The cannonading had meanwhile come perceptibly nearer, and in the midst of the dense forest we again came to a short halt.  Orders were given to load rifles, and upon emerging from the woods we fell into open formation, the men marching abreast, the companies at a distance of three hundred yards, with the battalions at a distance of about a thousand yards.  We were slowly entering the range of the Russian artillery.  About a mile ahead we could see numbers of harmless looking round clouds, looking like ringlets of smoke from a huge cigar, indicating the places where shrapnel had exploded in mid-air.  Our men, not being familiar with the spectacle, took no notice of it, but we officers knew its significance, and I daresay many a heart beat as wildly as mine did.

We marched on until the command was given for us to deploy, and soon afterwards the first shrapnel whizzed over our heads.  It did no harm, nor did the second and third, but the fourth hit three men in the battalion in the rear of us.  Our forward movement, however, was not interrupted, and we did not see or hear anything beyond two or three startled cries.  The next shell burst right ahead of us, sending a shower of bullets and steel fragments around.  A man about twenty yards to the right of my company, but not of my platoon, leaped into the air with an agonizing cry and fell in a heap, mortally wounded.  As we were advancing very swiftly, I only saw it as in a dream, while running by.  Then came in rapid succession four or five terrific explosions right over our heads, and I felt a sudden gust of cold wind strike my cheek as a big shell fragment came howling through the air, ploughing the ground viciously as it struck and sending a spray of sand around.

We ran on perhaps a quarter of a mile, when from the rear came the sharp command, “Down,” and the next second we lay on the ground, panting and exhausted, my heart almost bursting with the exertion.  Simultaneously the whizzing of a motor above our heads could be heard and we knew why the enemy’s shrapnel had so suddenly found us.  It was a Russian aeroplane which presumably had signaled our approach, together with the range, to the Russian gunners, and now was probably directing their fire and closely watching its effect, for a chain of hills was hiding us from the view of the enemy, who consequently had to fire indirectly.  The air craft hovered above our heads, but we were forbidden to fire at it, the extremely difficult, almost vertical aim promising little success, aside from the danger of our bullets falling back among us.  Our reserves in the rear had apparently sighted the air craft too, for soon we heard a volley of rifle fire from that direction and simultaneously the aeroplane arose and disappeared in the clouds.