This was the evening after his conversation with Semyonov.

Quite suddenly the battle had caught us into its arms again.

It was raging now in the woods to the right of us, woods on the further side of the Nestor, situated on a tributary.

I will quote now directly from his diary: As our line of carts crossed the great river I could hear the muffled "brum-brum" of the cannons and "tap-tap-tap" of the machine-guns now so conventionally familiar.

Nikitin was lying in silence at my side.