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I ordered General Hurlbut to leave detachments at Grand Junction and Lagrange, and to march for Holly Springs. I left detachments at Moscow and Lafayette, and, with about four thousand men, marched for the same point. Hurlbut and I met at Hudsonville, and thence marched to the Coldwater, within four miles of Holly Springs.
A number of the officers commanding detachments, and people belonging to various Legations, attempted to glean details as to the strength of the Boxer detachments from these survivors, but nobody could give any information worth having. I noticed that no Ministers came; they were all in bed!
It had been arranged that, while the French held their way straight on, shooting down the Spaniards as they poured out into the street, the British should break up into small detachments, burst their way into the houses, and overpower the enemy there.
To prepare for my own part in the contemplated movement, I had ordered Captain Lane to build a couple of flatboats of a smaller size than our large ferry-boats, and to rig these with sweeps or large oars, so that they could be used to throw detachments across the New River to the base of Cotton Mountain, at a point selected a little way up the river, where the stream was not so swift and broken as in most places.
Then came an attack of the Confederate infantry under cover of the Southern battery. This was spirited, detachments of men rushing forward, firing and then seeking what cover they could. At times a man would roll over, his gun dropping, sometimes several would drop at the same time. These were those who were detailed to be shot.
Before they could reach the gallant little Serbian army it had been crushed between the Austrians and Germans on one side and the Bulgarians on the other, and its survivors had fled across the mountains to the coast of Albania. The French and English detachments were not strong enough to stand against the victorious armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria.
From these frequent picket excursions I got the name of "Veteran." My friend Bolling generously offered to go as my substitute on one expedition, but the Captain, seeing our two detachments were being overworked, had all relieved and sent other detachments with our guns.
They possessed exactly twenty boats in all, ranging in size from a craft capable of accommodating forty men down to the little Norwegian dinghy in which I had made my escape, and it was evident that every man of the party had been previously told off to some particular boat; for upon their arrival at the beach the hitherto compact body at once dissolved into twenty separate detachments, each of which made its way, in a perfectly orderly manner, to a particular boat; the whole flotilla being launched and manned at Fernandez' word of command.
How was this to be done? The country lying between the two generals was covered with small detachments of sepoys carefully entrenched, and it seemed impossible for any man to pass through them. Yet without some knowledge of the sort and of the state of affairs in the residency the relief expedition could not advance without frightful loss, and might perhaps end in failure.
Nothing could have saved us, had the Flat-heads held out any longer; but the Black-feet, their irreconcilable enemies, seizing the opportunity, had entered their territory. They sued to us for peace, and then detachments from both war-parties hastened to our help.
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