Yanick's ribs were broken, and his thigh was stabbed, his body limp like a clump of cotton.
He struggled to raise his head and locked eyes with a Cossack Cavalryman about twenty paces away. The cavalryman apparently couldn't move either and was incessantly cursing in Russian.
Yanick spat at him and suddenly noticed a gunner, lying on a dead horse, seemed to twitch.
He hurriedly yelled over, "Sergeant, how are you doing?"
The gunner slowly turned his head and after a while, managed to speak with difficulty, "For now, I probably won't die."
Yanick then saw that half of his face was completely rotted away, hanging pieces of flesh swung back and forth over his nose with every breath.
"We seem to have held them off," he said.
The gunner spoke in a leaking voice, "Yes, the cannon is still here…"
Suddenly, his body trembled, and he frantically raised his hand pointing down the slope, as if he had seen the gates of hell, "There, there!"