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The Allahapoor gunners could be seen working their guns, tall fellows with bare shoulders and arms, and richly-ornamented turbans on their heads; wearing loose trousers, and with long tulwars hanging at their sides. Their shot, however, made but little impression on the well-constructed earthworks.
Reckoning upon this, he first intended, taking five days' rations, to make a circuit eastward by way of Jacobsdaal, crossing the Modder higher up, and coming in upon Spytfontein from that direction. The railroad, protected by earthworks, was to be left under guard of one or two thousand men.
By at least one of those present any immediate movement in the nature of an assault was objected to because of the great distance that still separated the lines of investment from the Confederate earthworks; it was urged that the troops would have to move to the attack over ground the precise character of which was as yet unknown to them or to their commanders, although it was known to be broken and naturally difficult and to be obstructed by felled timber.
Their long chain of hillocks offered a firmer and more unconquerable resistance to the pressure of the sea, than the earthworks and redoubts of Alfen, Leyderdorp and Valkenburg, the three forts situated close to the banks of the Rhine, presented to hostile armies. The Rhine!
But their bullets whistled mostly overhead, and once, when they made a great rush, they were quickly driven back with great loss. Troops on a bluff behind earthworks were a hard nut even for an overwhelming force to crack. Dick and Albert fell asleep on the ground from sheer exhaustion, but Dick did not sleep long. He was awakened by a fresh burst of firing, and saw that it was still dark.
Behind the log walls and earthworks loafed the unkempt, hilarious heroes of whom only seventy-one had been killed or hurt, and no more than thirteen of these in the grand assault which Pakenham had led. "Old Hickory" had told them that they could lick their weight in wildcats, and they were ready to agree with him.
Once across, they burrowed in the ground like moles and, with bullets raining upon them, threw up earthworks for shelter. Squad after squad of volunteers followed. Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar swam his horsemen across the river farther up-stream and took the Bavarian troops in the flank, beating them back far enough to let him join the Finns at the landing.
It was obeyed with reluctance, and it was evident the crews of the various ships were anxious and eager to continue. As the fleet drew off there was a puff of smoke in one corner of Punta Gorda battery and a shell whizzed over the "Massachusetts." A second shot came from one of the earthworks, and still another from Punta Gorda; then the firing ceased again.
The owners were inside taking something to warm them up for the home journey and the horses outside were stamping their feet with the same purpose. "Not likely to bother us," was Prescott's unspoken comment as he returned to the girl who stood motionless in the snow awaiting him. "It is nothing," he said. "We must go forward now, watch our chance and slip through the earthworks."
The fall of the leaves enables us to distinguish clearly the earthworks and the redoubts which the Prussians have thrown up. I am not a military man, but my civilian mind cannot comprehend why Vanves and Montrouge do not destroy with their fire the houses occupied on the plateau of Chatillon by the Prussians. I asked an officer, who was standing before Vanves, why they did not.
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