six o'clock
We had to cut a zigzag road , as it were , deep into the ground , with a bank towards the town , so that the shot from the guns in the town could only strike across the road , and not along it . We toiled away to get all our batteries ready as soon as possible . The French and we were ready at the same time , but the batteries were masked ; that is to say , the front was covered up so that the enemy could not see whether we were ready or not . The sun rose in a bright sky on the morning of the 17th of October , and at half-past six o'clock , a hundred and twenty of our guns -- some of them the largest ever made , and which had as yet not fired a shot -- began firing away as hard as they could . The Russians answered with as many guns of the same size , and thus there were nearly two hundred and fifty guns all firing away together . The noise was awful . We knocked over a good many of the enemy 's guns , and they blew up a French magazine ; by which a hundred men were killed in a moment .