Later the remainder of the
regiment followed, and the joy of the colonel when he found these
unexpected reinforcements was very great. "There must be more than
fifteen hundred rebels," he said, "and they will all be on us here in
less than an hour, for their sharpshooters have been following us up
for a long time. I was beginning to think that we would be unable to
fight them, for they seem to be well equipped, but with the cruiser to
kelp us we can whip them at once. The thing to do will be to let them
come on without suspecting that we have received any help, and then,
when the fight is getting a little warm, or they are about to charge
us, let the cruiser fire a few shells into the air, and it will all be
over. Most of them are country troops, and have never seen a cruiser,
so they will be too much frightened to speak when they hear the
thunder of the guns, and see the shells explode in the air. And then
they have a village about three miles back from the coast, and if you
can send a few shells into that village it will simply ruin the
insurgents.
"I had no idea of meeting these rebels," the colonel then explained.
"I took the men out for a little practice marching, but before we had
gone far we encountered these sharpshooters, and later discovered that
they had all these men about a mile and a half away. Then we decided
to return to camp as quickly as possible, to get more ammunition, and
we felt, too, that we would stand a better chance of resisting them
here among the trees.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157