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By this movement the camps of Davidson's brigade, which were upon the extreme right of our line, near the river, and the two forts we had erected, were rendered untenable; for the rebel guns shelled the whole position with ease. Our men went in squads and brought away the most valuable property, including regimental papers and the knapsacks and blankets.
During the same night towards four o'clock the approaches of the Northern Railway Station were silently invested by two regiments; one of Chasseurs de Vincennes, the other of Gendarmerie Mobile. Numerous squads of sergents de ville installed themselves in the terminus. The station-master was ordered to prepare a special train and to have an engine ready.
Squads of mounted police clattered up and down, keeping the middle of the street cleared. Whatever it was that had called forth that incredible mass, was scheduled to proceed uptown from far downtown, and that very soon. Heads were turned that way. Fanny, wedged in the crowd, stood a-tiptoe, but she could see nothing.
Looking out, he could now plainly see the men. There were four of them. It was lighter down toward the sea, for the rocks still threw a heavy shadow over the plateau. The sight sent a thrill of brave excitement through the captain. "If they come in squads of four," thought he, "I may be a match for them. They can't see me, and I can see them.
He had never been balked in any determined course of action. When Dave went East to school, he possessed physique and health which should have made athletics a desire and a joy. But on both the baseball and football squads were a few fellows not choice in their use of English. In fact, even at this excellent church-school, these exceptions did considerable "cussing."
I am not at all sure that if the State in Ireland decided to utilize two years of every young man's life for State purposes that we could not disband most of our expensive constabulary and make certain squads of our civil recruits responsible for the keeping of public law and order, leaving only the officers as permanent professionals, for of course there must be expert control of the conscripts.
The Garde Civique seemed a trifle more numerous than it had been the evening before; citizen volunteers, still in civilian garb, appeared on the streets in awkward squads, carrying their guns and side arms clumsily; and when, in Minister Brand Whitlock's car, we drove out the beautiful Avenue Louise, we found soldiers building a breast-high barricade across the head of the roadway where it entered the Bois; also, they were weaving barbed-wire entanglements among the shade trees.
They established guards around their squads, and helped beat off the Raiders when their own territory was invaded, but this was all they would do. The rest of us formed similar guards. In the southwest corner of the Stockade where I was we formed ourselves into a company of fifty active boys mostly belonging to my own battalion and to other Illinois regiments of which I was elected Captain.
While Captain Sweetsir was lecturing the tolerant listeners of one squad, he was irritably aware that the boys of the squads that were not under espionage were doing nigh about everything that a soldier on duty should not do, their diversions limited only by their lack of resources.
At each time three machines, each carrying eight 25 pound bombs, will bomb respectively R , C , L . Secrecy is imperative. Each member of the three squads thus assigned will be ready at Hangars No. , No. , No. at times mentioned above." Meantime each aviator, with his observer, had been privately notified by the Sergeant in person.
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