The Young Buglers

by G. A. Henty

The French, as before, lined the wall, and poured a tremendous musketry fire into their flank, and the batteries of Mount Orgullo and St. Elmo plied them with shot and shell, while two pieces of cannon on the cavalier and one on the horn-work raked them with grape.

Still the column neither halted nor faltered, but dashed, like a wave, up the breach. When, however, they reached the top they could go no farther. A deep gulf separated them from the town, while from every loop-hole and wall behind, the French musketry swept the breach. The troops could not advance and would not retreat, but sullenly stood their ground, heaping the breach with their dead. Fresh bodies of men came up, and each time a crowd of brave men mounted the breach, only to sink down beneath the storm of fire.

"This is awful, horrible, Tom!" Peter said in a choked voice. "Come away, I can't look at this slaughter, it is a thousand times worse than any battle."

Tom made no reply, his own eyes were dim with tears, and he rose to go, taking one more look at the deadly breach, at whose foot the survivors of the last attempt had sunk down, and whence the mass of soldiers were keeping up a musketry fire against the guns and unseen foes who were sweeping them away, when an officer ran up from General Graham's side, and in a minute fifty guns from the Chofres batteries opened a storm of fire upon the curtain and the traverses behind the breach.

It was a terrible trial to the nerves of the assaulting columns when this terrific fire was poured upon a spot only twenty feet above them; but they were not men to shrink, and the men of the light division seized the opportunity to pull up the broken masonry and make a breastwork, known in military terms as a lodgment.

For half an hour the iron storm poured overhead unchecked, smashing the traverse, knocking down the loop-holed walls, and killing numbers of the defenders. Then it ceased, and the troops leapt to their feet, and again rushed up the breach, while the 13th Portuguese Regiment, followed by a detachment of the 24th, waded across the Urumea under a heavy fire from the castle, and attacked the third breach.

But still no entry could be effected. The French fire was as heavy as ever, and the stormers again sank baffled to the foot of the great breach. The assault seemed hopeless, the tide was rising, the reserves were all engaged, and the men had done all that the most desperate courage could do. For five hours the battle had raged, when, just as all appeared lost, one of those circumstances occurred which upset all calculations and decide the fate of battles.

Behind the traverses the French had accumulated a great store of powder barrels, shells, and other combustibles. Just at this moment these caught fire. A bright flame wrapped the whole wall, followed by a succession of loud explosions; hundreds of French grenadiers were destroyed, and before the smoke had cleared away, the British burst like a flood through the first traverse.

Although bewildered by this sudden disaster, the French rallied, and fought desperately; but the British, desperate with the long agony of the last five hours, would not be denied; the light division penetrated on the left, the Portuguese on the right. The French, still resisting obstinately, were driven through the town to the line of defense at the foot of Mount Orgullo, and the town of St. Sebastian was won.

"Will you go across, Peter, and enter the town?"