Scotland/Scots > Wilson's tales of the Borders and of Scotland > Volume 3

BILL WHYTE.
113
‘And I shall have you broke for mutiny,’ said the cap¬
tain. ‘ How can these fellows know how to choose their
ammunition without some one to direct them?’
And so off he went to the rear, with the sailors; but,
though they returned, poor fellows! in ten minutes or so,
we saw no more of the captain till evening. On came
the French in their last charge. Ere they could close
with us, the sailors had fired their field-pieces thrice; and
we could see wide avenues opened among them with each
discharge. But on they came. Our bayonets crossed and
clashed with theirs for one half minute; and, in the next,
they were hurled headlong down the declivity, and we
were fighting among them pell-mell. There are few troops
superior to the French, master, in a first attack; but they
want the bottom of the British; and, now that we had
broken them in the moment of their onset, they had no
chance with us, and we pitched our bayonets into them as
if they were so many sheaves in harvest. They lay in
some places three and four tier deep—for our blood was
up, master,—-just as they advanced on us, we had heard of
the death of our general; and they neither asked for
quarter nor got it. Ah, the good and gallant Sir Ralph!
We all felt as if we had lost a father; but he died as the
brave best love to die. The field was all our own; and
not a Frenchman remained who was not dead or dying.
That action, master, fairly broke the neck of their power
in Egypt.
Our colonel was severely wounded, as I have told you,
early in the morning; but, though often enough urged to
retire, he had held out all day, and had issued his orders
with all the coolness and decision for which he was so
remarkable; but, now that the excitement of the fight
was over, his strength failed him at once, and he had to
be carried to his tent. He called for Bill, to assist in
bearing him off- I believe it was merely that he might