Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
Lewrie thumped his heels to get his horse moving again, along the ridge for a better view of what the newly-placed regiments were doing. He saw green-jacketed soldiers who carried shorter weapons than the Land Pattern Tower musket, men with silver hunting-horn insignia on their shakoes, who were moving downslope in pairs, spaced far apart from other pairs, and wondered who they were; red was the colour of soldiers, after all! The regiment closest to him was taking position along the backside of the ridge, detaching their Light Companies of skirmishers downslope a few paces, and along the crest. With another prompting thump, he goaded his horse for a closer look-see.
“Good Lord, a sailor, up here?” an Army Captain brayed, and let out a guffaw. “Lost your way, old man?”
“The French don’t seem all that eager t’oblige me at sea any longer, so I thought I’d see how they fight on land, sir,” Lewrie told him in a genial manner.
“Well, you’ll see a fine show in an hour or so,” the Captain said with a twinkle of eager anticipation. “Horsley, sir,” he said to name himself, and his regiment.
“Captain Lewrie, of the Sapphire,” Lewrie said in return. “Who are those people in green down yonder?”
“The Rifles, sir, the ‘Greenjackets,’” Horsley told him with a roll of his eyes. “Think they hung the moon, they do. They fight like skirmishers, in pairs, march at the quick-step, and consider themselves chosen, above the common run of soldiers. They’re armed with Baker rifles, which are considered to be quite accurate, but damned slow to load. I’ve tried one, and it’s the very Devil to get a ball rammed down with a greased leather patch round it. Might as well use a hammer, haw! They specialise,” he imparted with a scowl, “at picking off officers and senior sergeants, at nearly two hundred yards, and God help us do they give the French the idea to emulate them. I see you came well-armed, sir. Well, you just might need all of that, do the French get up close. A custom musket, is it?”
“A breech-loading Ferguson rifled musket, sir,” Lewrie told him. “Got it at Yorktown, when I was a pup.”
“Egads, a Ferguson! I’ve never seen one. Might I?” Horsely pleaded, and Lewrie handed it over, explaining how it loaded.
“With hard practice, I could get off five or six shots each minute,” Lewrie told him, “though I’ve not had call for such speed in ages. Two hundred yards’ range is average.”
“We’ve trained our lads to get off four a minute,” Horsley said as he handed the Ferguson back, “but, they can manage more if they spit the ball down the muzzle and rap the butt on the ground to settle it all at the breech, with no need for the ram rod. Aha! Look there!”
Lewrie looked in the direction Horsley was pointing, and saw a French Tricolour flag at the head of a long column of fours, and the glint of a shiny symbol on a pole, as it emerged from the far trees, the advance regiment or brigade of an entire army.
“Eagles,” Captain Horsley said.
“Eagles?” Lewrie asked.
“Bonaparte issues all his regiments a silver spread eagle as a mark of distinction,” Horsley explained, “not just to units which have done something grand and brave. His Imperial eagles, d’ye see. Makes them think they’re as grand as his pampered Grenadiers, and it’s said they’d rather die than lose one, like the eagles of the old Roman legions. Be a grand thing to take one. Maybe today’s the day, hey?”
“How come most of your regiment’s back below the crest?” Lewrie asked, most of his attention drawn to the sight of more French regiments emerging and forming all along the lower ground, with hordes of brilliantly uniformed cavalry trotting up alongside, and artillery in the rear.
“Oh, that’s His Nibs’s orders,” Horsley said with another roll of his eyes. “A queer way to fight, if you ask me, waiting ’til the last moment to rush up, form line, and give them volleys, but, what’s a fellow to do if a General tells you to.” Horsley pulled a pocket watch out and flipped the lid open. “A little past nine of the morning. We may have ourselves a battle by ten. Ehm, a slight suggestion, Captain … Lewrie did ye say? I’ve left my mount down behind the ridge line, and it might be good for you to do so. A mounted man is a grand target for the French artillery, and you might draw a bit too much attention to my men who are in the open.”
“I’ll just ride on, have a look-see,” Lewrie decided, bidding Horsley a good morning, and ambling on Eastwards.
He rode on to the next regiment, staying near the crest of the ridge so he could witness as much of the field as possible, now and then drawing rein to use his telescope. It was frustrating, for his pocket telescope was much narrower and shorter than the glasses used aboard ship, the “fetch ’em ups.” The view in the ocular was narrower, too.
