kept up for a hundred yards
or so, until we reached a cluster of trees, in whose shelter the column
was halted to get breath. The fire in front still kept up, and through
the smoke I thought I could discern the dim outline of a low building,
not five hundred yards distant. At this moment Charlie and the other
officers were summoned to the front for orders. They were brief and to
the point.

"Straight for the fort, there!" said the commanding officer, "the
shortest way you can take your men!"

It was an order that meant certain death to scores of those brave
fellows; yet when they had heard it they cheered as schoolboys cheer for
a holiday.

Again we stood waiting. The officers with their swords drawn stepped in
front. The men quickly loaded and fixed bayonets, and then came the
shout,--

"Forward!"

As we cleared the trees we burst full in the face of the enemy's fire.
For a moment the balls whizzed harmlessly over our heads, then there was
a crash on the ground before us, and, as we rushed on, the men parted on
either side to avoid stepping over a dying man. It was awful; and every
step we took grew more and more fatal. Under that withering fire men
went down by the dozen; yet still the column rushed on. The front rank
broke into gaps, which the rear rank men dashed forward to fill, till
they themselves fell. And still on we rushed. Officers, too,
everywhere to the front, dropped one by one; but still we never checked
our pace. The sullen walls of the fort stood clear before us and poured
upon us an unceasing shower of bullet and ball. In a minute our
foremost men would be at the walls.

"Forward now! follow me!" I heard Charlie cry; and looking round
noticed for the first time that the captain of his company was missing.
The men cheered by way of answer, and their run broke into a rush as
they followed him under the guns. Others were at the fort before us,
and the storm had already begun. Heedless of wounds, heedless of peril,
the men swept towards the breach, and called on those behind to come on.
Charlie was one of the earliest of our battalion there, and already his
feet were in the place, and he was waving to his men to come up when--

I felt a dull crushing sensation. My nerves collapsed; my senses left
me. Speech, sight, hearing, all failed me in an instant; a strange
darkness came over me, and then I was conscious of nothing.

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