Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Later all the reserves were put into the firing-line. To the right the jungle was quite thick, and we had barely begun to deploy when a crash in front announced that the fight was on. It was evidently very hot, and L Troop had its hands full; so I hurried my men up abreast of them.
She had kept at her work turning neither to the right nor to the left, doing her duty with the bravery and patience of a soldier on the firing-line, knowing that any moment some stray bullet might end her usefulness. She would not dodge, nor would she cower; the danger was no greater than others she had faced, and no precaution, she knew, could save her.
The Captain went at the head of a Cornish regiment, brave and fearless, determined to do his duty as a soldier should. The ethics of the war had never cost him a moment's thought. England was at war, and that was enough for him. He was needed in the firing-line, and he, without a question or a reason, save that he was a soldier, must be there.
"The spirit that quickeneth" knew no faltering. Battle police were without occupation. There were no stragglers. With methodical, phlegmatic steadiness the infantry moved up to the firing-line when its turn came.
Comes round to our house to eat Mabel's damper and syrup three nights a week. You bet he'll sign it: Besides, he's white; pulled out of the firing-line by an Australian at Gaza, and hasn't forgotten it. He'd sign anything but checks to help an Anzac. I'll be going.
She was very young and obviously imperious, with white skin and coal-black hair and the most utterly destructive brown eyes he had ever encountered. Discretion should have prompted him to seek immediate safety out of the firing-line, but instead he put himself in the most exposed position possible and waited results. They arrived on schedule time. "Captain Phipps!" called a page.
By this time we had discovered that they were officially described as "rest" trenches, and were some considerable distance behind the firing-line. So we "rested" as best we could, each man effecting such improvements to his own personal bit of cover as could be carried out unostentatiously behind the shelter of the parapet.
As one-half of them turned wildly to face what might be coming from this unexpected quarter, the British troops came on with a roar, and at the same moment Mahommed Khan reached the rear of their firing-line and crashed headlong into it. In a second the whole Indian line was in confusion and in another minute it was in full retreat not knowing nor even guessing what had routed it.
During six months continuously in the firing-line, I met less than a dozen natural-born cowards; and my experience was largely with plumbers, drapers' assistants, clerks, men who had no fighting traditions to back them up, make them heroic in spite of themselves. The better I knew Tommy, the better I liked him. He hasn't a shred of sentimentality in his make-up.
But "Charge!" yelled Mahommed Khan again, and they swept through the crowd, through the half-shut gate, out on the plain beyond, as a wind sweeps through the forest, leaving fallen tree-trunks in its wake. "Halt!" roared the Risaldar, when they were safely out of range. "Are any hurt? No? Good for us that their rifles are all in the firing-line yonder!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking