The horses of the two squadrons of Cossacks were labouring as they breasted the low ridge dominating the shallow valley and the frozen river behind them. They were almost blown by the speed of their recent charge and the violence of their clash with the enemy along the line of the river. As the officer at their head caught sight of the red roofs of the village of Schloditten, he threw up his bloodstained sabre, stood in his stirrups and ordered the fur-swathed cavalry to wheel their shaggy mounts. They reined in, faced about and halted as their officers trotted back to their posts.

'Well done, my children!' the Russian officer called with patriarchal familiarity, smiling and nodding his clean-shaven face to the swarthy and bearded troopers who grinned back at him. The Cossack horses tossed their heads in a jingle of harness, edging their tails round into the biting northerly wind. Breath erupted in clouds from their distending nostrils and the snowflakes that were again beginning to fall melted on contact with their steaming flanks. Lowering their lances across their saddle-bows, the Cossacks exchanged ribaldries and remarks, incongruously cross­ing themselves as they called the unanswered names of men they had left behind them in the valley. A few bound each other's wounds, or ran their filthy hands gently down the shuddering legs of horses galled by the enemy. Most remained in their saddles, reaching under their sheepskins for flasks of vodka, or for carcasses of chickens that hung in festoons from their belts. Reaching his post at their head, the clean-shaven officer abandoned the dialect of the Don.