for me, I am all right."
The old colonel stood like a statue of bronze. His face had become
suddenly ashen gray. He looked at the doctor and tried to catch his
expression. The doctor seemed grave. But the young man urged
us on, saying, "Go on, go on, I'll be all right to-morrow." The whole
incident had not lasted more than five minutes, barely longer than it
takes to write it. The colonel mounted his horse, sternly
commanding us to march forward, but the light had died out of his
eyes.

Within the next ten minutes a hail of shrapnel was greeting us, but
hardly any one of us was conscious of it, so terribly and deeply were
we affected by the scene of tragedy that had just been enacted
before us. I remember foolishly mumbling something to the silent
man riding next to me, something about the power of recuperation
of youth, about the comparative harmlessness of the pointed,
steelmantled rifle bullets which on account of their terrific percussion
make small clean wounds and rarely cause splintering of the bone
or blood poisoning. I remember saying that I had quite a medical
knowledge and that it seemed to me that his son was not mortally
wounded. But he knew better. He never said a word, only, a few
minutes later, "He was my only hope"; and I can't express how
ominous that word "was" sounded to me. But just then the
command to deploy was given and the excitement that followed
drowned for the time being all melancholy thoughts. We quickly
ascended the hill where the isolated detachment of Austrians had
kept the Russians at bay for fully twenty-four hours and opened fire
on the enemy, while the second regiment tried to turn his left flank.
The Russians slowly fell back but we followed them, and a sort of
running fight ensued, during which my regiment lost about fifty--
dead and wounded. The Russians temporarily resisted again, but
soon the pressure from our other regiment on their flank began to
be felt and they fled rather disorderly, leaving two machine guns,
some ammunition, and four carriages full of provisions in our hands,
while the regiment which had executed the flanking movement took
two hundred and forty prisoners.

Around eight o'clock at night the fight was stopped for want of light,
and we took up our newly acquired positions, entrenched them well,
and began to make ready for the night. Orders for outpost duty
were given and the officers were again called to the brigadier-
colonel, who in a few w