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The less seriously injured among the soldiers hobbled back alone or assisted by their comrades. I asked a smart-looking sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers, who was limping along with a broken foot, whether the regiment had been again heavily engaged. Of course they had. 'Sure, we're always in the thick of it, sorr.
The formation was to be a sort of square, of which the Gordon Highlanders were to form the front face, the Royal Highlanders the rear line, the Irish Fusiliers the right face with the Rifles inside them; the 65th were on the outside of the left face, the Marines being inside them. The whole square was about 250 yards long by 150 deep.
Terence's last words were: "By the way, Herrara, if you should be able to find at any store in Lisbon some Irish whisky, I wish you would get six dozen cases for me, or what would be more handy, a sixteen or eighteen gallon keg, and could get it sent on by some cart coming here, I should be very much obliged. It had better be sent to me, care of Colonel Corcoran, Mayo Fusiliers, Abrantes.
The place was carried with a rush by the Naval Brigade, a company of Fusiliers, and some of Russell's regiment. Captain Nicol, who led the advance, was killed. Information was now gained that the enemy was posted in great force near the villages of Amoaful and Beckquah, and here a battle was expected to take place.
The women were a difficulty at first. They insisted on regarding us as a joke, and used to repeat the absurd witticism of the street boys. I heard Janet say "Methusaleers" one day. She denied it, but I am perfectly certain she did not say "Fusiliers," My wife fussed about dry socks and wanted me to take my umbrella on a route march one wet Sunday.
The men had then been under fire for six hours, and with their losses mounting and their cartridges dwindling, all hope had faded from their minds. But still for another hour, and yet another, and yet another, they held doggedly on. Nine and a half hours they clung to that pile of stones. The Fusiliers were still exhausted from the effect of their march from Glencoe and their incessant work since.
"The sensation of finding myself among screaming shells was all new to me," says Corporal Butlin, Lancashire Fusiliers, "but after the first terrible moments, which were enough to unnerve anybody, I became used to the situation. Afterwards the din had no effect upon me." And describing an artillery duel a gunner declares: "It was butcher's work.
"My share was very small, sir." "I think I can fill up the facts that Mr. O'Connor's modesty has prevented him from stating," one of the officers said. "It happened that before we sailed from Ireland six weeks ago, an officer of the Mayo Fusiliers, who had been invalided home in consequence of a wound, dined at our mess, and he told the story very much as Mr.
Barton's brigade had been equally successful in their attack, and half an hour after the capture of Monte Cristo the Fusiliers crowned the summit of the wood-covered Green Hill. The Boers' defences were now examined, and proved to be of a most formidable nature. On the south face of the hill the trenches were in tiers, line behind line.
On October 6th they brushed the enemy aside in an action in which the volunteer company of the Scots Fusiliers gained the applause of their veteran comrades. On the 8th and 9th there was sharp skirmishing, the brunt of which on the latter date fell upon the Welsh Fusiliers, who had three officers and eleven men injured.
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