“Wot th’ bastards doin’, Corp?” a soldier just behind the crest of the ridge called out to another soldier who stood in plain view.
“Formin’ up in bloody blocks!” the Corporal shouted back.
“Silence in the ranks!” some officer snapped.
Lewrie’s attention was drawn to what the French were doing, as well, and he couldn’t quite understand it. Regiment after regiment were coming together, elbow to elbow, rank after rank, creating dense blocks that looked to be thirty men across the front file, and fifty or more in depth. Other soldiers with bright green epaulets, as opposed to the men in the masses who wore red epaulets, were loosely drawn up on either flank and out in front of the massed blocks, and there were some cavalry troops between, a bewildering array of brass helmets with leopard skins, long horsehair plumes, some in polished back-and-breast armour, some in shakoed headgear, intricately laced and multi-buttoned dolman jackets, with pelisses thrown back over their shoulders. There were even lancers in silly-looking helmets that put Lewrie in mind of exaggerated hats worn by Oxford dons!
“Ah, good morning to you, sir,” yet another infantry officer said in greeting as Lewrie ambled up near his Light Company. “They seem to have brought it all, don’t you think? Lancers, Hussars, Dragoons, even Cuirassiers, but no Grenadiers au Cheval. Those would be with Napoleon himself, his mounted Grenadier Guards. You’d know ’em by their tall bearskin hats. Don’t know why, but the French call ’em Les Gros Talons, the ‘Big Heels.’ Oh well, no matter. Cavalry is just for show, today. We have the slope of them, and they’ll find it difficult to get up with us.”
Lewrie was relieved that this officer didn’t make a jape about a sailor being out of his element, and he did sound knowledgeable, so Lewrie at last dis-mounted and walked over to him.
“Why are they making those big blocks?” Lewrie asked.
“Ah, that’s their way, isn’t it?” the Light Company Captain rejoined with a titter. “They always attack in large columns, several of them abreast of each other, and so far, they’ve been unstoppable. Ask the Dutch, the Austrians, and the Russians. Look closely at the centre of each column. See the drummers, all the flags, and eagles?”
Lewrie raised his telescope and found the Tricolours, other banners displayed on horizontal cross-pieces which bore wreathed N’s for “Napoleon,” and those silver eagles.
“Out in front and on the flanks, those fellows with the green epaulets, those are their voltigeurs, and tirailleurs,” the Captain said. “Light infantry, much like our Light Companies. Voltigeurs … it means ‘Leapers,’ or maybe ‘Grasshoppers.’ Who’d be a Grasshopper, I ask you?” he said with another titter. “Never live it down! Tirailleurs, well … ‘Shooters’ is close, but if the French had any sense, they’d issue rifled weapons, not smoothbore muskets.”
“Let’s hope they don’t, sir,” Lewrie said, faking a shiver, “else our own officers get knocked off quicker than theirs.”
“Oh, then we can’t have that!” the Army officer said with another of his titters, almost a bray this time. “How else would our troops be controlled? We fight battles, not Irish riots. Ah, I believe that the curtain is about to go up. Look there, over to the right.”
French artillery was in position, the gunners had done all their fiddling with train and elevation, the barrels were loaded, and sudden spurts of yellowish-white smoke gushed from the muzzles, silently at first, the ground-shaking explosions coming a second or two later and rattling the ground, preceded by the howl of roundshot that climbed the scale as they neared, then keening away as most of the shot went soaring over the top of the ridge line. Some few lucky shots landed just short to graze along the crests, but most struck well below the positioned regiments on the ridge and ploughed into the ground with great gouts of thrown-up earth.
“Don’t know about you, sir, but I’d see to my horse,” the Captain of the Light Company cautioned. “Far from a thoroughbred, what, but do recall poor Richard the Third, ‘a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!, hey? Besides, he ain’t battle-trained, most-like, and he’ll take fright and gallop off if he ain’t well-tended.”
“Good idea, sir,” Lewrie said, eying his nervous mount, which already was showing the whites of its eyes and tugging at the reins. Lewrie crossed the ridge to the reverse slope, where hundreds and hundreds of soldiers sat or lay in shelter, found this particular regiment’s officers’ mounts being tended by grooms, and bade them to look after his, then returned to the crest of the ridge.
