A Hundred, Two, Three, Four, Five
Hundred Paces Were Taken.
They knew that they must be close upon
the trenches.
If they could only creep silently enough, they might
spring upon the defenders unannounced. On and on they stole, step
by step, praying for silence. Would the gentle shuffle of feet be
heard by the men who lay within stone-throw of them? Their hopes
had begun to rise when there broke upon the silence of the night a
resonant metallic rattle, the thud of a falling man, an empty
clatter! They had walked into a line of meat-cans slung upon a
wire. By measurement it was only ninety yards from the trench. At
that instant a single rifle sounded, and the Canadians hurled
themselves down upon the ground. Their bodies had hardly touched it
when from a line six hundred yards long there came one furious
glare of rifle fire, with a hiss like water on a red-hot plate, of
speeding bullets. In that terrible red light the men as they lay
and scraped desperately for cover could see the heads of the Boers
pop up and down, and the fringe of rifle barrels quiver and gleam.
How the regiment, lying helpless under this fire, escaped
destruction is extraordinary. To rush the trench in the face of
such a continuous blast of lead seemed impossible, and it was
equally impossible to remain where they were. In a short time the
moon would be up, and they would be picked off to a man.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 387 of 842
Words from 103513 to 103768
of 225456
