FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  
ife, had actually heaved themselves over the parapets on the French right. They had gone into action a thousand strong; they were now six hundred. Charge after charge had flung forward a few to leap the rampart and fall on the French bayonets; but now the best part of a company poured over. For a moment sheer desperation carried the day; but the white-coats, springing back off their platforms, poured in a volley and settled the question. That night the Black Watch called its roll: there answered five hundred men less one. It was in the next charge after this--half-heartedly taken up by the exhausted troops on the right--that John a Cleeve found himself actually climbing the log-wall toward which he had been straining all the afternoon. What carried him there--he afterwards affirmed--was the horrid vision of young Sagramore of the 27th impaled on a pointed branch and left to struggle in death-agony while the regiments rallied. The body was quivering yet as they came on again; and John, as he ran by, shouted to a sergeant to drag it off: for his own left hand hung powerless, and the colours encumbered his right. In front of him repeated charges had broken a sort of pathway through the abattis, swept indeed by an enfilading fire from two angles of the breastwork, slippery with blood and hampered with corpses; but the grape-shot which had accounted for most of these no longer whistled along it, the French having run off their guns to the right to meet the capital attack of the Highlanders. Through it he forced his way, the pressure of the men behind lifting and bearing him forward whenever the ensign-staff for a moment impeded him. He noted that the leaves, which at noon had been green and sappy, with only a slight crumpling of their edges, were now grey and curled into tight scrolls, crackling as he brushed them aside. How long had the day lasted, then? And would it ever end? The vision of young Sagramore followed him. He had known Sagramore at Halifax and invited him to mess one night with the 46th--as brainless and sweet-tempered a boy as ever muddled his drill. John was at the foot of the rampart. While with his injured hand he fumbled vainly to climb it, someone stooped a shoulder and hoisted him. He flung a leg over the parapet and glanced down? moment at the man's face. It was the sergeant to whom he had shouted just now. "Right, sir," the sergeant grunted; "we're after you!" John hoisted the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

sergeant

 

French

 

Sagramore

 

moment

 

shouted

 

vision

 

carried

 

charge

 

forward

 

rampart


hundred
 

hoisted

 

poured

 
leaves
 

accounted

 

corpses

 

capital

 

breastwork

 
slippery
 

hampered


impeded

 

ensign

 
pressure
 

forced

 

Highlanders

 
Through
 

whistled

 

longer

 

lifting

 

attack


bearing
 

stooped

 
shoulder
 
vainly
 

fumbled

 

muddled

 

injured

 

parapet

 

glanced

 

grunted


tempered
 

brushed

 

crackling

 

scrolls

 
crumpling
 

curled

 

lasted

 

invited

 

brainless

 
Halifax