The French cannonading continued for some time, but the only people that he could see harmed by it were the few skirmishing companies posted on the forward face of the ridge line, below the crest, and since the roundshot was slamming into the ground and caroming on, only one soldier in a group would suffer for it, while the rest were spared. At the crest of the ridge, there were enough men standing in two-deep ranks to make good targets, but very few were killed or injured; the balls might graze the crest, but then sailed off well over the sheltering men on the back slopes.
They can keep that up all day, but it won’t help ’em much, he told himself; Shootin’ uphill’s a total waste.
Artillery got its best results on flatter ground, where shot could strike a bit short, rise up from First Graze, then go skipping along at eight hundred feet per second or better to plough into tight ranks like a game of bowls, scattering broken bodies like nine-pins.
“Your poor horse run away, yet, sir?” the Captain from the Light Company asked as he strolled up to Lewrie, his sword out and whacking shoots of long grass.
“Not yet, no, sir,” Lewrie said with a smile, introducing himself at last.
“Captain Samuel Ford, sir, and happy to make your acquaintance,” the other fellow told him, offering his hand. “Wonder if the French gunners are growing as frustrated as we are, what? All that powder and shot, trundled here all the way from Lisbon … wasted.”
There were now at least ten of those massive blocks of troops below them on the upper plain, all standing at attention, it looked like, waiting stoically for … what?
“There, Captain Lewrie, a bit to our right,” Captain Ford said, pointing, after a long moment. “I do believe that two of the columns are advancing, at last. Not for us, more’s the pity. Damn all French, root and branch, but they do know how to stage a fine show.”
Those two massive columns were lurching forward, marching to the beat of drums, about three or four hundred yards apart from each other, with their light infantry out front as skirmishers and flank guards. They put Lewrie in mind of magic blue carpets creeping along as they began their slow ascent to the ridge. In his ocular, he could see them sway left and right, elbow to elbow, in perfect step, with their muskets held vertically against their right chests and shoulders, at Carry Arms. They were spiny creeping blue carpets, for the blades of their fixed bayonets winked and twinkled in waves as they swayed.
The drums thundered in an almost hypnotic beat, over and over, then came a brief pause as nigh two thousand men gave a great shout together, “Vive l’Empereur!” and the drums thundered Boom-buh-buh-boom. Then “Vive l’Empereur!”
Christ, what if they are unstoppable? Lewrie thought with a sudden chill in his innards; And if they are, can my bloody horse be made t’gallop?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The initial French thrust seemed aimed closer to the village of Vimeiro, off to Lewrie’s right, perhaps in hopes that those massive, bludgeoning columns would push through and cut the British lines in two, and reach the Maceira River valley to cut off any hope of extraction.
Boom-bub-buh-buh-boom, then the pause and the shout of “Vive L’Empereur!”, louder now as those two columns got closer, and Lewrie could begin to make out details, the brightly polished metal shako plates, and the differences between them from one regiment to the next, even the large brass numbers, the stiff plumes that rose from the sides of their shakoes in different colours. He could almost make out individual faces; tanned as brown as sailors from weeks or months in the field, coated with dust stirred up by their own boots, and the abundance of short beards or long mustachios among the soldiers.
“Scruffy lot,” Lewrie muttered, half to himself, and thinking that there was a great difference between the Sunday parade ground and the field. The French wore ragged, faded, and patched uniforms, stained and dusted, whilst a quick look down the line of the ridge showed the British troops still in mostly new-issued and clean kits.
“When’s our bloody artillery going to—?” Ford grumbled, cut off by the first, welcome, shots from British guns. Thin and sketchy trails of smoke marked the passage of their shot as they descended in quick arcs onto those massed columns.
“Shrapnel shot!” Lewrie crowed with delight when he realised what he was seeing. The fuses of the shrapnel shells, ignited by the explosions of the gunpowder in the artillery’s barrels, left those thin trails. A second later, and they burst, some at ground level among the French soldiers, but most exploded above their heads, scattering irregular chunks of the shells, and the musket balls packed inside them, to strew death, dismemberment, wounds, and consternation in a wider burst radius.
