I hurried back to the battery, and reported what I had seen. I could have made my colonel a general—a hero—had he been of the right stuff.
“’Tis an easy game, colonel; we have only to intercept them at the head of yonder dark line of timber. We can be there before them!”
“Nonsense, captain! We have orders to guard this battery. We must not leave it.”
“May I take my own men?”
“No! not a man must be taken away from the guns.”
“Give me fifty!”
“I cannot spare them.”
“Give me twenty; I shall bring Santa Anna back here in less than an hour.”
“Impossible! There are thousands with him. We shall be lucky if they don’t turn this way. There are only three hundred of us, and there must be over a thousand of them.”
“You refuse to give me twenty men?”