‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I’ve several times noticed you and your comrade to-day using a rifle and bayonet with the best of us, and you’ve done good service, though how on earth you got here I can’t tell.’
‘Accident brought us here, sir,’ replied Jack.
‘Well, it was a lucky chance, and you can render us further service if you will. You’re a cavalryman. Mount my horse, go back to the ridge, and find General Pennefather. Ask him to send us what men he can spare, we’re hard pushed.’
Jack looked at Will and then at the officer.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said the officer; ‘but you can get your comrade up before you on the mare. She’ll carry you both, and your chum will be better in the rear. I can’t go myself, because my place is here with my battalion. We shall have to fight for our very lives, and few if any of us will get out of this. When you find the General, impress upon him that we are almost out of cartridges.’
This amounted to an order, and so, reluctantly, Jack climbed into the saddle which the major vacated; and, two stalwart Guardsmen lifting up Will tenderly and seating him before Jack, he turned his horse’s head uphill. As he went along, bullets whizzed by his ears and several times round-shot ploughed up the ground round him; but he reached the crest, and having placed Will in safety, he had the good fortune to find General Pennefather and his staff. He delivered his message, and the genial Irishman, his face aglow with pleasure at the fight he was enabled to wage against tremendous odds, untrammelled by superiors, said, ‘And what the dickens are you doing here?’
Jack replied, and the General burst out laughing. ‘A lame excuse, youngster,’ he said; ‘but any excuse that takes a man into the fight will pass with me. Now we must see what men we can spare to help the Guards. Keep with me, Lancer, you may be useful, for many of my staff have been bowled over.’
Reinforcements in tens or twenties were found and formed up—men of the 20th, 21st, and 63rd Regiments who had wandered back for ammunition; men who had been in the fight and been driven back, losing their companies; men who were acting as camp-guard. These men, just driblets, fell in and marched to the assistance of those in the Sandbag Battery, who, from the occasional glimpses which could be caught of them, it was seen were waging a stubborn fight.
Then immense masses of the enemy emerging from the Quarry Ravine advanced against the right of the Home Ridge. Perceiving the movement, General Pennefather galloped off there, and Jack, still on the charger of the Guards’ officer, followed.
That part of the ridge was held by four hundred men only; but they were men of historic regiments, the 20th and the 57th. When the Russians came within striking distance the 20th delivered their fire; then, with the old Minden yell, a cry practised by that regiment alone, they swooped down on the Russians. The colonel of the 57th bade his men prepare.