The French columns staggered and reeled for a second or so, but the insistent drums forced them onward, and ranks and files came back together, shoulder to shoulder, stepping over their casualties at the same implacable pace. Far behind those columns, the elegantly clad French cavalry units still came forward at a nervous, head-tossing gait, waiting their chance ’til the infantry had punched through, so they could charge into the confusion and exploit the breach in the British lines. A pair of artillery guns showed them some attention, too, emptying saddles and scything down screaming horses with their bursting shot, but it was the columns that were the guns’ main targets.
“What do they do when they get close?” Lewrie turned to ask Ford. “Do they just tramp straight on, or what?”
“Well, at some point, they bring the rear ranks out to form line, three or four deep, and open fire with musketry,” Ford told him. “’Til then, no more than the first two or three leading ranks … ninety men or so … and the men in the outer files down the flanks, can use their weapons.”
“Don’t make good sense, t’me,” Lewrie commented with a shake of his head. “’Til then, the columns are just big, walking targets.”
“They’ve worked for the French, so far, sir,” Ford replied. “Perhaps they think that they’ve such a large army that they can replace all their great losses. It’s brute and crude, but columns have broken everyone in Europe, even the Prussians.”
The few British guns with the army continued their cannonading of those two columns, the gunners stoically shrugging off the French guns’ attempts to silence them with solid shot. More shells burst over the columns, knocking down more soldiers in circles under them. Much like dropping pebbles into thin mud, the circles quickly disappearing as the French stepped over and round their dead and wounded comrades and marched on, to the harsh orders of the French version of “Close Up, Close Up!” Those two columns got a little shorter, and a bit thinner than thirty men across the front ranks, but still they came on as if nothing in the world could ever stop them.
Lewrie lifted his pocket telescope and scanned behind those columns, and what he saw put a wicked smile on his face. There were dozens upon dozens of bodies strewn in their wakes, fallen in roughly circular blots where the shells had exploded practically on the tops of their shakoes.
Now, he heard the thin crackle of musketry, and turned to scan the face of the ridge, where powder smoke was rising from long-range Baker rifles. A quick look at the head of the nearest French column showed officers and sergeants out in front, waving their swords to encourage their troops onward. Here and there, Lewrie could see those officers struck down. He could barely make out where the riflemen were positioned among the scrub, and surely the French could not see them, either, but they were being shot down by ghosts, out of the blue. Red-coated soldiers of the various Light Companies could be seen, but not the Rifles, firing volleys then retreating up the ridge, shooting beyond the effective range of their muskets but with those columns such broad targets, even their fire was taking grim effect, and the front of that nearest column was now stumbling and stepping over their own casualties.
“Lord, they’re almost up within musket shot!” Captain Ford fretted, his own telescope glued to one eye. “Is there no stopping those snail-eatin’ shits?”
The crest of the ridge before the French columns was suddenly full of British troops, hastening to array themselves two ranks deep from their shelter behind the crest. The men of the skirmishing companies were rushing to join them, out of the line of fire, then, at less than one hundred yards, they opened fire.
“Oh, just lovely!” Ford chortled.
Over three thousand muskets opened up, the first rank kneeling to shoot, followed a second or two later by the discharge of the rear rank soldiers who stood behind, and Lewrie jerked his gaze to the column’s front, which looked as if it was simply melting away! French soldiers were tumbling down in windrows, taking those punishing volleys from the front and both flanks, trying to spread out to form a matching line and employ their own muskets in reply, but they were dying too fast for that to prevail.
The first ranks of the British infantry volleyed again, then the rear rank men fired theirs, and the insistent French drums were silenced, at last. Then, with a great, screeching shout, British regiments were dashing down the slope with bayonets fixed, howling like so many imps from Hell!
It was too much for the French. The men at the front of that column turned their backs and tried to run, shoving rear rankers out of their way and spreading panic that twitched down the long length of the column. Somewhere in that mass, a bugle was braying the call to retire, but any hope for an orderly retirement was out of the question; it turned into a terrified rout! Frenchmen in the rear were bowled over by the ones in the middle, the men in the middle were trampled by the ones that had borne the brunt of those volleys, and were scurrying like witless chickens to get away from those wickedly sharp bayonets. Some Frenchmen were trying to melee with their own bayonetted muskets, but they were being swamped over and skewered, and some who could not run fast enough were throwing aside their weapons and kneeling, their arms raised in surrender. British blood was up, though, and not all of those who gave up survived, bashed in the head with heavy musket butts as British soldiers raced past them, or bayonetted.
