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Then I was aware of a sort of tarpaulin cupboard under the breastwork, of creeping trails of wire on the ground, and of a couple of sappers. The corporal turned down his page of 'Harmsworth's Magazine, laid it on the parapet, and dived under the tarpaulin. Ting-a-ling-a-ling! buzzed the telephone bell. The gaunt up-towering mountains, the long, smooth, deadly guns and the telephone bell!
The half pikes of the boatmen were terrible weapons at close quarters, more formidable than the cutlasses of the seamen balked by the breastwork, or the loaded bamboo clubs of the lathiwallahs. Sunman, the mate, was one of the first victims; he fell to a shot from Bulger.
We, being armed with muskets and pistols as well as swords, returned the fire, and spurred our horses on toward the low breastwork, which, as it was not likely to have anything of a trench behind it, we thought to overleap either on horse or afoot.
They had with them a twelve-pound Hotchkiss rifle and four American artillerymen, Osgood of Pennsylvania, Latrobe and Janney of Baltimore, and Devine of Texas. They attacked Guimaro in the morning, at ranges of from 400 to 600 yards, the infantry being protected by a breastwork of earth, in which openings were left for the guns.
We did not enter the same trenches where I had been a few days previously, but about a mile farther south. These trenches were our "home" for over three months, so let me try and describe how they were built and looked to us on that day of entry. In this part of the line, near the borders of Belgium, you cannot dig down, the soil is so marshy, so the trenches are what is known as breastwork.
But there were sharp-shooters in the enemy's trenches, and they were familiar with the governor's rusty old doublet and haggard old face. Hardly had he climbed upon the breastwork when a ball pierced his heart, and he fell dead without a groan. There was a shout of triumph from the outside, while the tidings soon spread sadness through the garrison, for all loved and venerated the man.
Are we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day? Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in the forest and saying his prayers? Oh, go to hell!" A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on the other side of the marsh.
When within fifty yards of the bridge a volley of twenty muskets flashed out from the work behind it. The officer and three men fell, the other galloped back to the main body. He had seen nothing beyond the fact that there was a breastwork across the road, and Franceschi, thinking that he had but a small force of peasants in front of him, ordered a squadron to charge, and clear the obstacle.
Turning his eyes in that direction, he saw Sukey, standing coolly on the top of the breastwork peering into the darkness for something to shoot at. The balls were whistling as thick as hail around him, and cutting up the dirt at his feet. "Come down, Sukey, come down!" Fernando commanded.
Then, moved by a common impulse, and without a word being spoken, they lifted their unconscious captive, ran with him to the lake shore, bundled him into a canoe, and pushed off. Upon the Indians behind the breastwork, where the full force of the explosion was felt, the effect was so disastrous that the panic-stricken survivors rushed madly for their canoes.
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