They sprang in among the foe, and for a moment no one followed. Two were at once slain. Then Jack ran forward. ‘They will all be killed!’ he cried. ‘To the rescue!’
A rush followed, the Russians were driven back, the bayonets went to work till they dripped blood, and the battery was again in British hands, though at a terrible cost. But now the ammunition failed, and men cried out to General Adams to ask what they should do.
‘You have still your bayonets, boys,’ he replied; and with these they fought on. But numbers told; and, unsupported as they were, they had to fall back, carrying their wounded with them, for they had seen that day that the Russians brained or bayoneted every wounded man they saw.
While they were sullenly retreating, General Adams received a mortal wound, and a cry of sorrow went up from the men. Then suddenly, three field-guns behind them opened fire, and instantly the advance of the Russians was checked, the round-shot crashing through their ranks; but presently, being reinforced by yet another battalion, they again advanced, moving cautiously in skirmishing order through the brushwood. Then the guns opened with ‘case,’ and they retreated.
Soon, coming through the mist, tall black headdresses were seen, and a cheer went up from the sorely smitten 49th as they recognised the Guards. The Grenadiers were moving down grandly to the attack, and the remnants of the 49th and 41st, not waiting to replenish their ammunition, but depending alone upon their bayonets, formed up and advanced on the left of the Guards.
Upon coming up with the enemy, the Guards tried to open fire; but the chambers of their rifles were wet and the caps only snapped, failing to explode the cartridges.
Low, angry growls burst from the Guards till a cheery voice rang out, ‘Never mind, Grenadiers; the steel will do it.’
Then they brought their rifles down to the charge, and without any word of command dashed down upon the Russians, sweeping them from the battery and from the ground on its flanks. The Grenadiers used the few minutes’ respite they had won in drying their rifles by firing caps, and by then the Russians had returned to the attack.
The Guards soon found that the wall of the battery, having no banquette on which the defenders might stand, though it might be a protection, yet hindered them from inflicting harm on the enemy, so they left it and engaged the Russians on the flank of it. Again and again did they charge the countless hordes, again and again did the Sandbag Battery change hands, till the slain around it lay in heaps. The Scots Fusiliers joined in the fight, and for two hours a struggle went on that is almost impossible to describe.
The English fought mostly in grim silence; but the Russians, roused to a wild, religious enthusiasm, and maddened by vodka, yelled and howled like demons.