The Connecticut labor press., 1920-10-02
CHAPTER xII-continued.

CHAPTER Xll-continued.
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 I had expected to find half that reg
 iment of horse lying on the ground !;
 but whether it was that their breast plates had shielded them, or whether, being young and a little shaken at
 their coming, we had fired high, our Volley had done no very great harm.
 About thirty horses lay about, three of
 them together within ten yards of
 me, the middle one right on it's back,
 with its four legs in the air. and 1t
 was one of these that had seen flap ping through the smoke. Then there
 were eight or ten dead men, and about
 as many wounded, sitting dazedly on 1 the grass for the most part, though
 one was shouting ''Vive PEmpereur v
 at the top of his voice. Another fel- l low who had been shot in the thigh
 great, black-mustached chap he was, too-leaned his back against his dead horse. and, picking up his carbine
 fired as coolly as if he, had been shoot l ing for a prize, and hit Angus Myres,
 who was only two feet from me. right 1 through the forehead. Then he out with his hand to get another carbine that lay near, but before he could reach it big Hodgson, who was the pivot-man of the, grenadier company,
 ran out and passed. his bayonet through his throat, which was pity, for he seemed to be a very fine man. At first thought that the cuirassiers had run away in the smoke, but they
 were not men who did that very cas- fly. Their horses had swerved at our volley, and they had raced past our square and taken the fire of the two other ones beyond. Then they broke through hedge, and coming on a regi- ment of Hanoverians who were in line, they treated them as they would have treated us if we had not been so quick, and cut them to pieces in. an instant. It was dreadful to see the big Germans running and screaming, while the cuirassiers stood up in their stirrups to have better sweep for their long, heavy swords, and cut and stabbed without mercy. I do not believe that hundred men of that regiment were left alive, and the Frenchmen came back across our front, shouting at us and waving their weapons, which were crimson down to the hflts. This they did to draw our fire, but the colonel was too old soldier, for we could have done little harm at the distance, and they would have been among us before we could reload.
 These horsemen got behind the ridge on our right again, and we knew very well that if we opened up from the squares they would be down upon us in a twinkle. On the other hand, it was hard to bide as we were, for they had passed the word to a battery of twelve guns which formed up a few hundred yards away from us, but out of our sight, sending their balls just over the brow and down into the midst of us, which Is called plunging fire. And one of their gunners ran up to the top of the slope and stuck a hand spike into the wet earth, to give. them a guide, under the very muzzles of the whole brigade, none of whom fired shot at him, each leaving him to the other. Ensign Samson, who was the youngest subaltern in the regiment, ran out from the square and pulled down the handspike, but quick as a jack after minnow lancer came fly ing over the ridge, and he made such a thrust from behind that not only his point but his pennon, too, came out be- tween the second and third buttons of the lads tunic. "sHelen! HelenI'' he shouted. and fell dead on his face, while the lancer, blown half to pieces with musket balls, toppled over beside 1 him, still holding on to his weapon, so | they lay together with that dreadful | bond still connecting them.
 But when the battery opened there was no time for us to think of any thing else. A square is a very good l way of meeting horseman, but there | is no worse one of taking cannon | ball, so we soon learned when they | began to cut red seams through US. | until our ears were weary of the slosh | and splash when hard iron met living flesh and blood. After ten minutes of it we moved our square a hundred | paces to the right, but we left an- other square behind us, for a hundred | and twenty men and seven officers showed where we had been standing. Then the guns found us again, and we tried to open out, into line, but in an instant the horsemen-lancers they were this time-were upon us from over the brae. tell you we were glad to hear the thud of their hoofs, for we knew that that must stop the can non for minute, and give us a chance Cf hitting back. And we hit back pretty hard. too, that time, for we were cold and vicious and savage, and I. for one, felt that I cared no more for the horsemen than if they had been so many sheep on Corriemuir One gets past being afraid or thinking of one's own skin after a while, and you just feel that you want to make some one pay for all you have gone through. We took our change out of the lancers that time, for they had no breastpIates to shield them, and we cleared seventy ne them out of their saddles atI Ia vol Icy. Maybe if we could have seen sev- enty mothers weeping for their lads we should not have felt so pleased Dver it, but then men are just brutes when they are fighting, and have as much thought as two bull-pups when they've got one another by the throt- He.
 Then the colonel did wise stroke, for he reckoned that this would stave
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