Meanwhile the sanitars had discovered one of our own soldiers: this man, who had been sitting under a hedge and listening to the Austrian cannon with very uncomfortable feelings, told them of the affair.

At three o'clock that afternoon our Otriad had been informed that it must retreat "within half an hour." Not only our own Sixty-Fifth Division, but the whole of the Ninth Army was retreating "within half an hour." Moreover the Austrians were advancing "a verst a minute." By four o'clock the whole of our Otriad had disappeared, leaving only this soldier to inform us that we must move on at once to T---- or S----, twenty or thirty versts distant.
"Retreating!" cried Trenchard.

"But we were winning! We'd just won a battle!" "_Tak totchno!_" said the soldier gravely, "Twenty versts! the horses won't do it, your Honour!" "They've got to do it!" said Trenchard sharply, and the echo of the Austrian cannon, again as it seemed quite close at hand, emphasised his words.

Except for this the silence of the world around them was eerie; only far away they seemed to hear the persistent rumble of carts on the road.
"They're gone! They're all gone! We're left last of all!" and "The Austrians advancing a verst a minute!" He took a last look at the house which had seemed yesterday so absolutely to belong to them and now was already making preparations for its new guests.

As he gazed he thought of his agony in that field below the house.