Tom Strachan could see huts, and what looked like a fort with guns; earthworks also in another part, with flags stuck upon them. Also, of all earthly things in such a spot, an old boiler, such as you may see in some Thames-side yard, where old vessels are broken up and worn-out machinery accumulates.
Here the cavalry skirmishers, having done their work, retired to their main body. Another halt, almost within rifle-shot of the position, and the men flung themselves carelessly down on the sand. Major Elmfoot was examining the defences through his field-glass.
“That thing looks like an old boiler, major,” said Fitzgerald.
“And it is an old boiler,” replied the other. “I was hearing about it the other day; there was a sugar-mill here once; that ruined building was part of it.”
“Ten-shun!”
The men sprang to their feet all together. The enemy were close, and there would be serious work in a minute. A flash and a puff of smoke from the earthworks, a singing in the air, another flash and report close by, and the fragments of a shell were flying about their ears. Two more bursting right over, and a man here and there dropped.
Then the rifle-fire opened in earnest, and those who had never yet heard it learned what the sound of a bullet was like. More men were hit, collapsed, and were picked up by the ambulance.
Still the square pressed steadily on, the men stepping jauntily as if marching past. Green said to himself with joy—
“I am under fire, really under fire! And I am not half so frightened as I thought I should be.”
“Mayn’t I give them one back, sir?” a man asked him.