take this village, but I couldn't
make out much for the smoke; and, besides, I have been with that surgeon
nearly all the time."

"Yes," said Punch. "Well, will they do it?"

Pen shook his head.

"Don't think so," he said. "They have tried it twice. I heard what was
being done. Our people were driven back, and--"

He said no more, but turned to the door; and Punch strained his eyes in
the same direction, as from away to the right, beyond a group of
cottages, came a bugle-call, shrill, piercing, then again and again,
while Punch started upright with a cry, catching Pen's arm.

"I say, hear that? That's our charge. Don't you hear? They are coming
on again!"

The effort Punch had made caused a pain so intense that he fell back
with a groan.

"You can leave me, Pen, old chap," he said.

"Don't mind me; don't look. But--but it's the English charge. Go to
them. They are coming--they are, I tell you. Don't look like that,
and--and--There, listen!"

The two lads were not the only ones in that hut to listen then and to
note that the conflict was drawing nearer and nearer.

Punch, indeed, was right, and a short time after Pen crouched down
closer to his companion, for now, quite close at hand, came volley after
volley, the _zip, zip_ of the ricochetting bullets seeming to clear the
way for the charge.

Then more volleys.

The dust was ploughed up, and Punch started as a bullet came with a soft
_plug_ in the hut-wall, and Pen's heart felt ready to stop beating as
there was a hoarse command outside, and half-a-dozen French infantry
dashed into the building, to fill the doorway, two lying down and their
comrades kneeling and standing.

"Don't speak," whispered Pen, for the boy had wrenched himself round and
was gazing intently at the backs of the soldiers. "Don't speak."

Silence, before a grim happening. Then a roar from outside, exultant
and fierce, and in the wide-open space beyond the hut-door the two lads
saw a large body of the enemy in retreat before the serried ranks of
British infantry who came on at the double, their bayonets flashing in
the sun's rays, and cheering as they swept onward.

The muskets in the doorway flashed, and the hut was filled with smoke.

"Pen, I must whisper it--Hooroar!"

There was a long interval then, with distant shouting and scattered
firing, and it was long ere the cloud of smoke was dissipated
sufficiently for the two lads to make out that now the doorway was