Out flashed the colonel's sword like steel lightning. He pointed
to the battery.
Bang! bang! bang! bang! went his cannon, and the smoke rolled over
the trenches. At the same moment up went the colors waving, and the
colonel's clarion voice pealed high above all:--
"Twenty-fourth brigade--FORWARD!"
They went so swiftly out of the trenches that they were not seen through
their own smoke until they had run some sixty yards. As soon as they
were seen, coming on like devils through their own smoke, two thousand
muskets were levelled at them from the Prussian line. It was not a
rattle of small arms--it was a crash, and the men fell fast: but in a
moment they were seen to spread out like a fan, and to offer less mark,
and when the fan closed again, it half encircled the bastion. It was a
French attack: part swarmed at it in front like bees, part swept round
the glacis and flanked it. They were seen to fall in numbers, shot down
from the embrasures. But the living took the place of the dead: and the
fight ranged evenly there. Where are the colors? Towards the rear
there.
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