"They're coming!" But no; it was a false alarm. Once more the men settled down, and silence fell on the zareba. Suddenly there was a wild yell from one of the sleepers.
"What's up there?—man hit?"
"No—silly chump!—only dreaming!"
Again Jack dozed off, to be wakened, after what seemed only a moment of forgetfulness, by Joe Crouch shaking him by the shoulder. The word was once more being passed along, "Stand to your arms!" and the men lay with their hands upon their rifles. Daybreak was near, and an attack might be expected at any moment.
The sky was ghostly with the coming dawn, the air raw and cold. Jack shivered, and "wished for the day."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BATTLE.
"Then he heard a roaring sound, quite terrible enough to frighten the bravest man."—The Brave Tin Soldier.
Numbed with the cold, and stiff from lying so long in a cramped position, Jack and many of his comrades rose as the daylight strengthened, to stretch their legs and stamp some feeling into their feet. As they did so, however, the dropping shots of the enemy rapidly increased to a sharp fusilade; bullets whizzed overhead, or knocked up little spurts of sand and dust within the zareba; and the defenders were glad enough to once more seek the shelter of the low wall and parapet of earth. Several men were wounded, and the surgeons commenced their arduous duties—services which so often demand the exercise of the highest courage and devotion, and yet seldom meet with their due share of recognition in the records of the battlefield. Ever and anon the screw-guns thundered a reply to the popping of the distant rifle fire, and men raised their heads to watch the effect of the shrapnel, as each shot sped away on its deadly errand.