ng Gage's
retreating men, the two bodies became a great mass of scarlet in the
forest, upon which French and Indian bullets, that could not miss,
beat like a storm of hail. The shouts and cheers of the regulars
ceased. In an appalling situation, the like of which they had never
known before, hemmed in on every side by an unseen death, they fell
into confusion, but they did not lose courage. The savage ring now
enclosed the whole army, and to stand and to retreat alike meant
death.

The British charged with the bayonet into the thickets. The Indians
melted away before them, and, when the exhausted regulars came back
into the trail, the Indians rushed after them, still pouring in a
murderous fire, and making the forest ring with the ferocious war
whoop. The Virginians, knowing the warfare of the wilderness, began to
take to the shelter of the trees, from which they could fire at the
enemy. The brave though mistaken Braddock fiercely ordered them out
again. A score lying behind a fallen trunk and, matching the savages
at their own game, were mistaken by the regulars for the foe, and were
fired upon with deadly effect. Other regulars who tried to imitate the
hostile tactics were set upon by Braddock himself who beat them with
the flat of his sword and drove them back into the open trail, where
the rain of bullets fell directly upon them.

Robert looked upon the scene and he found it awful to the last
degree. The bodies of the dead in red or blue lay everywhere.
Officers, English and Virginian, ran here and there begging
and praying their troops to stand and form in order. "Fire
upon the enemy!" they shouted. "Show us somebody to fire at and we'll
fire," the men shouted back. The confusion was deepening, and the
signs of a panic were appearing. In the forest the circle of Indians,
mad with battle and the greatest taking of scalps they had ever known,
pressed closer and closer, and sent sheets of bullets into the huddled
mass. Many of them leaped in and scalped the fallen before the eyes of
the horrified soldiers. The yelling never ceased, and it was so
terrific that the few British officers who survived declared that they
would never forget it to their dying day.

Among the officers the mortality was now frightful. The brave Sir
Peter Halket was shot dead, and his young son, the lieutenant, rushing
to raise up his body, was killed and fell by his side. The youthful
Shirley, Braddock's secretary, received a bullet in his