“Grah!” was the Yorkshireman’s only reply, a grunt of contempt and of surly temper, which plainly meant “go to—Halifax.”
“This is uncivil of you,” answered Hilary; “it is getting so hot in here that I shall be forced to retort, I fear, your discourtesy. I beg your pardon a thousand times for making this sharp suggestion.”
With these words he pricked the great son of the north in a sensitive part with a loose spike he had found by the light of a French fire-ball; whereupon, with a curse, the fellow rolled over, like one of his father’s millstones. Then Hilary crawled from his hole of refuge, and stiffly resting on his hand and knees, surveyed the scene of carnage.
The moon had now risen, and was shining gloomily under a stripe of heavy cloud, over the bastion of the Trinidad, and into the channel of the fatal breach, down which the sultry night wind sighed, laden with groans, whenever curses and roar of artillery left room for them. The breach itself was still unstormed, and looked more terrible than ever; for the sword-blades fixed at the top were drenched and reeking to the hilt with red, and three had corpses impaled upon them with scarlet coats, gay in the moonlight. The rest, like the jaws of a gorging crocodile, presented their bloody jaggedness, clogged here and there with limbs, or heads, or other parts of soldiers. For the moment the British had fallen back to the other side of the ravelin, and their bugles were sounding for the retreat, while the triumphant French were shooting, and shouting “Why enter you not all at Badajos, messieurs? It is a good place for the English health. Why enter you not then Badajos?”
The sullen Britons answered not, but waited for orders to begin again; recovering breath, and heart, and spirit, and gathering closer to one another, to be sure that anybody was alive. For more than two thousand men lay dead or dying in a space of one hundred yards square. Of the survivors, every man felt that every other man had done his best—but how about himself? Could he be sure that he never had flinched, nor even hung back for a foot or so, nor pushed any other man on to the spikes to save himself from going there? And was that cursed fortress never to be taken by any skill or strength? was even Lord Wellington wrong for once in setting them to do it? and was it to be said in every British churchyard that Britons were not of the stuff of their fathers?
Sadly thus thinking, but after the manner of our nation not declaring it, they were surprised by a burst of light, and a flight of glittering streaks in it. And almost before these came down again, they saw that the murderous cheval de frise had a great gap in its centre. With a true British cheer, stirring every British heart, out they rushed from their shelter, and up the dark breach, and into Badajos.
One form, however, passed first into Badajos with undisputed precedence, because it happened to be close by, when the sword-blades rocketed away so. And not only that, but the act of that one had enabled the others to follow—an act of valour inspired by luck, and incited by bodily anguish.
It was thus. In the depth of that horrible pause and dejection of the assailants, Hilary, getting relieved of his cramp, rose slowly and stood in a sheltered spot, to recover himself before running away. Everything seemed much against him, so far as he could discover; and no one with a social turn was there to discuss the position.
Moreover, his wounds were beginning at once to sting him and to stiffen him—a clever arrangement made by nature to teach men not to fight so much. Nearly mad with pain—which is felt tenfold as much by quick-born Normans as by slow-born Dutchmen—he saw a shell fall and roll very kindly just between his dragging feet. It carried a very long fusee, sticking out of it, at a handsome curve, and steadily spluttering with fire, like the tail of a rat, when bad boys have ignited it.