United States or Togo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Soudan campaign was a picturesque one, and lent itself to vivid word-painting. Now and again a 'Special' managed to get slain, which was not altogether a disadvantage to the paper that employed him, and more often the hand-to-hand nature of the fighting allowed of miraculous escapes which were worth telegraphing home at eighteenpence the word.
His knife he placed upon a chair behind him, the hilt towards him; and there he waited at the foot of the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or be slain by them. Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, ere they could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chance hand-to-hand with the remaining pair.
A woman occupant said they fled precipitately. "There was a great deal of hand-to-hand fighting and bayonet work on the Ourcq, which resulted in the terrible Magdeburg regiment beating a retreat. "Monday night General von Kluck's army had been thrown back from the Marne and from the Morin and to the region of Sezanne and his position was serious.
When Commandant Gravett had taken the first trenches we were stubbornly opposed in a position defended by the Irish Fusiliers, who were fighting with great determination. Our burghers charged right into the trenches; and a hand-to-hand combat ensued. The butt-ends of the guns were freely used, and lumps of rock were thrown about.
It was very much the same as that which occurred the year before at Tamai, on the Red Sea side, to the Second Brigade, and which was described while we were following the fortunes of Tom Strachan. The hand-to-hand fighting was desperate, the slaughter terrible, and the enemy was finally beaten back.
After that, and under cover of the smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other sloop, and then followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict betwixt him and the lieutenant. First they fired their pistols, and then they took to it with cutlasses right, left, up and down, cut and slash until the lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the hilt.
That little fight in the dark street between the white-ruined cottages made Fevrier's blood dance. "Courage!" he cried. "The paraffin!" The combatants were well matched, and it was hand-to-hand and bayonet-to-bayonet. Fevrier loved his enemies at that moment. It even occurred to him that it was worth while to have deserted.
Tarleton was not deficient in personal courage, and turned to meet his old enemy in a hand-to-hand encounter. The officer nearest him struck at Washington as he passed, but missed his blow and received a bullet in his side from the young bugler's pistol.
Then, between that point and the thicket where her steed was concealed, she walked to and fro several times, cutting and breaking the branches as she went, so as to make a wide trail, and suggest the idea of a hand-to-hand conflict having taken place there.
He was conscious of the tremendous storm, of the hopeless losing of their way, and of Loman's relapse into a state of half-unconsciousness, in the midst of which he constantly begged to be allowed to lie down and sleep. To prevent this was Oliver's principal occupation during that fearful time. More than once he was forced into a hand-to-hand struggle to keep his companion from his purpose.
Word Of The Day