Corporal Sam | Page 5

bullet struck him in the hand. He looked up, with the pain
of it, in time to see Major Frazer spin about, topple past the sergeant's
hand thrust out to steady him, and pitch headlong down the slope. The
ladder-bearer and another tall Royal dropped at the same moment.
'Hi, sergeant!' spoke up the young Engineer officer very sharply and
clearly, at the same time stepping a couple of paces down from the
ridge over which a frontal fire of bullets now flew whistling from the
loopholed houses in the town. 'For God's sake, shout and hurry up your
men, or our chance this night is gone.'
'I know it, sir--I know it,' groaned Wilkes.
'Then shout, man! Fifty men might do it yet, but every moment is odds
against. See the swarm on the rampart there, to the right!'
They shouted together, but in vain. Four or five ladder-bearers mounted
the slope, but only to be shot down almost at their feet. The Engineer

officer, reaching forward to seize one of the ladder-lengths and drag it
behind a pile of masonry under which he had taken cover, and thus for
an instant exposing himself, dropped suddenly upon his face. And now
but Sergeant Wilkes and Corporal Sam were left clinging, waiting for
the help that still tarried.
What had happened was this. The supporting columns, disordered by
the scramble along the foreshore, arrived at the foot of the breach in
straggling twos and threes; and here, while their officers tried to form
them up, the young soldiers behind, left for the moment without
commanders and exasperated by the fire from the flanking tower,
halted to exchange useless shots with its defenders and with the enemy
on the rampart. Such fighting was worse than idle: it delayed them full
in the path of the 38th, which now overtook them on its way to the
lesser breach, and in five minutes the two columns were inextricably
mixed, blocking the narrow space between wall and river, and exposed
in all this dark confusion to a murderous fire.
At length, and though less than a third of his men followed him,
Captain Archimbeau led the supporters up the breach; but by this time
the enemy had packed the ramparts on either side. No soldiery could
stand the hail of musketry, grape, and hand-grenades that rained upon
the head of the column. It hesitated, pushed forward again, and broke
some fifteen feet from the summit, like a spent wave. Then, as the
Royals came pouring back, Lieutenant Campbell of the 9th, with all
that could be collected of his picked detachment, forced his way up
through the sheer weight of them, won clear, and made a fling for the
crest. In vain! His first rush carried him abreast of the masonry under
which Sergeant Wilkes and the corporal clung for cover. They rushed
out to join him; but they had scarcely gained his side before the whole
detachment began to give ground. It was not that the men fell back;
rather, the apex of the column withered down as man after man
dropped beside its leader. He himself had taken a wound. Yet he waved
his sword and carried them forward on a second charge, only to reach
where he had reached before, and be laid there by a second bullet.
Meanwhile the Royals, driven to the foot of the slope, were flung as a

fresh obstacle in the path of the 38th still striving to press on for the
lesser breach. From his perch half-way up the ruins, Sergeant Wilkes
descried Captain Archimbeau endeavouring to rally them, and climbed
down to help him. The corporal followed, nursing his wounded hand.
As they reached him a bugle sounded the recall.
The assault had failed. At the foot of the breach a soldier of the 4th
Regiment, mad with rage, foamed out a curse upon the Royals.
Corporal Sam lifted his bleeding fist and struck him across the mouth.
The sergeant dragged the two apart, slipped an arm under his comrade's,
and led him away as one leads a child. A moment later the surge of the
retreating crowd had almost carried them off their feet. But the sergeant
kept a tight hold, and steered his friend back every yard of the way
along the bullet-swept foreshore. They were less than half-way across
when the dawn broke; and looking in his face he saw that the lad was
crying silently--the powder-grime on his cheeks streaked and
channelled with tears.
CHAPTER III.
'I don't understand ye, lad,' said Sergeant Wilkes.
'Fast enough you'd understand, if you'd but look me in the face,'
answered Corporal Sam, digging his heel into the sand.
The two men lay supine on a cushion of coarse grass; the sergeant
smoking and staring up