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It was a terrible trial to the nerves of the assaulting columns when this terrific fire was poured upon a spot only twenty feet above them; but they were not men to shrink, and the men of the light division seized the opportunity to pull up the broken masonry and make a breastwork, known in military terms as a lodgment.
The burgomasters then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen by weight, and the schepens, or assistant aldermen, were appointed to attend upon them, and help them eat; but the latter, in the course of time, when they had been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the burgomasters' chairs, having fairly eaten themselves into office, as a mouse eats his way into a comfortable lodgment in a goodly, blue-nosed, skimmed milk, New England cheese.
The savages yelled and screeched hideously, with the hope of intimidating us, but without any effect, and we kept watching them quietly, and meeting them so promptly at every point, that they were uniformly obliged to quit their hold and drop to the ground before they could effect a lodgment among the branches.
Their sympathy with the Boers was natural enough; but it was at the same time too deep in the eyes of Martial Lawyers to be compatible with the duty due to the Queen. A house to house visit was inaugurated by the police the sequel to which was the lodgment of some twenty persons within the solid masonry of the gaol. The most prominent of the prisoners was one employed as a guard in the mines.
Then they clinched, Beaufort's stout right arm holding Penny against him and his left fist seeking lodgment against Penny's face. But Penny, squirming, kept his head down and the blows fell harmlessly on his skull. Then, wrenching himself free, Penny stumbled out of the way, pale and dizzy. Beaufort plunged toward him again wildly. Penny stood still then.
They then formed an intrenchment that could be used by both columns, and from this on the 1st of September they began to open their trenches against their respective bastions. De Gramont's works were attacked on the following day by a sortie; this, however, was driven back. On the fifth night both columns made a lodgment on the counterscarp, and their batteries opened fire.
The long roots of trees, following exposed rock surfaces downward for yards, and twisting and bending to find lodgment in the crevices, were curious. Great tufts of a plant with long, narrow, light-green leaves hung down along vertical rock faces. In little caverns, at the foot of cliffs, were damp spots filled with ferns and broad-leaved caladiums, and brilliant clusters of begonias in bloom.
Thence we could examine this fortress, see whether we could effect a lodgment in it, and, above all, try to establish some communication with the beautiful prisoner inside. There we were, then, in the shrubbery, Lord Rufton and I, each with a pistol in the pockets of our riding coats, and with the most resolute determination in our hearts that we should not return without the lady.
When the duke of Marlborough made a lodgment, my uncle Toby made a lodgment too. And when the face of a bastion was battered down, or a defence ruined, the corporal took his mattock and did as much, and so on; gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works one after another, till the town fell into their hands.
The German losses were very heavy and a large number of dead were abandoned on the recaptured ground. Frederick Palmer, the noted war correspondent, said that for a thousand yards in the center of the line where the Germans secured lodgment the Canadians fired from positions in the rear and filled the ruined trenches with German dead.
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