One instance of the savagery with which the conflict was conducted I witnessed personally; and though it shows the Turkish irregulars in very lurid colours, I can vouch for the performance of similar and even worse atrocities on the part of the Cossacks a few days later.
As I was looking at the firing and wondering how much longer our men would be able to hold the advantage which they had gained, I saw a Circassian, with a most diabolical expression on his face, stooping down to pluck some of the long grass that grew there abundantly and wiping his _camer_, or short sharp sword, upon it. I rode up to see what he was doing, and found that he had just cut the head off an unfortunate wounded Russian. The headless trunk, still quivering with muscular contractions, lay on the ground at his feet, and he was holding up his horrid trophy by the hair.
I rode on to the small earthwork which our men had captured. The regiment which had taken it still held possession, and the Russian troops were advancing in strong force to recapture it. I gathered that desperate fighting had gone on here, and that the redoubt had already been captured and recaptured two or three times. The men who were then holding it were the remnant of the attacking party, and when I was about a hundred yards from the fortified spot I passed an immense number of Turkish dead. They were the first company in the column of assault which perished to a man. The Russians in the redoubt must have reserved their fire, for nearly every man of the first company had five or six bullets through him. The redoubt itself was full of dead and dying men, and the Russians, having rallied, were already coming back beyond their foremost line, being within about five hundred yards of the redoubt. It was plain that if our men did not retire they would be annihilated, and they began to fall back in good order, taking as many of the wounded with them as possible.
One of the first men I saw was Czetwertinski, who was captain in a cavalry troop. He told me that a few minutes before I arrived his horse had been killed under him by a shell which ripped the animal's side open. So perished the magnificent black charger which no man in the squadron could ride but Czetwertinski; the horse to whom he really owed his commission. Czetwertinski had been left unmounted for a minute or two; but he speedily took the horse ridden by his servant Faizi, who had to find his way back as best he could.