Four bombs came to Earth near to us at minutes after nine in the evening, each with ferocious commotion as it shattered tiles, glass and the cobbles of the alleyways. One struck Kleine Steingasse itself, a lead ball or piece of cobblestone breaking a shutter downstairs. Had it been daylight and Fraulein Kremnitzer pushing the shutter open to admit the breeze, she would most likely have died where she stood.

With the French outside the city walls and their intent plain, it is still no certainty that any of us will live another day but, if I am to die, I have determined that I could do worse than make record of the antecedent events here, in my neglected journal. Here I shall place my fears that would be impolite or immoderate to voice. Here I shall, in the absence of a confessor, confess to my rushes of panic and my shortcomings, to the greatest depth I am able. A fear written is a fear dispatched, or at the least made smaller for being turned to the small size of words, rather than left as a long lurking shadow or a cold hand around the heart.

The bombardment ceased in minutes. Dogs howled and then fell quiet again. Within the hour, citizens were once more in the street outside, their conversations rising indistinctly to the upper storeys as they exchanged tales of the assault and its consequences. Doctor Haydn bade me seek news, and it is a relief to me that my shaking hand had no witness as it opened the front door.

All I met beyond it was speculation. None had seen the French, nor heard the French, nor knew a thing other than the bombs they had heard themselves and reports that shots had fallen elsewhere in the city too, at a cost of some lives. The French were at the gates; the French were not at the gates. The shots had been settling a range, with many more to follow; the shots had been all we would see of the French, as Archduke Charles and the Hauptarmee were set to chase them off at first light. Such were the rumours.

I returned to Doctor Haydn’s chamber with no good information. He took my hand and, before Frau Meyer and Fraulein Kremnitzer, said to me, in English, ‘Your uncle.’

My hand went cold in his grasp, I am certain of it, but I could do naught but accede. My great-uncle would know the state of the conflict, and it was not my place to tell Doctor Haydn that his own need to know in that hour was not so great; not worth a young life sent out into the next barrage, should there be one. My uncle would tell Doctor Haydn whatever he sought to know, for he remains in Doctor Haydn’s debt, and I would venture out to find my uncle, for I am the cause of that debt.