They could see masses of Russian infantry threatening the French, gathered on the height, watch the puffs of smoke as the guns on either side sent their messengers of death, and the white smoke which hung over the fleet as the vessels of war threw their shells far over the heads of the French into the Russian masses.

Soon they heard the louder roar which proclaimed that the main body of the French army were in action, and burning with impatience to begin, the men strode along to take their share in the fight.

Until within a few hundred yards of the river the troops could see nothing of it, nor the village on its banks, for the ground dipped sharply.

Before they reached the brow twelve Russian guns, placed on rising ground some 300 yards beyond the river, opened upon them.
"People may say what they like," Harry Archer said to his captain, "but a cannon-ball makes a horribly unpleasant row.

It wouldn't be half as bad if they would but come silently." As he spoke a round shot struck down two men a few files to his right.
They were the first who fell in the 33d.
"Steady, lads, steady," shouted the officers, and as regularly as if on field-day, the English troops advanced.