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Finally the Guerrière's tonnage amounted to 1,092, as against the Constitution's 1,533. The Guerrière's guns proved very ineffectual from the start, while the marksmanship, not only of the American gunners but of the riflemen in the Constitution's tops, was the wonder of the British. It is stated that none of her shot fell short. After a fight lasting nearly two hours the Guerrière surrendered.
The riflemen raised their pieces, levelled them over the corvette's high sides, and, at the word of command, which all aboard the torpedo-boat could hear, they sent their volleys hurtling aboard that devoted craft. Jim felt a sharp twinge in his left shoulder, and knew that he was hit; two other men fell to the deck, limp as empty suits of clothes.
He alone among the white men had the courage, or the desperation, to throw himself and his men in the path of the pursuit. The riflemen in the water felt the bullets pattering around them, and some were struck, but they did not stop. They kept on for the bank, and their own men behind them opened a covering fire over their heads.
The effect of the present improved fire arm is still limited, with the present organization and use of riflemen, to point blank ranges. With these two qualities, too much neglected with us, with willingness, with intelligence enough to keep a firm hold on troops in immediate support, we may hope to take and to hold what we take. Do not then neglect destructive effort before using moral effect.
I could see the Kurdish riflemen responding to orders from their rear and beginning to concentrate in the direction of our left wing.
The five brown figures cantered over the rough ground, presenting difficult targets, but under continual fire, and disappeared round the spur. However, in two or three minutes they re-appeared, the riflemen on the hill making a regular rattle of musketry, amid which the Lancers galloped safely back, followed last of all by their officer.
It was very large too large to be effectively occupied by the force which he commanded. The length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred yards. Shaped roughly like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel end which he could hope to hold. Other hills all round offered cover for Boer riflemen. Nothing daunted, however, he set his men to work at once building sangars with the loose stones.
Let the other towns boast, let Stormont show her grenadiers, Leicester her riflemen, and Acton her artillery, but when "muster-day" comes look out for Walton and her infantry. The law requires every soldier to have a musket or rifle, flint-lock of course, a bayonet, a priming-wire and brush, a knapsack, a cartridge-box, and two spare flints. The lack of any one of these may lead to a fine.
The riflemen of the West, however, were not made of the stuff that yields readily to superior force. The fight for the bridge would have been fierce and bloody. Twilight had fallen before the Confederate reinforcements arrived upon the scene; and under such conditions the losses must have been very heavy. But to lose men was exactly what Jackson wished to avoid.
There were boxes and barrels filled with earth, behind which riflemen had lain snugly, and in these little trenches were the dead in blue with the dead in grey, the poses eloquent of the struggles for possession of the town, until the history of the whole conflict was written plainly in the streets.
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