ne can make out," said a
soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them, the
scoundrels!"

"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got
halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.

And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
Germans.

The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center
was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all
ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
front of the infantry, who had to wait.

At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be
halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to
blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After
an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that
was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were
descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at
first irregularly at varying intervals--trata... tat--and then more and
more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.

Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through
the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around
them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy
lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from
the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown
surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action
began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down
into the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov was, stood on the
Pratzen Heights.

Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the
higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was
going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,
six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one
knew till after eight o'clock.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a