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Before the attack could begin, Stark's men threw up a rude breastwork of cobbles behind which they could find a little shelter. And now at last the American defences were completed, just as the troops were in motion to attack them. At this point Howe neglected a method of attack which would have made his victory immediate.
The sleeping and unsuspecting savages were completely surprised by the onset; yet after the first confusion, during which the impulse to escape principally actuated them, they seized their weapons, and from behind logs and trees, or plunging into the stream and using its steep bank as a breastwork, they poured upon their assailants a heavy fire, and kept on fighting with every exhibition of desperation.
The harbour was all struck with shots; a man was knocked over on the German war-ship; half Apia was under fire; and a house was pierced beyond the Mulivai. All along the two lines of breastwork, the entrenched enemies exchanged this hail of balls; and away on the east of the battle the fusillade was maintained, with equal spirit, across the narrow barrier of the Fuisa.
Each of the thirty-two boats on which the central portion of the structure reposed, was a small fortress provided with two heavy pieces of artillery, pointing, the one up, the other down the stream, and manned by thirty-two soldiers and four sailors, defended by a breastwork formed of gabions of great thickness. The forts of Saint Philip and St.
Now the Imperialists discovered the design, but it was too late to hinder it; the musketeers in the great trench, and the five new batteries, made such continual fire that the other bank, which, as before, lay twelve feet below them, was too hot for the Imperialists; whereupon Tilly, to be provided for the king at his coming over, falls to work in a wood right against the point, and raises a great battery for twenty pieces of cannon, with a breastwork or line, as near the river as he could, to cover his men, thinking that when the king had built his bridge he might easily beat it down with his cannon.
Calyste led Beatrix to this point, whence the view is magnificent, and where the natural sculpture of the granite is even more imposing to the spectator than the mass of the huge breastwork when seen from the sandy road which skirts the shore. Is it necessary to explain why Camille had rushed away alone?
You must picture, therefore, for yourselves, a very devils' pandemonium let loose upon the little hilltop so soon as the mountain men gained their vantage ground at the fronting of the rock breastwork; cries; frantic shouts of "God save the king!" yells fierce and wordless; men in red and men in homespun rushing madly hither and yon in a vain attempt to repel a front and rear attack at the same instant.
The city is built in blocks, on the American system; the wide thoroughfares cross each other at right-angles, and all of them could be swept as with a besom by a few guns en barbette behind a breastwork at either end. In this sort of work, accuracy of aim is not called for, as in that warfare up in the mountains. If it were, not much reliance could be placed on the Republican artillery.
The old Colonel having completed his arrangements sat down by his camp-fire with paper and pencil, and began to write; and as the men finished their work they gathered about in groups, at first around their camp-fires, but shortly strolled over to where the guns still stood at the breastwork, black and vague in the darkness. Soon they were all assembled about the guns.
At the inland front, near Lake Champlain, where Abercromby now went by the opprobrious nickname of 'Mrs Nabbycrumby, 'The General put out orders that the breastwork should be lined with troops, and to fire three rounds for joy, and give thanks to God in a Religious Way. But the joy was more whole-hearted among the little, half-forgotten garrisons of Nova Scotia.
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