The midshipmen fired their guns alternately as fast as they could load, the Poles working as steadily and coolly as if they had been long-trained artillerymen.
Several times the Russians advanced to within twenty yards of the defences, but each time, shattered by the fire of grape-shot and by the storm of bullets from the abattis, they recoiled.

In vain they flung themselves upon the trees and tried to hew a way through them.
In vain the officers called upon them to gather themselves together and carry the battery at a rush.

Receiving no aid from their own artillery, which, mingled in the throng of infantry, were helpless, shaken by the shouts of the assailants, and by the battle raging in their rear which told them their retreat was menaced, the Russians lost heart and began to fall back.

Then, retaining only fifty men as a guard to the battery, the midshipmen ordered the rest of the defenders of the abattis to move forward among the trees on the flanks of the Russians, keeping up a constant fire, until they joined the main body in their attack on the Russian rear.
In the battery now they could see little of what was going forward.
The woods were full of dense smoke.

The whole Russian column as it fell back was maintaining a wild fire at random into the bushes around them.
But though the lads could see nothing, the road in front afforded them a sure guide for their aim, and ceaselessly the guns kept up their fire into the retreating mass of Russians.
For half an hour the roar of guns continued unabated, and then, as it died away, the triumphant shouts of the Pole told them that the victory was won, and that the Russian column, defeated and shattered, had retired from the forest and gained the open country beyond.