire to get forward and come to close quarters with the enemy firing at them there from behind the shelter of the epaulment."

Presently all along the face of the advancing infantrymen burst forth flaring volleys of musketry fire.

The jagged line springs onward through the maize fields, gradually assuming a concave shape. The Turkish position is neared. The roll of rifle fire is incessant, yet dominated by the fiercer and louder turmoil of the artillery above. The ammunition waggons gallop up to the cannon with fresh fuel for the fire. The guns redouble the energy of their firing. The crackle of the musketry fire rises into a sharp peal. The clamour of the hurrahs of the fighting men comes back to us on the breeze, making the blood tingle with the excitement of the fray. A village is blazing on the left. The fell fury of the battle has entered on its maddest paroxysm. The supports that had remained behind lying just under the crest of the slope are pushed forward over the brow of the hill. The wounded begin to trickle back over the ridge. We can see the dead and the more severely wounded lying where they fall on the stubbles and amid the maize. The living wave of fighting men is pouring over them ever on and

on.

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The gallant gunners to the right and to the left of us stand to their work with a will. On the shellswept ridge the Turkish cannon fire begins to waver. In that earthwork over against us more supports stream down with a louder cheer into the Russian fighting line.

Suddenly the disconnected men are together. We can discern the officers signalling for the concentration by the waving of their swords. The distance is about a hundred yards. There is a wild rush, headed by the colonel of one of the regiments of the 32nd Division. The Turks in the shelter trench hold their ground, and fire steadily, and with terrible effect, into the advancing forces. The colonel's horse goes down, but

the colonel is on his feet in a second, and waving his sword, leads his men forward on foot. But only for a few paces. He staggers and falls. I heard afterwards he was killed.

We can hear the sound of wrath, half howl, half yell, with which his men, bayonets at the charge, rush on to avenge him. They are over the parapet and shelter trench, and in among the Turks like an avalanche. Not many Turks get a chance to run away from the gleaming bayonets, swayed by muscular Russian arms. The outer edge of the first position is

won.

The Russians are bad skirmishers. They despise cover, and give and take fire out in the open. They disdained to utilise against the main position, the cover afforded by the parapet of this shelter trench, but pushed on in broken order up the bare slope. In places they hung a little, for the infantry fire from the Turks was very deadly, and the slope was strewn with the fallen dead and wounded; but for the most part they advanced nimbly enough. Yet it took them half an hour from the shelter trench before they again converged and made their final rush at the main earthwork.

This time the Turks did not wait for the bayonet points, but with one final volley abandoned the work. We watched their huddled mass in the gardens and vineyard behind the position, cramming the narrow track between the trees to gain the shelter of their batteries in the rear of the second position.

1 A cheval, Fr. astride.

A converging fire, a fire directed to one central spot.

3 Deployed into line, &c., opened out into line and went off at a run.

Epaulment, the shoulder of the carthwork. (Fr. épaule shoulder.)

5 Concave shape, in the form of a bow or crescent, with the centre of the line bent back.

6 Fell, fierce, cruel, bloody.

THE BATTLE OF PLEVNA.

PART II.

(0 fell the first position of the Turks. But this position, in natural as in artificial strength, was child's play to the grim starkness 1 of the second on that isolated mamelon, there with the batteries on the swell behind it. Schackoskoy, however, determined to go for it, and his troops were not the men to baulk him.

*

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I can hardly say how it all happens; but all of a sudden the white smoke spurts forth and swarms of dark-clothed men are scrambling on. There is evidently a short but sharp struggle. Then one sees a swarm of men flying across the green of the vineyard. But they don't go far and prowl around the western and northern faces of the work rendering its occupation very precarious. The Turkish cannon from behind drops shells into it with singular precision.

As a matter of fact, the Russians occupied this, the second position of the Turks, but never held it. It was all but empty for a long time, and continuous fighting took place about its flanks.3

About six the Turks pressed forward a heavy mass of infantry for its recapture. Schackoskoy took a bold step, sending two batteries down into the first position he had taken to keep them in check. But the Turks were not to be denied, and in spite of the most determined fighting of the Russians, had reoccupied their second position before seven.

The First Brigade of the 35th Division had early inclined to the left, where the towers and houses of Plevna were visible. It was rash, for the brigade was exposing its right flank to the Turkish cannon astride

of the ridge, but the goal of Plevna was a keen temptation. There was no thoroughfare however. They would not give up, and they could not succeed. They charged again and again, and when they could charge no more from sheer fatigue, they stood and died, for they would not retire. The reserves came up, but only to swell the slaughter. And then the ammunition failed, for the carts had been left far behind, and all hope failed the most sanguine.*

Two companies of Russian infantry did indeed work round the right flank of the Turkish works, and dodge into the town of Plevna, but it was like entering the mouth of hell. On the heights all around, the cannon smoke spurted out, and the vineyard in the rear of the town was alive with Turks. They left after a very short visit.

And now all hope of success anywhere was dead, nor did a chance offer to make the best of defeat. Schackoskoy had not a man left to cover the retreat. The Turks struck without stint. They had the upper hand for once, and were determined to show that they knew how to make the most of it.

They advanced in swarms through the dusk and captured three Russian cannons before the batteries could be withdrawn. The Turkish shells began to whistle over the ridge where the Russian batteries had stood and fall into the village behind, now crammed with wounded. The streams of wounded wending their painful way over the ridge were incessant. The badly wounded mostly lay where they fell.

Lingering there on the ridge till the moon rose, the staff could hear from down below on the still night air the cries of pain, the entreaties for mercy, and the vells of bloodthirsty fanatical triumph. It was indeed

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