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George, and it was officially reported that the Egmore Redoubt might 'serve for a convenience for the sick Soldiers when arrived from England, for the recovery of their health, it being a good air. The Egmore Redoubt was evidently a need; for the 'Records' tell us that on various occasions its guns were fired at the enemy.
One of the chief generals, with lowered head and drooping shoulders, more from discouragement than fatigue, stood glass in hand, observing from a distance our lines, which were breaking. "If we could fortify ourselves there at least," said he, pointing to an eminence which overlooked the river, "and establish a redoubt in one night with a hundred picks it could be done.
On the morning of the thirty-first of July, the tide then being at the flood, the French saw the ship "Centurion," of sixty-four guns, anchor near the Montmorenci and open fire on the redoubts. Then two armed transports, each of fourteen guns, stood in as close as possible to the first redoubt and fired upon it, stranding as the tide went out, till in the afternoon they lay bare upon the mud.
Before the batteries could meet the charge, clearing the ditch, they gained the redoubt through the embrasures, leaping over the parapet, and overwhelming by their superior force the small party stationed there.
As they neared the Charlestown shore, the fire upon the redoubt was doubled, and under its cover the troops landed upon Moulton's Point. There Howe at first deployed them, but after inspecting the ground sent back for reinforcements. For the men in the redoubt there were two more hours of waiting.
A day or two later Colonel Coote, advancing along the sea beach as if with a view of merely making a reconnaissance, pushed on suddenly, entered the village called the Blancherie, as it was principally inhabited by washerwomen, and attacked the Madras redoubt. This was carried, but the same night the garrison sallied out again, and fell upon the party of Sepoys posted there.
On the 25th September, the opening day of the Loos battle, the left of the British attack had been directed against "Fosse 8" a coal mine with its machine buildings, miners' cottages and large low slag dump protected by a system of trenches known as the "Hohenzollern Redoubt," standing on a small rise 1,000 yards west of the mine.
From Rafa Redoubt the contour of the sand dunes permitted the enemy to construct an exceedingly strong line running due south for 2000 yards, the strongest points being named by us Zowaid trench, El Burj trench, Triangle trench, Peach Orchard, and El Arish Redoubt, the nomenclature being reminiscent of the trials of the troops in the desert march.
When we returned here, we found that instead of being fifteen thousand strong, as promised, the Turks on board their transports under Mustapha Pasha were but five thousand strong, which was raised to seven thousand by the two thousand we brought with us from Acre. On the 15th of July they landed, attacked the redoubt and castle of Aboukir with great pluck, and carried it by assault.
As the sessions were nearly always held in winter, it was very cold on the stairs, a biting wind made all these old men shiver, and there are old generals of the Empire who did not die as the result of having been at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at the cemetery at Eylau, at the storming of the grand redoubt at Moskowa and under the fire of the Scottish squares at Waterloo, but of having waited in the cold upon these stairs.
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