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Our cav airy were ordered to try and penetrate to the rear of the enemy. Here was a contest between cavalry. Carbines cracked and rattled almost like the heavy musketry of infantry. Many a horse was seen going at full speed over the field riderless. Many a cavalryman fell. At last a charge with sabers drawn was ordered. The sight, as described to me, was one of grandeur to behold.
The soldiers pointed to a gate near the breach and, as soon as the men had again mounted, the havildar rode with them along the ditch, and made the necessary observations. Then they put spurs to their horses, and rode off the Jats, on seeing that they had been deceived, opening upon them with musketry.
When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated ramparts, when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at the approach of an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the mournful houses. At every moment, in the centre of the town, people fancied they could hear a discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs.
It seemed plain now; these must be deserters slipping out of the Imperial city and the Palace enclosures and fleeing rapidly to escape some fate. Something must have certainly happened somewhere, although there was still nothing to be heard, except perhaps a distant movement in the air, which might mean the rattle of musketry.
A silly patter of poor musketry made answer, but their bullets might as well have been aimed at snipe for all the difference it made to us: they came short or spattered against our wall. We could hear the shouts of the foe, and saw their confusion as our third gun sent its message into the very heart of them. Then they charged Dunchuach.
The whole is surrounded by a strong wall a mile and a half long, fifteen feet high, six feet thick, with a parapet pierced for musketry and strengthened at intervals by bastions armed with Krupp guns. Three strong detached posts complete the defences of Suakin. Ten miles to the northward, on the scene of Sir H. Kitchener's unfortunate enterprise, is the fort of Handub.
"Then arose from every crowded height and battery, whence the exciting struggle had been watched, the shouts of applauding comrades; and through the deafening roar of musketry, which pealed along the ramparts, and marked the hard-earned progress of the victorious columns through the streets, both friend and foe might distinctly hear that sound, never to be forgotten the `Hurrah! of a British army after battle."
Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the air's so thin. WOP! WOP! WOP! went a volley of musketry on the rear face of the north hill. 'Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll scare arf the country. 'Thry a sightin' shot in the middle of the row, said Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. 'There's a red rock yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick!
After a time it was evident that the line of musketry fire was lower down the hill, descending, showing that the troops were pressing the Communists backwards, and presently one of the batteries near the chateau shifted its position, and took ground some distance down the hill, and this and a battery near the end of the viaduct by the chateau, opened a heavy fire on the forts.
I had been there but a short time when an order to charge was given, and lacking the moral courage to return to camp where I had been ordered to stay I charged with the regiment As soon as the troops were out of the depression they came under the fire of Black Fort. As they advanced they got under fire from batteries guarding the east, or lower, end of the city, and of musketry.
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