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Updated: June 19, 2025
Immediately, the Russian guns in the neighbouring forts opened fire upon the stormers with shrapnel and heavy shell, and in a very few minutes the entire scene was so completely veiled in powder smoke that it was impossible for anyone to tell exactly how the fight was going.
Each column, assumed to consist of about 2,000 men, was to be preceded and covered by 300 skirmishers; immediately behind the skirmishers were to be seventy pioneers, carrying thirty-five axes, eighteen shovels, ten pickaxes, two handsaws, and two hatchets; next was to come the forlorn hope, or storming party, of 300 men, each carrying a bag stuffed with cotton; following the stormers, thirty-four men were to carry the balks and chesses to form a bridge over the ditch, in order to facilitate the passage of the artillery, as well as of the men.
Sagres Castle, commanding the roadstead of Cape St. Vincent, was extraordinarily strong. The cliffs, on which it occupied about a hundred acres, rose sheer two hundred feet all round except at a narrow and well defended neck only two hundred yards across. Drake led the stormers himself.
He had seen Severus pass away, and had soldiered with his son. He had fought in Armenia, in Dacia, and in Germany. They had made him a centurion upon the field when with his hands he plucked out one by one the stockades of a northern village, and so cleared a path for the stormers. His strength had been the jest and the admiration of the soldiers.
Presently it would come to the place appointed, and the ropes would be cut, and the bridge would thunder down on the rampart above our last gate, and the stormers would pour out to their final success.
He was closely followed by Captain Haen, Captain Kalf, and by half a company of soldiers. The alarm was given. There was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. Sixteen of the bold stormers fell, and nine of the garrison of the fort. The rest fled into the city. The governor of the place, Captain Gysant, rushing to the rescue without staying to put on his armour, was killed.
They were, in fact, an adaptation of the stake pitfalls employed by many African and other natives to capture and kill big game. These pits were dug so close together that, of a party of stormers rushing up the slope, a large proportion must inevitably fall in, or be unwittingly pushed in by their comrades.
A few moments of darkness and confusion, and then the foremost soldiers caught a glimpse of the morning sky, and pushing gallantly on, were soon established in the fortress. Three hearty, animating cheers, so loud and clear that they were heard throughout the general camp, announced to their excited comrades below that Dennie and his stormers had entered Ghuznee.
The storming party could be seen, rushing up the breach and mounting, by ladders, over the gateway, which was the central object of attack. The enemy gathered in masses at the top of the breach, but as soon as the stormers collected in sufficient strength, and charged them with the bayonet, they broke and dispersed.
Lieutenant Hunt brought up a light gun at a gallop, and fired it through the embrasure of the enemy's battery, almost muzzle to muzzle; the infantry at the same moment opened a most deadly and unexpected fire from the roofs of the houses, and M'Kenzie, at the head of the stormers, dashed at the battery and carried it almost without loss. The Mexicans fled precipitately into the city.
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