Making no answer, the stormers broke into a run and swept forward with a rush.
“Bang!” went a single musket; and had it been fired into a mine, the tremendous uproar that ensued could not have come more instantaneously, for twenty cannon thundered, and the redoubts fairly seemed to spit fire as the defenders’ muskets flashed. High in the air rose rockets, which lit up the whole scene, and for the time they lasted fairly turned the night into day.
As the main and flanking parties swept up to the redoubt, the sappers and miners, who formed the first rank, attacked the abattis with their axes; but the troops, mad with long waiting and fretted by the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling went over the obstruction. Not pausing to form in the ditch, they scrambled up the parapet and went surging over the crest, pell-mell, upon the British.
Brereton, sword in hand, had half sprung, half been tossed upon the row of barrels filled with earth which topped the breastworks, only to face a bayonet which one of the garrison lunged up at him. A sharp prick he felt in his chest; but as in the quick thought of danger he realised his death moment, the weapon, instead of being driven home, was jerked back, and the soldier who had thrust with it cried:—
“Charlie!”
“Fred!” exclaimed Jack, and the two men caught each other by the hand and stood still while the invaders poured past them over the barrels.
It was Mobray who spoke first. “Oh, Charlie!” he almost sobbed, “one misery at least has been saved me! My God! You bleed.”
“A pin-prick only, Fred. But what does this mean? You! and in the ranks.”
“Ay, and for three years desperately seeking a death which will not come!”
“And the Fusileers?”