four A.M.
At ten o'clock a small company of Cossacks spurred and flogged their jaded horses up the northern slope of Muswell Hill , on which the Tsar had fixed his headquarters . Nearly every man was wounded , and the horses were in the last stages of exhaustion . Their captain was at once admitted to the presence of the Tsar , and , flinging himself on the ground before the enraged Autocrat , gasped out the dreadful tidings that his little company were the sole survivors of the army of occupation that had been left at Harwich , and which , twelve hours before , had been thirty thousand strong . A huge fleet of strange-looking vessels , flying a plain blood-red flag , had just before four A.M. forced the approaches to the harbour , sunk every transport and warship with guns that were fired without flame , or smoke , or report , and whose projectiles shattered everything that they struck . Immediately afterwards an immense flotilla of transports had steamed in , and , under the protection of those terrible guns , had landed a hundred thousand men , all dressed in the same plain grey uniform , with no facings or ornaments save a knot of red ribbon at the button-hole , and armed with magazine rifle and a bayonet and a brace of revolvers . All were English by their speech , and every man appeared to know exactly what to do with very few orders from his officers . This invading force had hunted the Russians out of Harwich like rabbits out of a warren , while the ships in the harbour had hurled their shells up into the air so that they fell back to earth on the retreating army and exploded with frightful effect .