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The rear-rank men follow suit, but Nos. 2 and 1 have to turn momentarily to the left in order to get behind the front-rank pivot men to put it more simply, they follow No. 2 in single file. It sounds confusing, but any old National Guardsman can explain the movement in very short order.
Yet the Spartans, skilled as they were to the highest pitch in war, had been specially educated and practised in changing their formation without disorder or confusion; each man used any other as his right-hand or rear-rank man, and wherever danger threatened they would meet it, forming and fighting simultaneously.
With mouth parched with the stifling heat and dust, Jack sucked at the lukewarm dregs of his water-bottle, and wondered if the river itself would ever quench his thirst. "Swabs," his rear-rank man, kept fingering the loose cartridges in his pouch. At length the marksman's patience and sang froid seemed exhausted.
The loose pieces are returned by the even numbers of the front rank; each even number of the front rank grasps his own piece with the left hand, the piece of his rear-rank man with his right hand, grasping both between the bands; each odd number of the front rank grasps his piece in the same way with the right hand, disengages it by raising the butt from the ground and then, turning the piece to the right, detaches it from the stack; each even number of the front rank disengages and detaches his piece by turning it to the left, and then passes the piece of his rear-rank man to him, and all resume the order.
At the second command the rear-rank men march backward 4 steps and halt; at the command march all face to the right and the leading man of each rank steps off; the other men step off in succession, each following the preceding man at 4 paces, rear-rank men marching abreast of their file leaders. At the command halt, given when all have their intervals, all halt and face to the front.
Each rear-rank man moves to the right front, takes a similar position opposite the interval to the right of his front-rank man, muzzle of the piece extending beyond the front rank, and loads. A skirmish line may load while moving, the pieces being held as nearly as practicable in the position of load.
"There's damned little sugar in ut!" sez my rear-rank man; but Crook heard. "Have ye not all got spoons?" he sez, laughin', an' down we wint as fast as we cud. Learoyd bein' sick at the Base, he, av coorse, was not there. 'Thot's a lie! said Learoyd, dragging his bedstead nearer.
There were stone jugs at each extremity, the sergeants of the rear-rank of this gastronomic platoon, whose corks had blown out and were still flying in space, while a bubbling white foam issued from their necks and fell majestically over their sides after describing a long parabola. A misleading sign, indeed!
"Ay, and as Tippermuir, your honour," replied Gudyill, "where I was his honour my late master's rear-rank man." "And Alford, John," pursued the Major, "where I commanded the horse; and Innerlochy, where I was the Great Marquis's aid-de-camp; and Auld Earn, and Brig o' Dee." "And Philiphaugh, your honour," said John.
"The wind falling light, I did not venture on laying the flag-ship and the Lautaro alongside the Spanish frigates, as I at first intended, but anchored with springs on our cables, abreast of the shipping, which was arranged in a half-moon of two lines, the rear-rank being judiciously disposed so as to cover the intervals of the ships in the front line.
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