The fastest of the French soldiers to escape reached the cavalry, which had come to a full stop at the sight of such a debacle, going helter-skelter through the drawn-up horsemen. In the meantime, the British artillery resumed firing with bursting shot into that fleeing horde, creeping their fire up to the cavalry units, too, and forcing the elegant French horse to wheel round and retire from the field at the walk, or at the trot, their usefulness dashed.
“By God, the other column is broken, too!” Captain Ford cheered, turning to the men of his Light Company. “See that, lads? That’s the way to deal with a column!” and his soldiers gave out a great, mocking cheer to see the French on their way.
“It’s hard to tell with all the smoke, but I do believe that the other column fared no better than this’un,” Lewrie said, pointing further West at another amorphous blob of blue-coated soldiery which was retiring in rapid order, leaving a long bloody trail of dead and wounded, great heaps of dead where it had been shot to a stop, and the survivors stampeding over the long trail of bodies that they had left in the wake of their approach, pursued by the irregular Crump! of shrapnel shells bursting over the largest concentrations.
The British regiments which had launched that bayonet charge were now drawn up in good order and retiring to the crest of the ridge; unlike British cavalry, they had kept their heads and not gone far in pursuit, once the French had broken and run. They herded some whole prisoners and walking wounded along with them, ignoring the pleas from badly wounded Frenchmen who lay where they had fallen and would not be tended to ’til either night had fallen, or the battle was won, one way or another.
“Well, I thought columns made no bloody sense, and it appears they don’t,” Lewrie summed up, bringing his borrowed canteen round to un-cork and take a welcome sip. “What a horrid waste of soldiers!”
“I’d not speak too soon, Captain Lewrie,” Ford cautioned, “for it seems it’s our turn, next. See there? Two more columns are forming a bit to the left of our direct front. Care to go down the slope with me and my company, sir? Pot a few Frogs with your musket?”
“Tempting,” Lewrie mused, “but, that’d be askin’ a sailor to walk too much. I think I’ll watch it play out from up here.”
Orders were being shouted, the regiment’s line companies were being brought forward to form up on the crest, with the bulk of the unit still in shelter. A runner came to Ford’s side with orders for his Light Company to go downslope to take up skirmishing positions, as he had expected.
“Have it your way, sir, and take joy of the excitement,” Ford bade him.
“And the best of good fortune go with you, Captain Ford,” Lewrie offered, extending his right hand to shake with him.
There came the thuds of hooves from several horses together, and the snorts and pants from a group of mounts being urged along the ridge’s crest, and Lewrie turned to look. It was that Wellesley fellow and some of his staff, coming to the scene of the next French attempt. This morning, General Sir Arthur Wellesley was not wearing the gilt-laden red coat of a British officer, but a plain grey coat that fell to his knees and the tops of his boots, with a gold-laced belt round his middle that held his sword. He drew rein to survey the enemy columns that would come against this part of the ridgeline, using an ivory pocket telescope. There was a stern scowl on his face, one that turned even harsher as he swivelled about and espied Lewrie. One quizzical brow went up as he peered down that long, beaky nose, then turned his gaze away to matters at hand, and urged his horse to pace further East along the ridge to the other regiments.
Lewrie thought he heard a “Hmmph!” from Wellesley over his presence on a battlefield, but could never swear to it in later days. Struggling, thrashing artillery teams, pieces, caissons and limbers, came tearing by to take up quick emplacements further along the ridge, and Lewrie wandered in their wake over to the nearest line company, unslinging his Ferguson off his shoulder and resting the butt on the ground.
“Come to see the show, sir?” an infantry Lieutenant joshed.
“Something like that, aye,” Lewrie replied with an easy grin.
“It won’t be long coming,” the officer said, perking up to the thin, distant sounds of cheers as the French steeled themselves for an attack. The infernal drumming began once more, and two pristine columns lurched into motion, Summer sunlight flashing off shako badges and bayonets, and dust rising round the columns’ front and flanks like seawater disturbed by a rowboat’s motion, spreading outward from their passage, and hanging low in the air.
What happens over there, out of range, is exciting, Lewrie told himself; but what comes right at you can frighten the piss out of you.
The French looked to be coming straight at him, and he felt the need to pee.
