ot and close in front, until we
were halted at the edge of the thicket, with an open space in front
across which was a snake fence some thirty yards away. As we waited the
order to advance, we being on the extreme right, a railroad embankment
just beyond us, we saw a platoon rush forward from the left, cross the
open diagonally, and line the fence in front of us. With objurgations the
captain and lieutenant coaxed them again to the left. Other platoons, and
perhaps single squads, rushed from cover and occupied the fence, the
whole line beginning to fire.

We felt sure that it was our turn next, and were saying so, when
apparently the order came. The platoon leader sprang out in front, I made
up my mind where I was to go, we all surged forward, crossed the open
space, and I presently found myself in the line, firing across the fence
at a distant wall, the range of which I calculated to be but a hundred
yards, and therefore used "battle sight," firing low. But here came the
lieutenant again, scalped our leader a second time, and ordered us back.
So I trailed back across the open ground and meekly took my place with
the others again in squad column. We asked each other, "Weren't we
ordered forward?" Some declared that the platoon leader had ordered the
advance, others that the lieutenant had sent us out. I knew I had heard
his voice, but really I had merely followed on like a sheep. That was
proper. But at any rate here was a time when the platoon-leader had made
a mistake in keeping us with the rest of the company.

While the platoon, thirty-four men of us, was huddled in its special
bunch of trees, all talking and explaining, along in haste came the
major, dismounted, demanding if we were in column of squads. With one
voice we maintained that we were, but he or his aide knew better, and by
the help of our two sergeants bringing the corporals to their senses and
silencing the men, we were finally got out of our squad columns, in which
formation we had been so long that we had forgotten that there was any
other. In column of squads we were swung to the right, put in skirmish
line, and halted below the railway embankment, where the major, with
great patience and the most painstaking English, explained to our limited
intelligences the exact manoeuvre that he contemplated. Then at the word
we rushed the embankment, plunged into a ditch, swung to the left, some
of us across a wire fence, and prepared to advance and annihilate