* * *
The French artillery opened up a minute or two later after he had come back to the crest, their roundshot howling and moaning overhead, tweetling up the musical scale as they approached to go silent as they drummed into the ridge below the crest, and one or two lucky shots skimming the crest to pluck unfortunate soldiers away as they stood two ranks deep, and it was British sergeants who bawled out for the survivors to close ranks, this time.
Then British guns barked when the range had fallen to about six hundred yards, and the shrapnel shells began to Crack and Crump over the French columns spreading death in all directions.
“Wonder what it feels like,” the Lieutenant said with a touch of nervousness to his voice as the French columns kept up their implacable advance. “Surely, they must be able to see the fuse trails coming at them, knowing they’re going to burst above them!”
“I’d expect they’ve very loose bowels, and wouldn’t trust their arseholes with a fart,” Lewrie hooted, raising a titter of laughter from the officer’s company. “The French have never experienced bursting shot before … never come up against British soldiers before, and must be in dread, by now, after what happened to the first attack.”
“We’ll maul them!” the Lieutenant declared, sounding confident, but Lewrie noted how white his fingers were round the hilt of his scabbarded sword.
“Damn right we will!” several soldiers barked in agreement.
“Silence in the ranks, stand steady,” the company’s Captain growled, casting a dis-believing eye on Lewrie for a second.
The nearest column looked as if it would reach the ridgeline about one hundred yards East of where Lewrie stood, thinned though it was by the artillery fire. The drums were urging it on, the French were shouting praise of their Emperor in unison, and they were nearing, within about four hundred yards. Lewrie slung his Ferguson on his shoulder and made a point of ambling down the company’s front as if he had not one care in the world.
I’m such a sham, he told himself; but I’ve gotten good at it, play-actin’ for people’s benefit, by now. They all are, he thought, glancing down the company front to see how the soldiers were taking the French approach. Everyone in sight, even the French, were playing bold and brave! There were some pale faces, some gulps of awe, and some fondling of talismans, but they looked ready.
What a damn-fool idea this is, he further thought, shaking his head over his stupidity for coming ashore; this is the last time I take part in a shore battle! By choice, I hope!
He reached the left flank of the infantry company, into open ground where one of the sheltering companies would form when called up to the line. It felt very lonely and vulnerable to be out there on his own, of a sudden, and he understood a common soldier’s assurance of having others at his sides, and his rear-rank man backing him up.
Boom-boom-boom, buh-buh-buh-boom-boom-boom “Vive l’Empereur!”; it was very close now, the nearest column panting and gasping for air as it struggled to climb the slope to the British lines. Musketry erupted downslope from the skirmishing companies as they fired, then fell back, re-loading on the go. The front of the column looked to be about two hundred yards away, and Lewrie nodded, then un-slung his Ferguson, looked for an officer to target, and put the butt to his shoulder, looking down the barrel.
There! He spotted a French officer with a dark red sash round his waist, his sword out and waving to urge them on. He had one of those long mustachios. Lewrie drew his weapon back to full cock, and took aim. The late Major Patrick Ferguson, inventor of his rifled musket who had died at the Battle of King’s Mountain in the American Revolution, might have intended long-range accuracy, but he hadn’t done much by way of improving front and rear sights to achieve it.
Lewrie held aim above the officer’s shako, drew a breath and let it slowly out, then pulled the trigger, just as the officer turned to face his men and march backwards to say something to them. The bullet, fired downhill, didn’t follow the usual descending arc, and struck him square between the shoulder blades, punching the Frenchman facedown dead.
Here, that’s cheerin’! Lewrie told himself as he opened the breech and tore a fresh cartidge open with his teeth. In a trice, he was loaded again, seeking a new target, and finding one, this one a senior officer with lots of gold-lace on his coat and a fore-and-aft bicorne on his head, adorned with egret plumes. He aimed smaller, this time, taking advantage of the flatter trajectory of a round fired downhill, holding only a foot above the egret plumes and firing. He hit the officer full in the cheek below his left eye and saw the back of his head explode into his soldiers’ faces!
A very young junior officer stepped forward to lead, and he went down with a bullet in his chest; then it was a great, hulking older sergeant who stepped out in front, bull-roaring defiance and courage loud enough to be heard over the din of gunfire, and Lewrie shot him just above his shirt collar and neck-stock, driving the man to his knees in surprise, and fountaining gouts of blood from his mouth.
